Bitstream vs. PCM audio

[arrosen]

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum, but here goes:

I have just started burning my VHS tapes to DVD. I use my (new) digital camcorder to convert the old VHS tapes to avi files, convert them to MPEG2 and then burn to DVDs.

On my home DVD player, I must play these DVDs using PCM audio rather than Bitstream audio if I want to hear anything. I have burned other DVDs and have not had to make this adjustment. Also, when I played this DVD in my PC and in my car they both played fine.

Can someone explain what the difference between bitstream and PCM is and what I might be doing to cause PCM to be required.

BTW, I am using the following tools
Sony TRV350 camcorder
Scenalyzer for getting the AVI files onto my PC
Procoder to convert from AVI to MPG
Tmpgenc-dvd to create the DVD content and write the DVD

Thanks!

[pixel]

Bitstream audio is MPEG1/2 audio that is compressed, LPCM (i hope that is what you meant by PCM) is uncompressed, so is better.

Your standalone DVD player may be incapable of playing MPEG audio and the reason commercial DVD's work is because they are usually DTS or AC3 audio and you're player will probably support these.

You could try Sonic DVDIT! as it converts the audio to AC3 as this would hopefully be compatible.

If you did actually mean PCM and not LPCM, PCM is illegal for DVD authoring and I don't know how TMPGEnc DVD Author works, but if it doesn't re-encode the audio this is your problem.

Hope some of this helps.

[arrosen]

Thanks...your explanation makes a lot of sense!