Help with transcoding video stream on multi-episode DVD's

[Spanky_1]

Hello everyone,

Was wondering if you'all could give me a hand with this...

I have the Farscape season 2 Volume 3 Disk 1 and I want to transcode the video so that both episodes on that disk will fit on one DVD-R. I also want to keep the original menus. Here's what I've done:

- Ripped the entire DVD to the HD with DVD Decryptor

- Cut out all the junk I don't need (Audio Streams, extras and what not)

- Used IFOEdit to check that i didn't screw anything up. Played the DVD through it and checked all the navigation points.

- Followed the Guide off of the doom9 page on transcoding. I used DVD2AVI to create the *.d2v file for use with TMPGENC. And following the guide, re-encoded the video at a lower bit rate.

- Then I remux, with IFOEdit, the transcoded video back into the *.vob for that episode. All the navigation works fine but the audio is now out of sync by about 1/2 second. Each episode has a small vob (about 114kb in size) which precedes the actual vobs with the episode. It looks like this,

VTS_05_0.vob 144kb
VTS_05_1.vob 1gig
VTS_05_2.vob 1gig
VTS_05_0.vob 230meg

I've been thinking that this little vob, if it is without audio, might be the cause of my problems, but if i leave it out of the transcoding, when i remux the video back to the audio with IFOEdit, the playback locks up.

The audio streams are AC3, and I've read here that DVD2AVI sometimes has problems with the delay setting incorporated in the audio. So from another post here I saw that some people use SmartRipper to demux the streams, I tried that last night, and have the same problem, the streams are not in sync. For shits and grins I multiplexed (with TMPGEnc) the transcoded video and the audio stream I got from SmartRipper and had the same sync problem.

If anyone has heard of this before, your help would be greatly appreciated.

Spank

[VidHack]

Spanky_1,

The problem is that you Re-Encoded the video. You should have TRANSCODED the video. Using CCE or TMPGENC, will yield video that WONT line up to original when reInserted back into the original VOB. I have started a basic guide on this very problem. Check it out.

http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=130275

Good Luck

VidHack

[Spanky_1]

Thanks VidHack,

You've helped me see the light...

If I can pick your brain one more time....

I've taken the vob set VTS_05_1 - _3 (one whole episode) and am transcoding it now, when it's done i assume i use VOBEdit to remux them back into the original vob's. Will my chapter points be the same? If not how could i fix them? Oh, and that first vob in the set the VTS_05_0.vob that is only 114k in size, is that the navigational pack you mentioned in the post link you gave me?

Thanks again...

Spank

[Spanky_1]

The quality of the video for the first vob in the set was poor even at 90%. What i've been able to figure out from other posts is that Rempeg doesn't like video that is interlaced. It's funny too, I fired up the first vob in the set with dvd2avi and previewed it, it bounces between interlaced and progressive. So I fired up the second vob in the set and it is full on progressive. So I loaded the second vob up in Rempeg thinking if the whole thing is progressive, then it must work. Well Rempeg crashes when i load up any vob other than the first in the set. That holds true for both episodes on the disk. And as my luck would have it, both VTS_XX_1.vob's for the two epps display that funny bouncing between interlaced and progressive. I even selected match source in the frame mode box.
Here's the post that talks about Interlaced issue:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=109334

Got another one for y'all too. I thought that in Tmpgenc I was transcoding. I used IFOEdit to create the Tempeg Template, which holds the GOP structure information. I loaded that into Tmpgenc under force picture type settings, and then selected another bit rate. Wouldn't that be the same thing?

I suppose I will take the poor video now and try to remux it to see if that at least has solved my audio/video sync issue. One step at a time....

Oh and forget that that part in my last post about the nav pack, I see what you mean now, each vob has a nav pack...

Hey, thanks again for your time.....


Spank

[Spanky_1]

Well here is what i did to solve all my problems with backing up multi-episode disks:

Got a copy of DVD to DVDr at www.dvd2dvd-r.de

Got a copy of CCE 2.5 so that I could transcode the the video in the two episodes on the disk.

Checked "Force Encode" on DVD to DVDr and adjusted the "Min Bitrate" down to an acceptable level. The Average Bitrate and Max Bitrate are unchangable with the DVD to DVDr interface, but I let it run anyway. The resulting *.m2v file is still the same size as the original on the DVD but the program runs a script that is passed to CCE and it generates the files needed to transcode the video. So once it is finished I fire up CCE again by itself, load the files created by the DVD to DVDr script and from there adjust the Max and Average bitrate. Then transcode, wait and when finished, use IFOEdit to remux it back to the audio stream or just "Author new DVD" and pass the two streams to that part of the proggy. I then just rename the vobs ifo and bup files back to the name(number) they need to be.

By ripping the files that pertain to the original menu and the episode vobs, and transcoding those episode video streams, I've been able to maintain the same menu structure and episode structure.

I did drop a post on the dvd2dvdr's message board asking about the inability to adjust the "max" and "avg" bitrates and this is what I was told:

The max. Bitrate is also unlocked, but if the max. Bitrate exceeds the possible maximum (8000kbps) you can only lower the value. To modify the avg. Bitrate increase the 'MB reserved'-Value.

I posted back that I still cannot bring down the max bitrate and I tried adjusting the "MB reserved" value, but found that the video stream did not come down in size. I posted back that I must be doing something wrong, but have not had a reply yet.

Anyway, finally after much trial and error I've got it to work, If anyone would like a more step-by-step breakdown, I would be happy to put one together.