VCD jumping, unsteady framerate playback

[Artist247]

when playing my vcd's on my dvd player, sometimes after a while they start to jump a little and the frames are not playing smoothly, i thought that this was just because it was vcd and maybe my player couldnt cope, but i burnt a vcd and watched it today and it was smooth and fine, it was burnt from an image file (.cue .bin) and it was fine, when burning my other vcd's i used nero and normally burnt as 24x sometimes 4x, no big difference when played back, is there a better program i can use to burn the vcd's?

any suggestions? on better programs and ways to fix my problems?

[Exothermic]

Your problem sounds very similar to mine. I have two DVD players one a GE model (APEX 703 insides), and an APEX 1010W. When I convert AVI files to MPEG1 for VCD creation using TMPGenc and Burn with Nero. The GE speeds-up and slows down, temporarily losing audio sync in spots. The 1010W will actually freeze the video through these areas of the disk.

I tried using other programs to first create a cue/bin file and burned with nero to same result. I later downloaded a VCD authoring demonstration disk image for VCDImager. In the readme fiel they said that nero has problems burning VCD's as well as with burning some Cue/Bin files. They recommended CDRDAO or CDRwin to burn the cue/bin images instead. I will have to re-test burning my VCD cue/bin with these programs, but I did try burning their demo with nero, this created a coaster. Using CDRwin, worked great. The demo was very impressive, I had no idea that VCD could do all of what they demonstrate.

As my VCD's burned with nero aren't coaster, I'm not totally convinced nero is the problem, since I also have other VCD mpegs from unknown sources that will burn and play without difficulty on both DVD players.

during all of my testing, changing everything i could think of to no avail, on a wild tangent, I decided to attempt adjusting the video bit rate down so that I could fit a longer video on a VCD. To my surprise this disk plays perfect in the 1010W, but still appears to be slipping around a bit in the GE. I haven't gone back yet to see if I can get better results in the GE by limiting the bitrate a bit more.

I posted this on the TMPGenc BBS forum yesterday and got a response that somewhat confirms what I was seeing. It seems as great as TMPGenc is in all other respects, it has a problem controlling the upper range of the bitrate expecially when encoding with CBR. Testing with EO video has resulted in working disks, but EO does not have the configurability that TMPGEnc does. It was suggested to try the "MainConcept Encoder" (thank you, Minion). I have yet to try it due to a lengthy test in EO is still running. Once that completes I will be testing with the MainConcept Encoder.

I know this produces files that are not fully compliant, but reducing the video bitrate in TMPGEnc has shown promise. for a 94 minute video I was using 2-pass VBR, max: 1200 (keeping at 1150 or a bit lower may solve my problems on the GE), avg 980, and min 800 (Also include pad to min bitrate, I don't recall if I did or not). See guide on fitting a long video on one VCD at:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/84759.php

(read all of the discussions, for various problems with previous version of TMPGenc 2.59)

I would recommend testing with short clips from the portion of the video that showed the problems and burn several tests on CD-RW so you don't waste anymore time or cd-r's (if your dvd player will play them).

Hopefully this will help, this seems to be a common question with no real obvious solutions being post until now.

On your question/comment about burn speed, it is best to keep the speed down such that burn-proof doesn't have to kick in. This seems to produce compatibility problems with some older audio CD players, so it could present a problem for some VCD/DVD players as well.

Exo

[CaptainC]

just a couple of questions are you using VBR (variable bit rate) or CBR (constant bit rate) for your VCD. I have only encoutered this problem a few times and the problems were resolved by the following.
If I converted from a Divx file if i didnt change the frame rate to 25fps it would play back jerky, most divx have a frame rate of 23.976fps you can try to use the NTSCFilm template in TMPEGEnc but TMPEG is not too good at frame rates i have a tool called avi frate which changes the frame rate of the avi with one click this stops the jerkyness.

Its probably not Nero and is more likely to be the DVD player, if you exceed the max Mpeg 1 bit rate for your machine or use VBR in Mpeg 1 its quite likely you will encounter difficulty with playing Ive done a few comparisons between VBR and CBR and find that CBR produces better films this is from many points of view but is not genneral but simply easiest for me and the tolls i use. VBR could cause problems when editing, I use M2 edit pro to edit SVCD if i use VBR editing is strained and generally results in bad films.

Try to use CBR in your VCD set to 1150kbps and the audio to 224kbps or use the Template provided by Tmpeg for VCD all you need to set in this is the otion search for quality the rest should be left alone, make sure when you burn with nero that you select PAL if using pal as the compliance for the disc this is found in the first tab after selecting VCD template in nero.

Maybe this is no help at all but i know what its like to encounter this sort of thing that drives you insane

[Exothermic]

during my testing, I tried changing to the different frame rate standard VCD templates, all with the same results on my DVD players. I played with everything. My break-through occured once I reduced the bitrate. I don't know why, because all of the sysmptoms appeared to be the exact oposite, the video was having problems in spots where the motion dropped such that the encoder would have to do a lot of padding to keep the bitrate up. (looking at the logs, showed the size of the frames dropped, due to very little difference between the frames.

I have found it best to keep the frame rate the same, if it is very close to one of the three standards. So far the problems have been with AVI files using the NTSC(Film) and PAL frame rates, All of my pre-existing VCD compliant mpegs that have burned / played successfully have been PAL or NTSC frame rates. I don't know how they were encoded.

To eliminate player problems with VCD's encoded at NTSC(film) rates, I downloaded the demo I mention which contains video in all three frame rates, it played fine, my problem seems to be in the encoding process.

if you can provide me with a link to the specific AVI tool you used to modify the frame rate of the AVI, I can try some more testing with that. But I know I have tried one 25fps AVI, that has show the same problems.

Exo

[kjmacke]

This has worked for me in the past using nero to burn my vcd's. After tmpegnc has finish take the file and de-multiplex it with tmpegnc then re-multiplex it with bbmpeg then burn it with nero. this has seem to solve all my vcd problems.

[CaptainC]

http://www.divx-digest.tv/software/edit/avifrate101.zip this link should download the software its called Avifrate make sure you copy the film before you use this tool as it works directly on the films header load the Avi into this toll it should tell you the old frame rate and above that select the new rate click apply, the change is instant so it wont start rewriting files or any thing. But from what your saying it looks as if your problem is either as you say with the encoding process, What version do you use of TMPEG if you have a serial for this software you will be able to visit the TMPEG site and download the latest version. Have you tried to play the encoded film on another player this could be the problem, I had a similar problem with my DVD player which would freeze at around one hour of the film, If i turned the machine on and loaded the film, searched the same point that it crashed at it wouldnt freeze but if i left the machine on for an hour and tried this it would crash
try turning the machine on from cold and searched the vcd until it crashes if it does it in the same

I would probably also uinstall the endoder and reinstall, check the CDs im using and ultimatly try other DVD machines it could be that the CDRW drive in your computer. There are aloy of posibilitys to this problem, Firstly try another DVD player with the film that doesnt work in your player if we have to you can mail a snipit of the film to me and i'll have a look at it on my players i ave a few let me know!!!