ATI .mp2 audio problems

[volwrath]

I've searched through the forums and guide for the answer to this. I have an AIW 9000 that I used to capture some football games. I am attempting to burn a dvdr of the games. It appears to me that NTSC dvd players (including my Apex AD-1500) will not play .mp2 audio. When I attempt to load the .mpg into Ulead DVD Workshop, it asks if I want to keep the mp2 audio. Ive attempted to use tmpgenc and besweet to create a .ac3 file that can be imported into an authoring program. I just think it sucks that the ATI DVD preset cannot be used and directly sent to an authoring program. I am surprised no other ATI ppl out there are having similar problems. Help! What am I missing here. Thanks!

[FOO]

99% of NTSC players will play MPeg1 Layer 2 audio.

What you are doing wrong is recording football games.

[volwrath]

Ouch! Well the football games were really a test project. nonetheless my problem still arises. Can anyone confirm if the problem is ith dvd workshop?

[FOO]

Workshop is spozed to be better than MF2 but I haven't played with it much.
I made 1 DVD with it to check it out.

I have howver captured millions of movies with an ATI in MPEG2 with
MP2 audio and authored DVDs with MovieFactory2 while unconscious
and not paying attention and never had a failure.

...the true number is like 150


anyway tell WS that yes, you want to keep the audio. no program
is going to tell you what to do.

[volwrath]

Thanks for your reply. After your first reply, I attempted another short ati .mpg file, and unchecked the do not reencode and it worked. So I guess I can get it to work by re-encoding the damn thing. I will let you know how the football games turn out

Thanks for the help!

[FOO]

The whole point of capturing in MPEG2 is to save time
by NOT encoding. I'm sure that's obvious.
Maybe its' your Capture settings . The ones that come with
the MMC are not real excellent. You could change them.

[lordsmurf]

Demux and encode audio as compliant PCM (WAV/AIFF) or AC3 (Dolby Stereo).

[FOO]

Smurff , I'm apalled
you want PCM for someone that is trying to get 5 hours ?

Where did i get the 5 hours, never mind i think that was another thread

[volwrath]

Actually its about 3 hours long, and I finally got it to work. The sad thing is I don't know what was wrong , but it seems to be ok now. I guess I need to go play with it more.

Thanks Foo & Smurf!

[volwrath]

One other question about capture settings with the ATI card. Why does it have settings to capture at 720x480? All the guides I have read say to capture at 352x480. Do I gain anything by bumping it to 720x480 if Im willing to sacrifice space (but not bitrate). Thank you Master Foo. I am a lowly grasshopper

[FOO]

You might want to capture from a "good" source
like a Laser Disk or digital cable or a DVD

[pixel]

One other question about capture settings with the ATI card. Why does it have settings to capture at 720x480? All the guides I have read say to capture at 352x480. Do I gain anything by bumping it to 720x480 if Im willing to sacrifice space (but not bitrate). Thank you Master Foo. I am a lowly grasshopper

720x480 is the max. DVD resolution.

Most people suggest 352x480 because most digital broadcast stations use this resolution, or slightly higher. It is also the max resolution that you need to capture all the data from a S/VHS cassette.

Capturing at 720x480 will give you a slightly sharper image, but if it is recorded from a digital tv station, you are wasting your time. There is no point sacrificing space for a resolution of 720x480 over 352x480.

(Of course if you are capturing from something like a DVD or laserdisk, use 720x480 like FOO stated).

[bottle-necked]

volwrath

I've used ATI MMC for a couple years and have been putting video on DVDs for about 6 months and they all have MPEG Layer 2 audio(I think). Your's should work also. You must have something else happening.

Good Luck

p.s. I do know that ATI MMC capture will sometimes create a MPEG2 file with a higher bitrate than is allowed by authorizing software. If you were using the DVD HIGH preset then you may possibly have a file that the max bitrate is higher than 8Mbps, if so the authorizing program will attempt to reencode the file.

The older versions of ATI MMC used a file extention '.mp2'. Are you sure your masters were '.mpg'? Will they thumbnail in Windows? Just a thought.

[Nelson37]

This is my third year capping NFL games with ATI. First year with Radeon 7500, MMC 8.1, and DVD burner. Last capture is Perfect, NO pixelation at LOS, beautiful. Last year's 3 disk XSVCD is close, but not quite this good. Only the best for my Cleveland Browns. Here are my settings:

SVideo connected Digital Cable, though NFL games are on an Analog station.
DVD Mpeg-2 - This is important if you use cropping.
720x480 - it just looks better. It does, I have done repeated tests, I don't care what logical reasons there are that it should not, it does look better, I see it, my wife sees it, my 12-year-old sees it, my friends see it, its better than 352x480, its better than 480x480, it just looks better, OK?
Cropping on
VBR Avg 4.5 Max 5.0 - sure, this should pixelate, but it just doesn't. I don't know why, but I watch the LOS at the snap, even at 1.5x and frame by frame, excellent.
Motion set to 99
No masking or Video Soap.
48 K audio

Very Important - Adjust Brightness up significantly (75%), Color (70%), Contrast and tint very slightly down - you must to test burns and play thru TV as PC playback is NOT the same in these characteristics, you can get a feel for how much it changes but not an accurate picture unless you burn and play thru your standalone. Tint alone is very close on the PC.

Cut file at each quarter if possible, TMPGenc Merge and Cut is less inaccurate (yes, I meant to say it that way) on smaller files. Cut out commercials, demux and convert to AC-3 with BeSweet. DVDlab to burn, or I also remux and use Sonic MyDVD.

Reboot before every cap. This is VERY important.

[bottle-necked]

Nelson37, this just goes to show how different individual setups can be. I was adjusting my color and brightness controls on capture (like you are) until I upgraded my TV. Now I can use the default capture setting without any problems. (Sony FT Trinitron KV-27FV310). It displays about like my computer monitor.

One time on a wedding video project I did the capture/production/DVD like normal then, after complaints, viewed it on their TV. It was all out of wack, (my video that is) but it looked normal on my TV at home(?). Their TV was in default mode. I returned my settings to default and redid the project. Now I'm running defaults and I haven't had any more complaints and my captures are looking normal on different sets.

I'd be very careful advancing those settings because you may someday get a different TV like I did.

Good luck.

[rebarlow]

In reference to the original question, just a thought. The custom protocols in ATI MM seem to default to 44.1 sound sampling rate rather than 48. Since the sound plays fine when rendered through Ulead, but not when the file is not reconverted, I suspect sampling rate may be the source of the error.

[lordsmurf]

Very Important - Adjust Brightness up significantly (75%), Color (70%), Contrast and tint very slightly down - you must to test burns and play thru TV as PC playback is NOT the same in these characteristics, you can get a feel for how much it changes but not an accurate picture unless you burn and play thru your standalone. Tint alone is very close on the PC.

I don't go for any of this either. Gamma correct your computer monitor or learn the gamma settings for capture. Match it up against 3 tv sets and call it good.

Also remember many tv sets and DVD players have gamma controls (things like "black enhance" or "movie" modes).

[Nelson37]

I shoulda put a YMMV on that, I suppose. Have checked unadjusted and unadjusted captures on two other TV's, one a 50", and adjusted output looked better to me. None of the sets were on default settings, though all three were adjusted by picky people (3 different ones, I followed a guide linked here some time ago and the 50" guy is really meticulous). The difference is not dramatic, but is noticeable.

[bottle-necked]

Well this tells me that your video input signal is lacking in the items you are adjusting. You might be able to amplify your input signal. How are you getting your video input..... Coax or composite? And from what source.. Cable, antenna, or sat?

I can't believe, after owning 2 ATI cards myself, and installing over 25 ATI cards in other computers, that yours is out of sync that much..... It's got to be your input video.. ATI cards are just too good.

(?)

[Nelson37]

ATI cards are just too good????? I like them too, but...

I should clarify a little. The percent numbers are estimates, assuming the default values to be 50%. Adjustments were made comparing recordings to original VHS (thru SVHS player), or to re-broadcast of original Digital Cable source, in an A-B manner. Capture settings were adjusted so playback looked identical to original. My thinking was that this would eliminate my TV display from the equation. The original problem was that the colors were somewhat dull, and the image too dark. This was only noticeable comparing to originals doing an A-B switch. The problem is evident both for the VHS source and the cable input, 90% of my caps are cable but I used the VHS as an easily repeatable source. Have also tested cable capture against DVD of same movie (not used as source), these were done by switching disk rather than A-B but gave similar comparison.

I have in the past used a signal amplifier which did minimize, but not eliminate this problem. Unit was not replaced after a power surge killed it. All signal is run thru a Sima Copymaster, which did not seem to change the signal in any way. Usually use S-video but sometimes composite.

Gamma or any other adjustments to monitor did not solve the issue, at least not without making overall display on PC less usable. Problem has been present thru 3 different cards, 2 different PC's, and two TV's. And it was present on previous analog cable before digital install. Even the cable from pole to house has been changed when I got cable modem, but as stated above, it is evident on VHS caps. The effect changes only slightly thru all these variables.

I should emphasize that this problem is barely noticeable, and unless you do A-B checks it is hard to see. It is on a par with comparing a TV on default settings with one adjusted for optimum quality. I would urge doing some experimentation with these settings. YMMV

[lordsmurf]

Gamma or any other adjustments to monitor did not solve the issue, at least not without making overall display on PC less usable.

Correct. It may shoot the image to a region unpleasant for normal viewing.

But this is not a problem on a good monitor. Mine has 3 setting slots. I use one for video correction. The other is set for scanner/camera/printer correction. The last is for general use.

And let's not forget the ATI card has gamma settings too, not affecting the system. Plus the tv may just be out of wack. Yes, all of them. I rarely see a tv set that comes looking perfect out of the box.

[volwrath]

Nelson,

so you can put an entire game on 1 DVD with no pixellation?

[overloaded_ide]

I could never use ATIs stupid .MP2 files at all!
Also default of 44,100hz audio for a DVD??? That caused a great deal of problems as well! And it was the highest setting available in the MMC that came with my radeon 7500 card!

MMC 7.7 does great for me. 48,000hz audio and I do my captures now as mpg (mpeg2) and Not ATIs mp2!

No reall problems now at all.
Though I did have to change my boot drive from Fat32 to NTFS so I could capture to the capture drive again which was NTFS!

As for TVs? Ever notice you go to a store with alot of TVs set up for display, and none have the same quality picture!! Maybe in better high dollar stores they adjust them, but go to Wallmart! Half the Tvs look like garbage, and they are all playing the same thing! Why even display them working? And it is not that people play with the controlls and mess them up either. I am over 6 ft tall and the TVs on the top shelf I cannot reach are just as bad as those on the bottom shelf the kids play with!
Never really understood that!
At one time I thought they might be adjusting them to sell the ones they made the most profits on, but then that theory was trashed when several stores were pushing hard on Tvs that had the lowest quality pics of those on display! And playing with the adjustments brought it up to the same quality as the better ones!

[Nelson37]

Volwrath - The above settings, after cutting commercials, and using 128K AC-3 sound, gave a file just slightly too large for 1 DVD, though I believe that a different authoring app might accept it. The quality is excellent, with NO visible pixelation. The place to watch is at the line of scrimmage at the snap, I have always noticed pixelation there, however brief. Current captures show no evidence of this.