What Am I Doin Wrong???????

[strang5]

I captured Pink Floyd's "Delicate Sound of Thunder" concert video using ComproPVR software and a Videomate capture card. The output is an MPG-2 video file, 4.6Gb in size. When I encode it and burn it to DVD, the audio is perfectly sync'd at the beginning of the video, but as the video progresses, it becomes more and more out of sync until about 3/4ths of the way through, it becomes unviewable.

The MPG itself plays perfectly in mediaplayer 10.0. No sync issues at all. There has to be a program that allows one to burn an .mpg-2 file to DVD and NOT unsync the audio. I've been working at this for two weeks and have been unsuccessfull so far. Thank God for DVD-RW!!!

I have followed alot of the "how-to's" here on this site plus other sites and so far, all they say is nothing can fix this problem. Anyone out there willing to up some tips on really "HOW-TO" do this? Should I capture each song separate??

[Nelson37]

If all you have found is "nothing can fix this", then something is wrong with your search methodology.

It is almost certainly not a burning issue, but a problem with the file that the PC can address but the standalone player can not.

You MIGHT have made a simple error in the recording settings, but since you have failed to detail the manner in which the file was created there is no way to tell.

There are quite a few methods to try and fix this but since you have not mentioned which ones you have tried already I won't go into the extensive list.

[DereX888]

perhaps your captured audio is out of dvd specs (i.e. 44.1kHz etc), and your authoring software is re-encoding it to dvd compliant specs, and thats where the desync issue happens?

again, as Nelson37 said, there is no way to tell what exactly went wrong since you dont provide any details...

[redwudz]

If your audio goes further out of sync as the video plays, then the simple explanation is that the video and audio length are different. Trying to find out why may be a little more complicated.

[DereX888]

If your audio goes further out of sync as the video plays, then the simple explanation is that the video and audio length are different. Trying to find out why may be a little more complicated.

but he said it does NOT go out of sync when he plays the captured file on his computer...

Some capturing software and hardware like make crappy MPEGs (ATI's MMC in example - if it gets dropped frames), which would still may (or may not) be fine for authoring if anything else is kosher and up to DVD specs; but if i.e. captured mpeg has 44.1kHz audio and authoring software (i.e. TDA) or encoding/authoring software (i.e. Nero suite) automatically tries to reencode audio to proper 48kHz - and the captured file (be it mpeg or avi, doesnt matter) also already had frames issue - thats where audio/video desync is bound to happen, and the more dropped frames during the course of capturing was happening, the more out of sync in the course of playback dvd will be... you see my point? the captured file will play fine on computer, while dvd created from such file will be screwed...

[ZippyP.]

When I encode it and burn it to DVD...

Why are you encoding it to put it on a DVD? What resolution is your captured video? Ideally it should be DVD ready.

[strang5]

My file has been captured in DVD quality, ie, 48kHz. I cannot tell you whether there are lost frames(?)

Are there that many settings to make with todays software to enable me to make a good dvd?? Why?? It should be alot easier than I see here in the "how-to" files. There are SO many different "how-to's" that I wonder why someone can't come up with a proof positive program to make quality DVDs without so many different scenerios that are just too confusing for noobs to use. This reminds me of the days when to burn data to a CD, you had to cross your fingers and pray the burning software worked. Do you remember "coasters"??


Has anyone come across a good "how-to" for making concert videos on DVD using an mpg-2 file???? Both how to capture it and how to burn it onto a DVD.

[gadgetguy]

Open the mpg file with gspot and post a screenshot so we can verify that the video is indeed DVD ready. (Click here for instructions)

Then tell us what software you used to Author the DVD.
Or did you burn the mpg directly as a data-DVD?

And change your subject to something that describes your problem. Some of the most experienced people on this forum won't even look at your thread because your subject is equivalent to "Help me", which is against forum rules.

[smearbrick1]

"What am I doing wrong?"

First of all, your topic is misleading. For all I know, you could be trying to get coupon discounts at the local grocer. No matter.

What compression, if any, are using to encode your audio? (some players have serious issues with MP2 audio)

Have you tried capturing using different software and experienced the same results?

What fixes have you attempted?

[strang5]

I've given up on this project. WAY too much for me. Maybe in a few years DVD will go the way of the CD. Easy to use and everyone will be able to do. Thanks for all the comments.

[InXess]

Finding a reason for mismatched video/sound is impossible without knowing detailed properties for both. Fixing it is another issue and no one method approach applies here. Requires some knowledge and patience. You need to get familiar with some tools as well. Easiest is to load audio and video track into a NLE (editing program) like Vegas, checking properties and eventually shrinking the audio file to video track's length without changing the pitch. If you have dropped frames then your sync loss may not be uniform, and may require more correction steps. Anyway this is a tricky area and patience is the key.

PS no need to get discouraged, this is a learning process. You have both video and audio. Somewhere in the process sync was lost, the issue is where? There are no psychics here and questions are necessary just in case you thought that anything can be fixed with a flick of a switch. I wish.

[jman98]

strang5 - It's disappointing to us that you give up so quickly. The truth is that based on what little info you gave us, we can't really help you. We're not mind readers. People suggested things to do to help us have useful info and you chose not to provide it and just say it's too hard.

If you want easy, buy a DVD recorder and use it like a VCR. Making DVDs using a PC to capture the video is never easy, but it gives better results that way. It's up to you whether you want to do the work necessary to do it the right way on a PC or do it the easy way on a DVD recorder.

The fact that you asked the question in the first place makes us think you have what it takes to learn to do this, but if you want to give up, that's your business. I will warn you that it will only get worse in the future. You think it's bad now? Dude, you haven't lived until you've tried to mess with High Definition captures and they are LOTS more complicated than anything you are doing right now.

[strang5]

OK, I am currently trying to do it again using DVDLab Pro. The MPG-2 is Demuxing as I type. I recaptured the video using a Compro Videomate TV Gold capture card and the ComproPVR software at a bitrate of 6400kbps and audio bitrate of 224kbps at 48kHz. Video dimension was set at 720x480. Are these settings ok, or do you guys think I should change something? I haven't tried different settings, since I have no experience at what each setting does.

The MPG-2 plays just fine in Windows Media Player v10.0. No audio sync issues. I will update as I go.


I've really been trying hard to understand all that goes into making a DVD, it just becomes overwhelming at times, sorry for the break-down!

[InXess]

Now a word of caution. Most hardware encoders as well as possibly some software equivalents deliver good results as long as left alone. Once you demux/separate audio and video it's difficult to go back to the original capture results.
Try creating a DVD 2 way:

1. demux and remux as advised by DVDLab
2. apply the captured mpeg as is

Menu and other things that need to be done are not the concern. It's the way you/software handles mpeg-2 file.
Just a thought, may help understand the nature of your problem. I had the same issue once with a certain piece of hardware. Compile DVD's on your HD and compare before you decide to burn.

[strang5]

I have created a DVD both ways and both have an audio sync problems, yet the mpg-2 is fine when played on the computer.

[Suds]

Many of today's newer standalone DVD players will play sraight mpeg-2's, no need to author as DVD so why not try that?

[DereX888]

@strang5
HOW ABOUT GIVING US THE SPECS OF YOUR MPG FILE FIRST?
see gadgetguy's post above and post the damn info before asking any more questions :O

[FulciLives]

I would suggest you download VideoRedo and use the "Quick Stream Fix" function.

In short this function can correct "errors" in MPEG files that could cause A/V sync issues later on specifically if you need to demux then mux the file again which is what happens when you use DVD authoring software.

Unfortunately VideoRedo is not freeware but it is trialware meaning once you download and install it you can use it for a period of time before it "locks up". After it "locks up" you can only "unlock" it for future use by entering a "registration code" which you get by purchasing the program on-line. Currently the price is $49.99 US Dollars.

It is very common for MPEG captures (not so much with stand alone DVD recorders but more with computer based capture cards) to have errors that VideoRedo's "Quick Stream Fix" can correct.

Try it and see if it works. It is easy-to-do. You just load the captured MPEG file and VideoRedo will spit out a new "corrected" MPEG file.

By the way here is what the VideoRedo site says about A/V sync with MPEG files:

Why do my videos get out of sync when authoring to DVDs?

There are many different reasons. For example, if you are capturing off the air, cable or satellite, a transmission error can result in dropped video frames. Transferring from VHS tapes has its own unique set of sync problems as the timing of consumer VHS players and old, noisy tapes can quickly result in out of sync DVDs.

When you capture your video, your audio and video information contains time code tags which keep the playback in sync. When a program is authored to DVD, these time code tags are removed by the authoring tool and potential sync corrections are lost. VideoReDo automatically processes files so that when these tags are removed the resulting audio and video streams stay in sync. No matter what the original source.

I have read many many posts by people who say that VideoRedo is worth the money for this feature alone not to mention it's "real" function ... editing MPEG files with frame accurate results while avoiding total re-encoding (it will re-encode a few frames at the "edit points" but not the entire file).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[strang5]

Here is a screenie from Gspot:

[gadgetguy]

I thought we'd get better information than that out of gspot.
Open the video in VirtualDub-Mpeg2 and go to File/File Information and get us a screen shot from that.

[strang5]

Here it is:

[gadgetguy]

OK, there's something I've never seen before. Negative numbers in the B-frame data. I'm not sure what that means, but it can't be good. Also the fact that there is skew in the audio track means that correction is taking place to maintain synch, and as pointed out earlier, that correction gets lost in the demux to author.
Will your player play un-authored mpegs? (Meaning if you burn it to DVD as data, will your player play it?) Even if it will, there's no guarantee it will read the correction data, so it might not work anyway.

As suggested earlier, try running it through VideoRedo (I've never used it, but I've heard wonderful things...). Otherwise, based on your earlier description of how the audio drifts out of synch as time goes on, I would guess you'll have to demux the audio and timestretch it to match.

[strang5]

My player will not play MPGs. I will have to get Video Redo and run it through. Thanks.

[SHS]

Yup way to min Negative numbers in the B-frame data.
Also check out Womble MPEG-VCR it to has a GOP Fix function.
Make sure you keep an exta copy of that files before doing any.
There are many different reasons that problem above and lot more the what VideoRedo website wrote FulciLives.

[jman98]

I'll make some guesses here. This video card is REALLY cheap. It's so cheap, it makes me kind of skeptical about the quality it produces. Yes, I found several glowing reviews about it, but none of them talked about trying to do anything other than just record a show and watch it back and we've already established that this works OK.

Based on the cost, I think it is very safe to assume that this card is doing software encoding. strang5 - what are your PC specs? (CPU, memory specifically) Are you using the PC for anything else (ie. surfing the web, writing email) while recording? My guess is that your PC can't really keep up with the demands of software encoding either because your CPU isn't powerful enough or you are doing other things on the PC while you are recording. The recorded file is out of spec (the negative B frames proves this) but it's only when you demux it and try to author it that you get problems. I used to see this problem all the time about 4 or 5 years ago with ATI cards which do software encoding. Many people had bizarre sync problems with ATI recorded video at the time. What was happening was that ATI was doing some weird stuff while recording to keep the recording in sync, but what they did wasn't really kosher and when you demuxed the file to make an SVCD or DVD out of it, you got horrible sync problems when the authoring program put the file back together because it did things "by the book" and ignored the tricks ATI was using to make recorded files stay in sync.

My suggestion to you is to try any of the following:
1) Don't do anything on your PC while recording and see if that fixes it.
2) Try using VideoReDo or MPEG2VCR to fix the stream errors and see if that corrects it.
3) Try recording to 352x480 instead of 720x480. If that fixes your problem, then you have an underpowered CPU and it simply can't keep up with the demands of 720x480 recording. 352x4800 is legal for NTSC DVD, by the way.

[strang5]

The computer that I use for recording this tape is an Amd 2100+ with 512MB of RAM. It is my wifes computer and I do nothing on it while recording. I then move the file to my computer for burning which has the following specs:

MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
AMD Athlon 64 3200 939 90nm
2x512 MUSHKIN PC3200 DDR400
Zalman 7000B-ALCU LED
530w Fortron PS
Western Digital 36GB Raptor Boot Drive
Western Digital 250 Gb Storage
Western Digital 120 Gb Storage
AOpen GeForceFX 5900 Ultra 256Mb
Sony G500 21"

I'll try Video redo later.

[DereX888]

That negative number is weird.
I have never seen it before like this either.
I'd say its your capture card's fault (or your settings there, maybe some nonstandard matrix gop etc etc I dont know - there was once a dude complaining he cant author a dvd from his captures with similar problems as your, and after few mths he msg'd me once he found out the reason - he had set some kwaq's dvd template or other crap lol). Something definitly is wrong since you have negative number of B frames. They probably dont exist in your stream, or they are sparse here and there throughout - and thats why your audio gets more and more out of sync the longer you play it, while computer software players can make up for this error and keep in sync even if you would have only 1 frame per second of course. In your case the result video stream is too short for audio stream.

Try authoring a dvd with TDA - I've used it few times for some not-so-kosher mpeg-2 files, and while it may be bitchin about file (click "ignore'), it may do the job and use the audio and video streams exactly as they are, without doing any job on the streams., and you may succed that way (or not ).
good luck.

[strang5]

After doing a QuickStream Fix in Videoredo, here is the file info using Virtualdub. I encoded it in TMPGEnc DVD and then burned it on a DVD-RW. The video and audio are totally in sync!! Great, huh? I finally did it! Now if someone were to want me to do their tape, I would have to invest in a hardware capture device.