VCD freezing after 30 minutes in DVD player, need advice

[JonahTDB]

I downloaded an AVI Divx copy of Lord of the Rings off the net (2 700 MB files) and have been using the AVI 2 VCD all in one guide from vcdhelp.com. I use Virtual Dub to rip the audio from the file, then use TMPGenc to combine the ripped audio and original video into an MPG file. I do indeed select NTSC format. (A strange note, the original file had some weird fps like 27.39 fps or something) Then I used first VCDEasy and then I tried the latest version of Nero to burn it to CDRW for use on my DVD player. On the DVD compatibility page, many people said they used the exact same brand of CDRW as I am using and it worked fine on their DVD player (being the same DVD player I have.) However, when I put the VCD in the player (after doing the hacks to enable VCD and all regions) I experience some problems. Every now and then there is a pop in the sound, along with a glitch in the image. Then, after about 30 minutes, it freezes completely and I must eject the disc to move forward. Is there anything that I am missing? Does anyone have any tips to try to improve the playback here. If it would only play through the full 45 minutes (I'm burning LOTR to 4 discs on this first run, one MPG file each) I would be happy. Even if it glitched and kept going, I'd be happy. There doesn't appear to be any scratches on the CDRW, and it plays perfectly on my computer. So... Any tips out there?

[suAve]

Hi,

If the MPEG plays fine on your computer, it's the media.

Clean the DVD player, but also try it on a brand new CDRW or CDR (assuming your player can use them).

From experience it seems you really can't reuse CDRWs unless you are EXTREMELY carefull with them. Note that once burned, it can tolerate scratches a lot more.

In any case, this is from experience only and I could be totally wrong...

[JonahTDB]

I burnt all four CD's. The third disc froze after 10 minutes in my DVD player, and it was burnt to a BRAND spanking new CDRW. I could try a different brand, but the reports on my DVD player page said that this particular brand worked well for them. I will try to clean the DVD player though. Still, it is odd, but the DVD player seems to lose the movie in the same place for any given burning of the VCD. I encoded the disc 1 MPEG, then burned it and it froze in one spot. Then I encoded disc 1 again, then burned it again and it froze in a different spot. Later, I encoded and tried burning disc 2 and it froze at a particular spot. I didn't reencode it the MPEG, but I did reburn disc 2... But this time it froze in the same spot as the first burning of disc 2. This makes me think that there might be something wrong in my encoding through TMPGenc. What do you think? Does anyone out there have any tips for this sort of thing?

[larsli]

Sounds to me like there is something wrong with the mpeg files. Although they play fine on your computer, the DVD player could be a lot more fussy about the bitrate and fps. I know for my DVD player that if you give it a non-standard VideoCD it could play it, or it could freeze, and freeze at different places too. Have you tried to demultiplex and multiplex? Could do wonders. I burned LOTR after I had cut it in three parts, and there was a lot of pops and clicks in the sound when played on my DVD player (it played fine on my computer and all players reported the correct bit rate and fps). Demuxed and muxed, and it worked. The file size of the mpeg files before and after the muxing was different too!

[JonahTDB]

I checked out the bitrate for the original AVI files: They are 23.976 fps. As for the bitrate, I'm not sure. I've never done muxing and demuxing before, so I'm not sure how to do them. Could you possibly provide me with a link to a site with info on how to do this?

[larsli]

Use the mpeg tools in tmpgenc. Select simple demultiplex. Enter filenames, and when done, multiplex the two new files back together with simple multiplex. This should only take a couple of minutes. Make sure to select videocd.