Odd freezing/skipping behavior in TMPGEnc encodes

[Steen4]

When creating CVD video with TMPGEnc, occasionally the resulting encode will exhibit the following strange behavior: at some point, either the video will freeze, leaving the audio portion playing normally, or the entire video will skip a second or two and continue playing normally. I find no problem (that one with my limited experience can detect) with the source file, and demuxing and remuxing as an MPEG-2 program file results in a perfectly playable file. Also, the error occurs independent of the codec used to recompress the edited source file (I have used Huffyuv and uncompressed RGB to resave before converting to half D1 mpeg-2). Sad to say, though, that taking demuxed video and audio streams and recombining them as a CVD/SVCD video file merely brings back the skipping/freezing problem. Is there a way to remedy this problem, or is it merely some sort of issue with the mpeg-2 decoder (Intervideo WinDVD) and not the file itself? Is TMPGEnc trying to haze me into hurling myself out of the first convenient fifth-story window? Why do I feel like ending this post,"Same bat-time, same bat-channel"?

[reboot]

First, check the source video for errors in Virtualdub.

1) Load the .AVI file (DivX-compressed or otherwise) into the most recent version of either VirtualDub or VirtualDubMod
2) Set "Video" to "Direct Stream Copy"
3) Select "Check for errors"
4) Select "Mask bad frames"
5) Save with a new filename

Then try and import your "Repaired" AVI file in TMPGEnc.

Have you attempted to view these in a different viewer, such as WMP or PowerDVD?
It's quite possible that something on/in your computer is causing the problem, and not your method.
Does the system have plenty of RAM?
Have you attempted a burn, and then playback the burn?
If so, does the same problem exist?

[Steen4]

I have tried checking the stream in VirtualDub (no problems reported), and I usually watch the finished product with WMP. I have 256MB of system memory, and the finished video looks just fine on my standalone. It bothers me, though, that this sort of 'hiccoughing' occurs on my PC. There are some video encodes that, for various reasons, I would rather not burn and watch on a standalone (my pre-censorship episodes of Beavis & Butt-head, or Sam Kinison's HBO Specials, for example. Also, I'd hate to have to go to my son's school and explain to his principal why there is a child yelling,"Huzzah!" and pulling an imaginary penguin out of his a**, a la Richard Lewis). Luckily, I encode to both D2 and VCD (which plays without a hitch), so I'll get by. Good thing Sam Kinison is just as nasty at 352x240 as he is at 352x480!