another post-tmpg/dvd lab chapter disagreement

[BartonHick]

Yet another question-you can tell I'm both nexb and a busy little beaver. I edited a vob with tmpg dvd author, cutting out sections with commercials. I then openned the editted video files in a dvd-lab project. I inserted chapters with dvd-lab, but I noticed that the timer was showing a reset to 0 at every point I had cut commercials back in dvd author (and some sections where it'd show the time starting at about 3 hours instead of 0). I compiled the dvd, and ran it on powerdvd. Each title has the correct amount of chapters (5), but a lot of chapter points are wacked out. Some are fine (dvd-lab chapter points), some are at the tmgp points (maybe coincidence) and some are in the middle of nowhere. And this isn't the slight variability that's natural to dvd-lab. I'm talking like 3 minutes off in a 30-minute video. Any ideas? Do I have to redo the editing and chaptering somehow, or is PowerDVD prone to incorrectly using chapters (but should be ok in my dvd player)? Please help.

Thanks in advance. In fact, thanks for all the help the last couple days. This forum and sight have been crucial.

[mikiem]

If when you cut the commercials you created separate video files, then timing will start at zero for each file, or should anyway. One way to avoid that is to edit with project x, creating one large mpg2.

IN the case of files showing an invlaid timestamp in DVDLab, I've had success redoing timestamps in restream prior to import.

Setting chapters in DVDLab is usually pretty ho-hum, normal stuff, especially if you let DVDLab index the video, matching chapt points.

[BartonHick]

Thanks for the help, but is there a non-java program I can use. I've got all my problems solved except for this chapter this. I played a dvd in my player, and it would either decide not to jump between chapters or had chapters in weird places. I used TMPG DVD Author to cut sections out of the video filed, but that caused chapter points (and renumbering of the counter at those points). I used DVD Lab to make my menus and everything, and set the chapter points I want in dvd lab. Problems persist. Anyone have an idea of how I can handle this between TMPG DVD Author and DVD-Lab (I also have TMPG Xpress 3.0 if that will help). I think that if DVD-lab reads the vob as one whole file without chapters, it may work.

Just one thought (to spark ideas). I know dvd-lab has some sort of option to combine all videos into 1 when compiling or something like that. Don't remember what exactly it is and what it does, but would that be of any help? Anyway, please help, as I'm starting to get despaerate here. So close yet so far. And thanks for any help I can get. I think this is my last hurdle.

By the way, on a side note, is there an easy way to resize backgrounds in dvd lab, so that it fits inside one of the size guide boxes? Not a major concern like the other: just looking for a quick yes/no answer. Thanks again, you guys have been great.

[mikiem]

"on a side note, is there an easy way to resize backgrounds in dvd lab, so that it fits inside one of the size guide boxes? "

If you're referring to the safe area when you say guide boxes, this is the part of the picture most TVs will show, and it's there to make sure titles and buttons are displayed. Can't really reduce the size as it's standard DVD 720 width.

As for your orig. prob... I haven't used TDA, but I've read posts recently that TDA has a unique method of cutting out commercials. As I understand it (may be wrong), TDA sets the commercial (portion to be removed) as a separate chapter, then writes instructions in the files to skip that chapter entirely. If that's what's happening, then likely this is the part I think that DVD Lab gets confused on. Hopefully someone expert with TDA can give an answer on using this with DVD Lab, but the simplest solution would be to do everything in TDA, avoiding DVD Lab entirely.

The only way I'd know to do it is to cut the commercials outside of TDA, which would give you either one large mpg2 video file, or however many smaller pieces that could be strung together or joined. Besides Project X, there are other prog (like cuttermaran) that let you remove sections of the video (look in the tools section here at videohelp). This is I think the most common way to do it.

Or you could convert your video to avi (HUFFYUV or mjpeg) and edit out the commercials using V/Dub or other editors, encoding the result to 1 or more mpg2. This is more work, can be a bit more accurate, & might be a good alternative if your video has to be re-encoded anyway to reduce bitrate &/or file sizes.

Or you could use tools like shrink or TMPGEnc's Mpegtools to write smaller mpg2 files trimmed to end when the commercial starts. These pieces could be joined together, but if you're going to use a cutter/joiner, could easily skip this and do it in one step in the cutter/joiner software to start with. In a prog. like DVD Lab, you'd string the pieces together, haveing the end action of one video be to play the next.

[mats.hogberg]

You're using the wrong tools. Why not go ahead and author with TDA as well, since you're using it to edit, or, if that's out of the question, use an mpeg editor to edit, not TDA. I suggest Womble mpg vcr.

/Mats

[BartonHick]

Ok, thanks for the tips. I'll give them a try. BTW, I was wondering about shrinking the background to fit the tv safe area, not the safe area itself. I was just curious about that. Again, thanks so much.