DVDLab Pro hoses movies larger than 2GB

[dcouchotvore]

I hope this isn't a dupe -- and I can't imagine this not coming up before -- but I got frustrated trying to search through the 2200 hits that came up...

Anyway, any time I compile a project with a movie that takes up more than 2 VOB segments, the third one is hosed somehow. The first two are fine, but the last (1) has screwed-up time markers (it's be, say, 15 minutes long and makes a player think it's 5 hours), (2) it'll contain the wrong content such as be chopped off or even a part of the movie that goes somewhere else, and (3) if you play to the end it does something weird, like freeze up or restart the movie. I get around it by recompressing so that movie takes up less than 2G, but that looses quality and I shouldn't have to do that .

The first time this happened I chalked it up to a bad video as a starting point, but now I don't really think so. This question could quickly become part of a rant about there not being any software our there that really WORKS, but I'll refrain from going there. That's another post.

Any ideas? Thanks.

[reboot]

DVDLab produces compliant dvd's, from compliant mpeg streams.
Have you tried reinstalling it? Have you tried with different video and audio streams? Nobody else I know of, has had this problem, unless their source material is mixed. (PAL into NTSC project, AC3 and PCM audio mix, etc.)

[guns1inger]

I often fill a disk (4 or 5 vobs) or have multiple titlesets (also more than 3 VOBs) and have never had this problem. Follow Rebbots suggestion and reinstall. If this does not fix your problem, report it over at the MediaChance forums. Oscar (the author of DVD Lab) often reads them, as well as beta testers and knowledgable, professional users.

[cellmaniac]

Do you think you may need to have the disk set to NTFS instead of FAT32? I've of some folks who have made avi's and had trouble when they exceeded the 2gig amount.

[guns1inger]

Could be the problem, although VOBs are only around the 1 GB mark when authoring (larger when ripping if you want them to be).

[mats.hogberg]

I get around it by recompressing so that movie takes up less than 2G, but that looses quality and I shouldn't have to do that

You mean: You take the non functioning DVD, rip it and run it thru DVDShrink or similar, down to < 2 GB, and then it works?

/Mats

[dcouchotvore]

Thanks for the advice, folks, but nothing seems to hit the spot. After experimenting some more, I'm believing that the 2G limit is just coincidental, or may be associated with using VOB files built by WinAVI. Most of the time, DVD-Lab does what it's supposed to, but every now and then, there's a curse. Following reboot's suggestion, I've tried this with various converters and gotten the following results:

WinAVI->VOB: the 2G screw-up as mentioned. Seen this before.
WinAVI->MPEG2: Don't remember, but it didn't work.
Xilisoft->VOB: DVD-Lab compiler crashes
Xilisoft->MPEG2: Worked once, then when I reopened the project told me that the video had no aspect ratio. Strange. It was there the first time. Where do you suppose it went?
TMPGenc XPress-><nothing>: Don't know, it kept crashing.
TMPGenc Plus->M2V+WAV: DVD-Lab goes through its motions and says it's done but hasn't produced a single output file.

In all these cases, except where the aspect ratio vanished, DVD-Lab reported the streams OK. The original is a simple AVI (DivX/AC3) that naturally plays beautifully.

I was going to give The Film Machine a try, until I discovered that I'd have to BUY more compressors. That seems to be the name of the game: BUY, BUY, BUY, hoping that something will eventually work. Reminds me of Intel's ISIS operating system. Every release was broken, and when you called support their solution was to purchase yet another $15,000 upgrade. The only video software that I've come to count on as actually doing what it's supposed to are the various flavors of VirtualDub. I need to send those guys some money. Lord knows the makers of stuff that ISN'T reliable has gotten enough.

As I type, I'm trying it again with the TMPGenc streams just in case there was a crash or something. If that fails, I'll give DVD Author a try, and after that throw in the towel. My sanity is worth more than this.

Thanks again.

[dcouchotvore]

OMG! It worked! Three cheers for TMPGenc! Seems like DVD-Lab somehow thought it got an abort command, because come to think of it, it never went through and built menus. It's burning right now, before it changes its mind.

Still, I'd be interested in hearing any ideas on the matter, because I'm a good 95% confident that this will come up again and I'd really like to understand what's happening. Isn't it weird that you can do a 6-VTS project with custom VM programming and it all goes as smooth as a baby's behind, then turn around and try a basic production with just a few chapter points for your wife and all hell breaks loose?

There is one possible other factor that I should have thought to mention. My prophetic vision sees about a 1G RAM upgrade in the immediate future for this box. When I bought it from my ex brother-in-law-in-law, I never dreamed that he'd throw down 3G for a top-of-the-line computing powerhouse and equip it with only 256M. Being a basically patient guy, I've limped by with that even for graphics work and Java development. But it's driving me crazy for video. Didn't work out so well for 3D modelling, either. Any one else working with that little RAM?

Thanks for all your suggestions.

[reboot]

I haven't had less than a gig in any machine in a very long time.
Known issues: tmpgenc does not always output a compliant audio stream for dvdlab.
Xillisoft doesn't work properly, never has (IMHO).
WinAVI also has compliance issues, with .vobs sometimes getting as large as 2 gig. No known remedy.
Suggestions:
As you seem to be more knowledgable than most attempting dvdlab projects, this shouldn't hurt a bit Rip audio in virtualdub or mod, full processing.
Transcode .wav to .ac3 in ffmpeggui.
Import ac3 into dvdlab.
If ANY portion of the audio or video is not dvd spec, dvdlab will sometimes give an error, and sometimes just fail to compile properly. A program fault, true, but with totally compliant streams, there are no known issues.
Other compile problems are 99% user error.

[dcouchotvore]

At the risk of this becoming a conversion thread and getting everyone banned, I've come to the same conclusion about Xilisoft. I mostly use it now for encoding audio to AC3, which it seems to do OK. (Hadn't heard of ffmpeggui before, but I'll certainly give it a try.) WinAVI usually works for me, but sometimes not. I've stayed away from TMPGenc just because it's slow, but if it does it RIGHT, that might be poor logic. Sure beats doing it over and over and over.

So to make sure this remains an authoring thread, has anyone come across a tool to validate streams for compliance and preferably identify what's wrong, so that DVD-Lab doesn't break? GSpot tells you a little, sometimes, but not enough as far as that goes. It's intended for something else. Looked around a little for one but come up empty. I know enough programming to write one myself, but -- alas -- not enough MPEG.

Overall, I really like DVD-Lab Pro. Effective interface and lots of power for the money. I'd hate to think it's much at fault for any of this.

Cheers

[reboot]

First, if you use the right encoder, you have no trouble with dvdlab.
You will notice that tmpgenc get's mentioned a LOT. That doesn't mean it's the best, just that it's been beaten to death, and always produces a decent mpeg (barring user error).
Canopus Procoder, Mainconcept mpeg encoder, and CCE can all produce good compliant mpegs as well, and usually better quality, faster, than tmpgenc. Tmpgenc is cheap, which is why so many use it. It's also configurable by templates, a feature that many like (even me sometimes)
I love the output from Mainconcept. It's smoother, and definitely not as blocky as tmpgenc on high compressed avi's, as well as being about 4x faster.
CCE is even faster than that, if you don't do anything fancy with avisynth.
Canopus is also fairly speedy, and defintely high quality, especially in remastering mode (or whatever that's called).
I don't know anything that will readily check the validity of an mpeg for dvd spec, you just have to make sure your encoder does it right the first time.
Personal observations:
Mainconcept always makes a compliant dvd mpeg, unless the user changes something he shouldn't.
Canopus produces the highest quality, except for maybe CCE with avisynth, but can take time, even more than tmpgenc, depending.
Whatever encoder you choose, make sure it's output is dvd spec (or very close to it). Encode ONLY the video stream.
Rip audio however (I use virtualdub) to .wav, and transcode to DD2.0 in ffmpeggui (fast and reliable).
DD5.1 and DTS are a completely different story
Import the m2v and ac3 into dvdlab, and never have I had a problem.
Caveat: DVDLab's motion menu avi rendering engine works. It's mpeg renderer is questionable, so test compile first. Encode motion menus in your encoder, then import.
Final thoughts: WinAvi converter is not worth the money. It's crashed out on so many of my "quick-and-dirty" projects, I quit using it, and splurged for tmpgenc mpeg editor, dvd source creator (very much like tmpgenc express 3).

[dcouchotvore]

Thanks for the info on those encoders. I was hesitant to buy anything else because of a total lack of faith in product hype and repeated disappointments, but you seem to know what you're talking about, so I guess I'll go for it.

Regards

[dcouchotvore]

Hmm ... OK. Not quite there yet. I downloaded the Mainconcepts trial for a spin. Makes great-looking video (Not counting the watermark. Don't know about getting rid of that quite yet, I'm still reeling from sticker shock!). Encoded my audio with ffmpeggui. Everything looks good here, but ran into trouble in DVD-Lab again.

Imported video (xyz.m2v) and audio (xyz.ac3) into assets. Created a new movie object and dragged xyz.m2v into it. Voila! A video track and and audio track. Audio Incidentally, I did find an MPEG validation tool listed right here at videohelp.com: MPEG Validator. That's one of three ways that I verified there was no audio stream in xyz.m2v. Wonder where DVD-Lab thinks it found one. Also, DVD-Lab wants to demultiplex xyz.m2v, and complains about not being able to open the file when you let it try. Anyway, I deleted that one and added xyz.ac3 in its place. Quickie compile. Error says that the audio stream is not at 48K or 96K, which, according to the asset bin, is a lie with respect to xyz.ac3. Can't help but wonder if it's still trying to compile the nonexistent audio stream "in" xyz.m2v.

Seems like I ran into something like this a while ago trying to substitute audio stream. Don't remember if or how I resolved it.

Any thoughts?
Thanks.

[guns1inger]

It sounds like your installion of DVD Lab is hosed. I'd uninstall, delete any folders left behind, then reinstall.

[mats.hogberg]

(Not counting the watermark. Don't know about getting rid of that quite yet

How about buying it?!?

/Mats

[dcouchotvore]

How about buying it?!?

Thank you for your constructive suggestion. However, if you would read the next clause of my post: I'm still reeling from sticker shock!. Translation: I haven't decided if I'm willing to pay that kind of money for an encoder or not. Seems like an awful lot of cash, especially since I haven't proven to myself that it works. Turns out MPEG Validator did fail its output, after letting it run all the way through.

[reboot]

What sort of settings are you using in Mainconcept?
Default template? Which one? Change anything?

[dcouchotvore]

Let's see ... to the best of my knowledge:


Output format: MPEG2, Program video (maybe should have been elementary video) NTSC

Details -> Defaults (29.97, bottom field first, no deinterlacing), width 720 height 480 Scaled so original non-standard aspect ratio fits properly with black margins at top and bottom. Search method 11. Advanced-> 29.97 NTSC NDF, 16:9, VBS 4200 6000 max 2499 min. Think thats it.

Thanks for all your help here, reboot.

[reboot]

Try using the DVD template instead, then adjust for non-standard aspect.
Encode elementary stream video only.
Do audio separately as mentioned above.

[dcouchotvore]

Will do. I'd love for this to work. Thanks again.

[dcouchotvore]

Thanks, reboot. That worked great. Using the DVD template switched it to elementary stream, which I suspected might be the problem. Could be the other way left indication in the headers that there was an audio stream, and when there wasn't things started going crazy. The only glitch was that the resulting mpv showed an annoying, flickering green line at the bottom on zoom player. But I built the project anyway and didn't see it on PowerDVD, so I burnt a DVD-RW just to check. Looks great and encoded fast.

I'll probably end up buying this thing -- or CCE if I can check that out first -- after I get frustrated enough with other enocders to shell out. Tried WinAVI again and it crashed at 99%! Canopus is out. Guess they use a dongle. I made a moral decision against any software that requires dongles back in the DOS 3.0 days when they hung off your printer port like a cancer and haven't budged on it since.

Regards,