MPEG conversion- audio lagging or unrecognized

[shrakner]

What I'm trying to do is recompress a ~42 minute .mpg- it's only 320x240, yet right now it's taking up 420 MB. Although Quicktime plays it just fine, when I try to convert it (H.264 seems to be the best) it refuses to recognize the audio. I've tried using ffmpegX and MPEG Streamclip to recompress it, and although they recognize the audio, when it converts, there's significant audio lag. According to VLC, the file uses "mpgv" for video and "mpga" for audio. MPEG streamclip's info displays the following:

Type: MPEG program stream

Duration: 0:42:54
Data Size: 427.32 MB
Bit Rate: 1.39 Mbps

Video Tracks:
224 MPEG-1, 352 × 240, 29.97 fps, 1.15 Mbps

Audio Tracks:
192 MP2 stereo, 44.1 kHz, 224 kbps

Can anyone help me out with this? If I'm missing a codec, the video shouldn't be able to play at all, right? I'm a newbie at this, so bear with me.

PS- This is all being run on a 1.5 GHz G4 Powerbook.

[shrakner]

Should I post this in another forum? I'm not getting much help here (yes, kinda demanding for a newbie, but I would really like to convert these $@#& files).

[Case]

What I'm trying to do is recompress a ~42 minute .mpg

As you've found out, QuickTime won't export audio from MPEG files. QuickTime can still be useful here, tho'. Check if QuickTime agrees with the framerate (in fps) that MPEG Streamclip gave you.
• If the content is 23.976 fps with a 3:2 pulldown, then many tools will read '29.97 fps' (which is part of the design of a 3:2 pulldown), but QuickTime will say '23.98 fps', thus clueing you in on what's really going on.
• A conversion with a change in framerate can lead to sync problems.
• A conversion with the same framerate could solve such a sync problem.
If so, then try the NTSC Film framerate (23.976 fps) on your H.264 encode.

[shrakner]

Thanks, Case.

I'll give it a shot and see if that fixes the problem.

[TugBoat]

In short, most likely you have a screwed up movie. Read this;
https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=298117
I run across this sync problem all the time. And Quicktime will not export audio from a System stream. You have to Demux the stream to separate the video + audio tracks for QT.