How to see correct timecodes quickly...

[falco2000]

When I open on my pc MPEG-2 movies recorded from my DVB decoder, half of the times the duration of the movie is wrong and different when the file is opened with VLC, with PotPlayer, with Handbrake... (I mean that the total duration of a 2 hours recording may appear for example like 19 minutes and 20 seconds, just to say two random numbers...)
And when I'm using one of the media players, the timecode displayed when I place the cursor within the timeline is uncorrect too.

The only two ways that - up to now - I found to see correct timecodes are:

• opening the file in VideoDub (it's freeware), but the parsing of the file takes tooooooo much time, I have to wait minutes.
• opening the file in VideoReDo: it needs just a moment and the movie is opened with the correct duration and also correct timecodes when I move the cursor through the timeline. But it's shareware, I'm using it in trial mode and it will soon expire.

So, is there some freeware that works like a player (I need to see the timeline and the video+audio preview) and guarantees correct timecodes?

Thank you as always

[vhelp]

it seems that each sf player uses a different method to calculate the timecode.

one exact method (formula) i use requires the frame number and the frame rate. i tested my method against virtualdub in parallel to see if the one i wrote was correct, which it is. so i would guess that vdub is calculating by the frame number as it parses (indexes) the video. so maybe the other players can't lock onto a proper timecode when placing the timeline slider at a random position because they may not be calculating by FrameNumber/FrameRate.

[misermidas]

I had frequently that kind of troubles with mpeg2 files some time ago.
Now it works rather well but I do not know whether it will last long.
The best thing to do would be to find a software that would rewrite your mpeg2 file so that it plays well on any media player.
I said rewrite and not re-encode because it is better not to re-encode in order to avoid quality loss.
I now use to use ProjectX to convert my .TS files to .MPG .

[falco2000]

Thank you all. I tried ProjectX too, but unfortunately, together with VideoReDo they don't always work and - most important - they didn't help me in the solution of this problem:

https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/351197-Progressive-loss-of-audiosync-during-convers...G-2-to-MP4-why

[vhelp]

is the mpeg one main mpeg file, and you are using title positioning of some sort to skip the commercials so that you don't have to "cut" mpegs into pieces to rejoin them ?

if that is the case then that is probaby the reason for the faulty timecode readout.

and what about timecode format are you gauging from ?

the one i am referring to looks like this:

00:00:00.000

[hello_hello]

Try opening the video with MeGUI and let it index it (use the File/Open menu, not the "one click" option). When it's done MeGUI will open up a script for creating an encode with a preview window which displays frame numbers (and time/duration if you have it set to do so in MeGUI's options). Once DGIndex has indexed the video the preview should be frame accurate.

[mrcoolekin]

I just mux my mpeg2 files in mkvtoonix and the time shows correctly. I'm not sure if that's something you want to try, but that's what I do. That's the quickest and easiest way for me.