DVD Shrinkage/audio problem

[Flying G]

Hello
I am a newbie so please be gentle.

I have made a DVD(VIDEO_TS) using TMPGEnc and TMPGEnc DVD Author. I was told that it does not matter during its encoding if the finished file size is larger than the DVD standard as it can help quality to keep it larger to start with. When I finsh I usually use DVD2One to shrink it down and have never had any problems.

This time I am doing a music DVD and also combined a still image with an imported wav to get an mpg2 file so that I could have menus with sound.
This all went well and the finished DVD was quite good considering I had not done this before. Each music track on the menu only played once, whereas I would have preferred a loop, but did not know how to do that.

This file is 5.43 GB. So I shrunk it using DVD2One to fit a standard DVD.
However the resulting VIDEO_TS had no audio at all during the gig and the first menu stuttered through the music, while the second just stopped after 15 seconds and froze PowerDVD and my PC.

Therefore could someone please suggest what I can do now, or do I have to start from scratch all over again? When encoding the original mpg to mpg2 file, if thats what I have to do again, how much room am I supposed to leave for the menu/music mpeg files to be added later?

Any help or link would be greatfully appreciated as I don't want to have to start from scratch a third time!

Graham

[Capmaster]

If you want to use your still image for the menu, that's easy enough to do with any authoring app. If you want the DVD to consist of videos and still images, with a separate music file playing in the background, and the video selectable as a menu item, what you want to make is a slideshow DVD. You can select the play and loop times for the background music when you author it.

Check the tools section. There are many. I've personally used Ulead DVD Movie Factory and Nero Vision Express 2 to make very nice mixed slideshows. But if you're on a budget, forage around in the tools section and I'm sure you'll find several apps you can use.

[Flying G]

Thankyou.

I have one long gig with 24 songs.
I put in a main menu opening page with the option of PLAY ALL or TRACK SELECTION with background music.
I then spread the 24 tracks over two further menu pages.
Each menu page has a different background music track.

I don't understand why the large file on my hard drive plays fine, exactly as I want it, but as soon as I reduce the file to fit on a DVD I lose all the concert sound and most of the menu audio.

Do you think I am doing something that I cannot actually achieve?
(the shrinking - I mean).

Graham

[Capmaster]

Thankyou.

I have one long gig with 24 songs.
I put in a main menu opening page with the option of PLAY ALL or TRACK SELECTION with background music.
I then spread the 24 tracks over two further menu pages.
Each menu page has a different background music track.

I don't understand why the large file on my hard drive plays fine, exactly as I want it, but as soon as I reduce the file to fit on a DVD I lose all the concert sound and most of the menu audio.

Do you think I am doing something that I cannot actually achieve?
(the shrinking - I mean).

Graham

I would try creating it without counting on shrinking it after the fact.

It sounds to me like you're ending up with a DVD that has non-compliant audio. When you author it (generate the files just prior to burning) you need to make sure that you're using a compliant audio format (LPCM - not recommended, Mpeg1 layer 2 - or MP2 for short, or AC3 - also called Dolby Digital). Also, the audio sample frequency must be 48 KHz to be DVD compliant. Chances are it's 44.1 KHz that you're authoring it as ...it won't work.

Redo and before authoring, check your project settings and change if necessary

[Flying G]

Thankyou

I will try again. The khz bit I expect is wrong.

Oddly I just tried the finished, burned disc in a Playstation 2 and although the sound is possibly a bit distorted, it plays fine - weird!
Graham

[Flying G]

I thought I would try DVDshrink. It tells me that the main concert has
MP2 audio whilst the menus have LPCM unspecified. Can I/do I need to convert the LPCM to MP2?

[guns1inger]

If you convert to MP2, you may well find that you don't need to shrink it. LPCM eats a lot of space.

[Flying G]

What I don't understand is that DVDshrink tells me the menus with their music are LPCM, but when I play the mpeg I created putting the still picture and wav together, the properties say they are MP2.
I created the menu background using a still jpeg picture and added a wav to it in TMPGenc with the audio set for MP2. This is why I cannot understand why DVDshrink tells me that it is still LPCM.
I am very confused.

[Flying G]

Well just as I was about to give up, I used DVDShrink and then burned it straight away. Amazingly it works fine now.
Perhaps DVD2One just didn't like the file, or would not recognize two types of audio.
So THANKYOU everyone.
Graham
PS Its only the Clash BTW.