Intermittent sound

[mofo22]

I authored a disc using DVD-lab and my clips all use PCM audio. Playback is fine on most players, except the Panasonic has audio cutting out steadily like it's only playing half the time it should. It's in synch, just not audible every other 0.5 seconds. Is this something that needs to be set from the Panasonic player or can i encode my audio differently? thanks.

[studawg66]

This is a known bug in the DVD-lab muxer. Apparently, Oscar used a third party to write the muxer and after many of us with Panasonics complained, he approached the developer about it and they found the problem. Oscar says it will be fixed in the next release (when, I don't know).

There are three solutions to your problem:
1. Wait for next release
2. Live with the fact that your videos will not work on Panasonic players
3. Convert to AC3 sound instead of using PCM.

You have two options for converting to AC3
1. Use the free BeSweet program to convert to AC3 stereo - This is a good solution for most cases, but there are tons of reports that the BeSweet encoded files do not play properly on most Pioneer players, so it is not perfect, but may be good enough for your purposes.
2. Purchase an AC3 encoder - A month or two ago, I discovered (on another forum) that the AC3 plug-in for TMPGEnc can actually be run in standalone mode to batch convert your .wav files!! This means you can buy their plugin (which is licensed and will work in EVERY player) for $29 and you do NOT have to use it within the TMPGEnc program. It can be run all by itself to convert your files. I bought it a month ago and use it on all of my videos, because I have a Panasonic player. Now that I have used AC3 for a while, I would never go back. The quality is still very good and the file sizes are WAY smaller, so you can fit more video on the DVD. AC3 is also going to be more compatible with players than PCM. All players are supposed to be able to play PCM, but some have problems when the video bit rate is too high - high video bitrate plus very high PCM bitrate causes stuttering.

There are other licensed AC3 encoders out there, but none of them are any cheaper than $100. The TMPGEnc plugin is a steal.

Also, if you have questions like this in the future, there is a GREAT forum out there for DVD-Lab users. Oscar set it up a long time ago for his other programs. There is a great wealth of DVD-Lab knowledge in that forum that you will not find here. The site is http:/www.mmbforums.com There is a forum for both the Standard and Pro versions, and I have found that searching both can be beneficial, because some folks only post on one or the other.

Stuart

[mofo22]

Gee, thanks Stuart. You couldn't have answered my question any better

[mofo22]

I just checked out that forum, and apparently Oscar just put out (march 22nd) a new beta version of DVD-lab, which includes a button to convert .wav to AC3. You still need to buy the 3rd party plug-in @ $29, but don't have to do the encoding outside of dvd-lab now that its incorporated. Cool i'll go get it now.

[studawg66]

Cool! I knew he was planning on doing that, but didn't know he already had it in the beta! Thanks.

[mofo22]

I just tried it and it worked flawlessly. Converted all my audio files to AC3 and now my DVD's are Dolby Digital