Sweet mother of God I cant fix this problem

[SuicideTaxi]

Okay. First of all, HI! You guys are great and have educated me beyond belief over the past few months. I've never posted here before because I've never had to, and because I'm still very much a novice at DVD authoring. But now I have come across a problem that not only can I not fix myself, but is multifaceted in what may be causing it. It might not actually be an authoring problem so this might be the wrong forum for all of this, but screwit, I'm posting it here. My problem is rather complicated, and I will do my absolute best to explain this as painlessly as possible.


I'm producing my first professional video project. (It's an hour-long video focused on the sport of paintball featuring world champion paintballer Marty Bush.) I dont consider myself an "expert" at anything, but I'm pretty sure I fall into the "advanced" category in alot of things, such as editing, computers, etc.

This project consists of digital footage shot by myself, edited in After Effects and assembled in Premier. Before this project I had zero experience authoring DVDs, and when I began the project I figured that when the video was assembled, "Guess I'd learn how to burn a DVD..." (Oh that sounds so simple when said... little did I know...) Needless to say, the DVD authoring part of this project was ten thousand times more complicated than any other aspect of it. For the past three weeks I've been doing battle with the entire process, and during that time I think I have used every single authoring program on the market, including Sonic's DVDit!, Ulead Movie Factory, Ulead Workshop, and a host of other lesser-knowns. I eventually settled on DVDLab, which I found to be the most comprehensive, intuitive, and flexible programs of the bunch. I've also used TMPGEnc, and although I barely know what a tenth of the toggles and switches are, through the help of this website I've managed to configure it to suit my purposes. (I cannot thank you all enough for the help I've gleaned from this fantastic website!) I also use Nero to burn the actual copies onto disk.

I've managed to get my video burned to DVD-R with functioning menus and satisfactory appearance. HOWEVER, I have one slight problem that I cannot solve and that I don't know the cause of. What happens is that in one section of my video, the audio quality suddenly goes "underwater", meaning - at one point in the video it sounds very muffled and murky. Then once that part of the video passes, it goes right back to normal when the scene changes. This occurs when playing on a Sony DVP-NS300 stand alone player. When I play the DVD on another standalone player (I forget what brand, doesnt matter I dont think), the audio problems are even worse and it sounds like Alvin & The Chipmunks. Also, that player seems to be playing at a slightly increased speed as well. (Which I would guess causes the high-pitched Alvinesque audio.)

Originally I thought it might be a problem with the DVD itself. I was burning all of my initial copies on a Sony DVD-RW, so I went ahead and burned a copy on a single-sided Memorex DVD-R (part #3203 5526), but I still experience the exact same problem.

To make this even more frustrating, when I play these same disks (both the DVD-RW and the DVD-R's) on my computer DVD player, I do not experience the audio problem at all. It plays back perfectly.

So after trying the disks on various players and also using different disks, I decided to look into the actual video sources to see if they were at fault. Let me explain how the video was assembled-

- All of my footage was captured with Premier on my Pinnacle DV500+ card, using all of Pinnacle's defaults - 720x480 NTSC, 48K audio.

- The footage was then used to create many sections in After Effects, sections that were then rendered/exported from After Effects in the same Pinnacle codec.

- The After Effects sections and raw footage sections were then assembled in Premier into their own sections. I have 8 sections altogether, each one of them a seperate Premier project.

- When all of the individual sections were completed in Premier, each section was then exported to a single intact file in the same Pinnacle codec. (Leaving me with 8 seperate video files.)

- The 8 sections were then put together in Premier into a complete video. The full video was then exported using the same Pinnacle codec, leaving me with the one, 15 gig, 71 minute video.

- The 15 gig file was then put through TMPGEnc and encoded down to a reasonable 4 gig file, which was then assembled and compiled in DVDLab and burned with Nero.


So when I went back to the source footage, I had two things to look at. 1) The individual segment in Premier, and 2) the full, assembled video in Premier that consists of all of the segments. In both cases, the video plays back fine in Premier! There is no distortion or effects or settings with the audio whatsoever, it plays back with no "underwater" problems at all. But just to be sure, I re-exported the individual section anyway, then I re-exported the entire 15 gig movie with the new section, and then re-encoded it again in TMPGEnc, but I still get the exact same problem when I finally burn it to DVD - underwater audio at the same exact spots when playing on the Sony, and Alvinesque audio when played on the other standalone. And, yet again, each disk I burn plays perfectly on my computer DVD player.


So now, I have to turn to you guys. I don't know how to solve this problem and I haven't a clue as to what causes it, and I'm already three weeks past deadline just trying to get this fully completed video off my editing machine. (Grrrr!)

Any help is appreciated, and thanks for your time.

[SuicideTaxi]

Oh, I should add-


When I play the individual section on my machine in Media Player (etc) it plays back with no problem whatsoever. Also, when I play back the full 15 gig video in computer programs there is no problem either. I only have the problem on the stand-alone DVD players after the disc is burned.

[BJ_M]

i would look at the following items:

it sounds af you have a section were the sample rate of the audio has changed from 48khz .. export your audio track from premiere as a wav file and run it through besweet or sound forge and encode it as 48khz (even if it says it is already) - then encode it as ac3 or leave it as wav (if you have the room) ..

check all your assests that they are indeed 48khz (it sometimes happens during editing that a project can be set up for 44.1 instead)

what did you use to encode your audio ? and in what format ? wav , ac3 or mpeg audio ?

[BJ_M]

an audio problem like this will not show up playing on a pc (as many dvd defects in bit rate and such) as on the pc - it is capable of playing out of spec dvd streams just fine ... for example, on a pc , the video buffer is ignored , but this isnt the case on a stand alone .

[SuicideTaxi]

The indivdual section was exported out of Premier in a one-piece .avi file, 48K audio, Pinnacle codec.

The individual section was then put in with the rest of the sections, and the entire 15 gig full video was exported exactly the same, Pinnacle codec, 48K audio.

That .avi was then put through TMPGEnc and exported into two parts, m2v video and 48K wav PCM.

[BJ_M]

yes well - as you describe -- it sounds as if part of the audio got wacked with the wrong sample rate .... since the video was encoded as one big chunk - its unlikly its a frame rate problem with the video .

an avi can contain audio at different sample rates and ive seen audio with the wrong meta data because of it ..

[dcsos]

Please go to the spot on the TIMELINE in PREMIERE and remove the companion stero channel for the length of the piece that always sounds UNDERWATER..

That is, HAVE PREMIER make 2 channel from one (sorry If there were stereo features in the removed section)

I believe in downconversion from 5.1 in the player someting is "beating against itself"

Good Luck

[housepig]

I have a suggestion, but you might not like it.

take the section that's causing you problems, and re-render it with a different codec, then put it through TMPGenc and re-author.

other than that, damn... I'm not sure. I'm working with similar materials, the only differences are my capture card (Aver DVD EZmaker) and my codec (Huffyuv), and I havne't had any problems like this.

[mkelley]

If after following these suggestions you still can't get it working, give me a call (I'm about 30 miles away from you, use Premiere and have been using DVDLab since the first beta).

There are issues with audio and DVDLab that need to be carefully addressed, but I'm sure we can solve them if you run into a brick wall.

Send me a PM if you like and I'll give you my number.

[housepig]

Send me a PM if you like and I'll give you my number.

mkelly -

while not specifically prohibited in the Forum rules, trolling for dates on this board is bad form.

[mkelley]

LOL. Yeah, too bad I suspect it's a *MR* taxi, rather than some shapely female (not that my wife would allow another shapely female unescorted within 20 feet of me :>)

It's not so often I see someone from my neck of the woods on these boards, so I thought I might be able to help personally (actually, I think I've even seen this guy post on the DVDLab forum, unless I'm halucinating, so it really IS a small world).

[jarvis1781]

i think housepig was just jealous you didn't ask him out!

LOL! before you reposted above I was going to ask housepig how he knew both of you weren't dudes. that's comedy. but who knows, maybe the housepig swings that way...I'm not one to criticize

[SuicideTaxi]

Well I'll be damned.


Opened up the wav file and looked at it, right channel looks odd in that one section, no idea why.


Thanks for the help, will be back in a few after checking this out.


(Yah Im a guy btw )

[SuicideTaxi]

Okay


BeSweet is enough to give me an anuerism.


"Ill just learn how to burn a DVD" I said, "How hard could it possibly be?"

Should have just taken a brick and beaten myself in the face with it.

[mkelley]

Don't give up yet.

Have you read this guide:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/userguides/129419.php

(Posted on the left here). Does that help any? If not -- where are you having problems?

[BJ_M]

i accually didnt mean to convert your files to ac3 using besweet -- just convert them to 48khz sample rate ...

if this dvd is for public use - you may find that the ac3 conversion in besweet is not compliant exactly .. but for sample rate conversion and many other things its the bee's knees ..

[SuicideTaxi]

Well I'll be a bareassed monkey's uncle.


OK, here's deal-


I opened up the audio file and looked it over, and I noticed that in the "underwater" section the right channel was strangely muted. Why? No damned clue, but it was. So I deleted the right channel and replaced it with a copy of the left channel, saved it, then re-encoded it in TEMPGEnc (I know I shouldnt be using TMPGE to re-encode audio, but I'm already a candidate for the rubber room and I'm behind schedule, and BeSweet is just too complicated for me to tackle right now), and then used the new encoded wav in the place of the orignal.

Works!

Underwater nonsense is gone.


Now I just need to figure out why the DVD freezes in some spots...

[jnk76]

Dvd freezing may be media you are using.

[SuicideTaxi]

Okay wonderful.


The underwater stuff is gone when I play back on the Sony standalone, but when I playback on the other player it's still Alvin & The Chipmunks.


Plus, the DVD occasionally freezes in the same spots on the Sony now. I dont know if it's the disk itself or what. I was using the RW again, right now Im burning to the same Memorex DVD-R I used before. If this doesnt work... I dont know what the hell Im gonna do cuz Im at my wit's end with this.

This whole thing is so frustrating I cant even see straight.


Tnx for all your help btw

[willy_annand]

The underwater stuff is gone when I play back on the Sony standalone, but when I playback on the other player it's still Alvin & The Chipmunks.

Some DVD players have a hard time with MP2 files. I convert the audio in all my files to either WAV or AC-3.

[SuicideTaxi]

It is wav

[Arky]

Ok, this is really clutching at straws, but... is your video at a high bitrate peak at this point in the video stream? It's highly doubtful, but maybe, just MAYBE, your combined data rate at that point of the video is too much for your player to cope with?

It's an odd suggestion, but then the symptoms you describe are just as odd!

I would also concur with the suggestions to try using alternative DVD-R media. Try a Ritek or a Verbatim/TDK/Pioneer disk. Although it is by no means the only possible cause, 'Freezing' is a classic sign of a poor disk.

I am intrigued by this thread, and I'm sorry to hear you are having so much frustration with your project when you are basically doing everything correctly.

Good luck!


Arky ;o)

[Arky]

BTW, are you actually AUTHORING your disk using TMPG DVD-Author, or are you encoding using TMPGEnc and then using a third party app to author your DVD? I'm contemplating whether or not there might be a multiplexing issue at play here.


Arky ;o)

[SuicideTaxi]

Well I re-encoded it to a DVD-R and ditched the RW, cuz I probably burned and erased that DVD-Rw about 25 times


Im watching the new burn now and it hasnt skipped yet. Sucks I have to watch this thing all the way through to see if it flakes out.

[SuicideTaxi]

Capture = Premier
Editing = Premier & After Effects
Encoding = TMPGEnc
Authoring = DVDLab

[xsbs52x]

if you are having problems with besweet, try downloading a demo of Sound Forge from Sonic Foundry. In sound forge, open the audio that has only the part that is giving you problems. then, on the menu bar at the top, click Process...Resample... when the window comes up, set the new sample rate to 48,000 and make sure that you check the box that says Set the Sample Rate Only. when that is done just save the file as an uncompressed wav and use that as your audio source. good luck

[SuicideTaxi]

Well I watched the video from beginning to end in my Sony standalone and it seems to work fine. No glitches, skips, freezes, or flakiness at all.


I just copied the left audio track over to the right audio track, and it works. I have NO EARTHLY IDEA why the right track flaked out like it did. No clue whatsoever. All I know is that this project would have NEVER EVER EVER been completed without the help of you guys, both directly and indirectly. If the credits werent already finished I swear to god I would thank you in the biggest, boldest letters possible!


Thanks again everyone.