PAL AVI TO NTSC DVD USING FFMPEG v0.0.9u...SOUND ISSUES

[Fezzlekway]

Hey All,

I just performed a conversion using ffmpegx (version 0.0.9u)...
I converted a PAL Encoded avi file to an NTSC Video_TS folder...

This version of ffmpegx performed beautifully (full conversion including authoring TS folder took 2.5 hours (Mac G4, dual 1.0 Ghz)) with one
exception...when I burned the resulting TS_folder to a DVD (using Popcorn), the picture is great (I had to letterbox to create 720x480 resolution (original resolution was 604x224)) BUT...the sound is awful,
it plays great on my Mac (with DVD Player,VLC Player, or MPlayer), but on my DVD Player the entire soundtrack sounds like is is playing underwater! Anyone have any ideas?

I set the file to convert from 25fps to 23.98fps, changed the audio from
mp3 to ac3. I set the key frame rate to 15 (from 12), I did NOT decode with quicktime, I set my options to: Hi-Quality,Trellis Quantization,Quarter-Pixel ME,4-Motion Vectors, and Two-Pass Encoding...

This is actually the second such conversion (the first works perfectly (sound & video) using the same settings (the only difference was the original resolution size of the avi file and the bitrate used to encode (I always click the 'BEST' button and let the program calculate the rate (also I always calculate for fitting file on a 4GB disc))...

I'm Stumped

Any suggestions are GREATLY appreciated!


Thanks,

[Case]

I just performed a conversion using ffmpegx (version 0.0.9u)...

Have to ask: Are you aware of the ffmpegX forum?

I converted a PAL Encoded avi file to an NTSC Video_TS folder...

Tricky, changing framerate can be a source of sync issues.

on my DVD Player the entire soundtrack sounds like is is playing underwater!

Could be one of the oddities mentioned with next item, or a wrong sample rate (DVD audio should be 48 kHz).

convert from 25fps to 23.98fps, key frame rate to 15 (from 12), I did NOT decode with quicktime, I set my options to: Hi-Quality,Trellis Quantization,Quarter-Pixel ME,4-Motion Vectors, and Two-Pass Encoding...

Most DVD players require a 3:2 pulldown for NTSC Film framerates. I didn't see that mentioned. I always thought DVD MPEG-2 required a Keyframe number of 12. Why set 15? I don't think QPEL is supported for MPEG-2, more suitable for MPEG-4 flavors. QuickTime decoding does help solve some conversion problems; worth trying if all else fails.
The first two mentioned (pulldown, keyframe) might have an impact on the multiplexing, which could result in stand-alone player compatibility issues - but I don't know enough about MPEG-2 inner code to be sure.

[Fezzlekway]

Hey Case,

Thanks for the reply...

This was the second conversion I had tried (with the same settings), I don't know where I read the keyframe '15', I saw it in some post relating to this type of conversion. I am going to check the ffmpeg forum as well, but oddly enough the sync-up isn't the issue this time, it just sounds like it's underwater...I did have to change the audio track from (128, 44100, mp3) to (128,48000,ac3)...It works fine on the first avi I converted, but this one the sound wen't goofy...

I think I may tyy to convert again using the MENCODER codec instead of FFMPEG codec and see what happens...


Thanks,