Nero Authoring Renders Output Useless---film at 11...

[spleen]

Hi.

I'm not exactly a newbie here, but I do know there is much I'm not familiar with when it comes to creating home movie DVD's.

I'm attempting my first such endeavor (after getting tired of seeing all those Hi8 tapes collecting dust on the shelf) and I continue to have one sticking point that has driven me to my wits end (not really that far of a trip). I've been doing hours of research here that got me to this point, so thanks for all the previous posters for sharing their info.

Here's my scenario:

1. Output VHS and recorded to Sony D8 cam.
2. Used WinDV to capture DV video (type 2 file)
3. Edited DV-AVI in Windows Movie Maker
4. Output edited video to DV-AVI format on hard-drive
5. Used Nero Vision Express 2 SE (ver 2.1.2.16) to do the authoring and transcoding (High Quality settings) to hard-drive.
6. Used DVD Shrink 3.2 to reduce bitrate a bit (92% or so) to fit on one DVD as well as burn the DVD.

When playing the DVD the audio is out of synch after about 4 seconds, and after approx 30 seconds the file is unplayable.

Previewing the files created in my six steps above all output looks and sounds fine up to and including step 4, the edited DV-AVI file. When previewing the transcoded file in DVD Shrink is where the audio synch issues and video "stutter" are experienced.

Realizing this, and through research on this site, I tried Procoder Express instead of letting Nero take care of the transcoding step.

So my new procedure is this:

1.-4. Save as above.
5. Canopus Procoder Express to transcode edited DV-AVI files to MPEG2 format.
6. Used Nero Vision Express 2 SE (ver 2.1.2.16) for authoring--saved to hard-drive
7. Used DVD Shrink 3.2 to reduce bitrate to fit on one DVD as well as burn the DVD
(Never actually got to finish this step as the preview screen showed I was still having issues)

SAME PROBLEM!!

I was watching what Nero was doing while burning the files to the hard-drive and the entire process took only 20 minutes (60 minutes of video). Therefore I assumed no transcoding was taking place, since that was taking a few hours in my first set of steps.

There is still evidently something happening there, because I'm getting the same output as before.

And again, all output up to the authoring looks and sounds correct. Nero, it seems, is doing something to the MPEG2 output. But what? I've never had this problem with Nero before, and it sounds like others aren't either.

I've burned DVD's before, but nothing from DV-AVI format.

Any ideas? I've thought of trying different authoring software (GUI, perhaps?) but it would be nice to know exactly what's going on here.

Need any other details?

Thanks for reading this.

sp

[guns1inger]

At this stage I would have great suspicions about NeroVision. It isn't a very good or very smart encoder. This is a very high chance that it in fact re-encoded all the good work that ProCoder did. NV is known to re-encode perfectly compliant material for no good reason.

I would start by

1. Encoding with ProCoder, but this time using the correct bitrate so you don't have to use Shrink. This is a needless step if you encode correctly in the first place.

2. Author with something other than Nero. If budget is an issue, try GUIForDVDAuthor instead.

[redwudz]

I suspect Nero also. I run my DV through VirtualDub Mod (Using the Panasonic DV Codec) to edit, then convert the audio to AC3 with ffmpeggui, then frameserve the video out to TMPGEnc encoder. I author with TMPGEnc DVD Author and combine the AC3 and the MPEG-2 video in TDA. No re-encoding and no sync problems. I wonder about WMM also, as I have had problems with it outputing proper DV format at times.

But as guns1inger mentions, DVDAuthorgui or GUIForDVDAuthor both do a good job for authoring and they are freeware. They also probably do better menus than Nero. I do use Nero products for burning, but that's about all I trust them with.

[spleen]

Thanks guys.

Too bad Nero doesn't work for this, I was quite used to it for quickly stepping through things to get a menu and chapters setup and burned.

Oh well, it's good to learn new things.

I do have a question about the two free authoring tools you mentioned. Will they still work if I don't have a seperate audio file to import? I've never worked that way so it would really shake my paradigm.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...no, of course not.

Thanks again for your quick replies.

sp

[guns1inger]

I believe both of them require elementary streams, but that is no real issue. DVDAuthorGUI is for just make quick dvds without menus. GUIForDVDAuthor is for menu based DVDs. Choose based on your needs.

[spleen]

I'm used to authoring DVD's with menus, so I'll keep your advice in mind. Thanks.

And you don't consider elementary streams a real issue because you know what the heck that means! I, on the other hand, evidently need to do more research.

Thanks again for the knowledge.

sp

[edit]
P.S. I just saw the screen in my Procoder Express where I can select "MPEG-2 Elementary Streams for DVD authoring". Yay!

[guns1inger]

Elementary streams are the video and audio content of your mpeg as seperate files. Usually they have extensions like .mpv or .m2v for Video or .AC3 or .mp2 for audio.

Programme Streams (or System Streams) are the combined video and audio, usually having the extension .mpg or .mpeg.

While some authoring software will allow the use of programme streams, most prefer elementary streams as input. Some that do take programme streams will demux them in the background, then rebuild during authoring.

You can use Rejig to demux an mpeg into it's elementary streams for authoring, or output from your encoder.

[redwudz]

Audio is usually combined with the video to make a single file. Elemental streams are the separate audio and video streams from those files. You can 'Demux' (Demultiplex) the audio and video into elemental streams. Combining them back together is Multiplexing or 'Muxing'. You can demultiplex or multiplex with programs like TMPGEnc encoder, under the 'Files>MPEG Tools' heading. Some programs need the audio and video to be separate to be able to work with them.

EDIT: I see guns1inger was ahead of me.

[spleen]

Thanks again fellas.

I'm currently re-converting via Procoder one of my original DV-AVI files just to see how things work w/ the elementary stream option selected. I'll try a quick author/burn with one/both of the freeware authoring tools that were mentioned.

We'll see how things go!

On the plus side, it can't get much worse than what I was getting when authored with Nero!

I really appreciate your time spent on my question. Thanks!

sp