Utter Confusion

[aliensporebomb]

Hello.

I have an .AVI of a cable access television show from back in 1988
that I'd like to burn onto a DVD-R for viewing on a standard television.

This material was transferred from VHS tape to an .AVI file by a video
guy with a PC some time ago but I'm a Mac user and am having
some issues.

The video shows up in a line at the top of the ffmpegX app as:
"Video: msmpeg4v2, 480x360, 29.97 fps, AUDIO: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, 128 kb/s".

The length of this fiasco is roughly an hour and 40 minutes and is
686 megs in size as an .AVI file.

What I want to do is create a file or files that would be suitable for
Toast 6 to burn onto a DVD-R disc for viewing in a consumer oriented
DVD player.

If I try and just drop the .AVI into Toast and burn as a DVD it claims
it's too big by just a few megabytes. (grr).

What I'm hoping can occur here is some kind of setting in ffmpegX
can be used to do it.

Thing is: I feel like I've got the controls of the space shuttle here and
there's so many options to try out I have no idea where to begin.

The "quick presets" are really great if you have an idea of what you
need. A VCD would be too short since it would need to be two discs.

So I ponder if one DVD-R disc would be do-able to do this task and if
this could be transferred.

I'm surely not the only clueless person regarding this issue. Thanks
in advance.

[major]

Look at the top of the window: despite the space shuttle control panel, all you have to do, is "1. Open file, 2. Select Quick Preset at the bottom (DVD preset in your case), 3. Encode"

[aliensporebomb]

Look at the top of the window: despite the space shuttle control panel, all you have to do, is "1. Open file, 2. Select Quick Preset at the bottom (DVD preset in your case), 3. Encode"

Which one?
DVD-Lo, DVD mpeg2enc, or DVD ffmpeg?

Thanks in advance.

[major]

Try DVD mpeg2enc, if you have a G4.

[aliensporebomb]

Try DVD mpeg2enc, if you have a G4.

Yep it appeared to work.

I have a directory with quite a few files in it.

How do I go about transferring this to the DVD-R in Toast 6?

Thanks in advance.

[aliensporebomb]

Let me clarify:
There's an .ac3 file in the directory,
an .mpg file in the directory,
a directory with .DVD at the end,
and an .mpv file

Inside the .DVD directory is:
AUDIO_TS
and
VIDEO_TS

AUDIO_TS is empty but the VIDEO_TS has:
two sets of .BUP and .IFO files as well as a large .VOB
file.

What option do I need to use in Toast and what files need
to be copied where?

Thanks.

[aliensporebomb]

Weird. I tried launching the .VOB file and it brought up a black movie
with sound.

Hmmm. I may need to re-encode.

[aliensporebomb]

Ah!

I read a similar thread (that user had a black video with no sound).
I will try not decoding with quicktime.

If this works I'll put a little tutorial together. I'm surely not the
first one who ran into this issue...

[aliensporebomb]

Very strange. Now it processes the file for 10 seconds, dings and no files
are in the directory I set up for converted files. Hmmmm....

[major]

To preview, open the VIDEO_TS folder in Apple DVD Player.

[aliensporebomb]

Sigh.


I tried using DVD mpeg2enc to encode and it would just stop
encoding after 10 minutes (bell ding) and no files in the
directory, using DVD ffmpeg worked, the resultant file
plays back great in VLC and shows up fine in Toast but
WON'T burn the file as a DVD.

If I try to burn it as a DVD it ends up "encoding" for roughly
ten minutes then gives me a MacOS error (a negative number
in the five digit range).

I support I can re-try mpeg2enc again sans quicktime but it
kept failing - I don't know why.

The machine in question has 768 megs of ram (mine has 1.5 GB,
would more ram work better?) and about 40 gigs of free space.
The DVD-R is blank and should write.

Sigh. Ideas?

[Case]

the resultant file plays back great in VLC and shows up fine in Toast but WON'T burn the file as a DVD.
If I try to burn it as a DVD it ends up "encoding" for roughly ten minutes then gives me a MacOS error (a negative number in the five digit range).

Sounds like you are using the Video tab in Toast. If you burn a VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folder, you should use the Data tab, with ‘DVD-ROM (UDF)’ set in the Advanced disc options.
Alternatively, you could burn the .img file as disk image (Copy tab), which should have the same result.

[aliensporebomb]

I just copy the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS into the data area with UDF
selected?

What about the 1.8 GB .mpg file that is located outside the directory?

If I copy everything into the disc I'll see what happens. I'm not sure
where the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS needs to go - presently they are
inside a directory with the name of the converted file.

[major]

Drop the folder with a .DVD at the end to the DVD-ROM (UDF) data area. If you see a file named .DS_Store, delete it.

The .mpg file is not for burning, it is for computer playback only.

[aliensporebomb]

The original file is test.avi.
ffmpegX creates a file and a directory:
The video which is "test.avi.ff.mpg" and is about 1.8 gigs.
Then there's a directory test.avi.ff.mpg.DVD.
Inside that is the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS.

If I copy the "test.avi.ff.mpg" file and the test.avi.ff.mpg.DVD
directory to a data UDF DVD as described I get a disc that is
playable and has a playable video but no audio.

What to do? AUDIO_TS is empty.
VIDEO_TS has an .IFO and .VOB file in it but both are zero KB.

Do I have to extract the audio from the original disc and somehow
reincorporate it?

The test.avi.ff.mpg file plays fine with both video and audio in VLC
and Mplayer.

Ideas on how to make a playable disc with both video and audio?

[major]

Try also to click the audio button of your DVD Player to see if the audio is playing on track 2.

[aliensporebomb]

No, not playing on track two either.

The menu of the DVD player which I'll post a couple of .JPGs of in
a few minutes might help.

The icon for the program shows "VCD" in tiny letters in an icon....

Stay tuned a moment...

[aliensporebomb]

When I put the DVD in the DVD player I get this menu:


If I select "rot" (I abbreviated the program to its initials) on the right,
the little pink icon says "VCD" in it and will play but without sound.

Anything on the left side shows up that it has files there but does not
play.

Here's what it looks like fished down there:


Isn't there any way I can use the "video" tab in Toast and get a
better looking interface? Or is this the only way it can work.

Ideas? So long as I can put a disc in and play the show (which
would really save us, the sole remaining VHS copy is in really,
really bad shape [can you say "coca cola does bad things to video
tape stock").

[aliensporebomb]

Note:
Only the Daewoo will play this disc at all (the cheapest player in the house)

The Apex in the bedroom says it is a bad disc.
The first generation (but nice) Onkyo says "Load Error".

When attempting to play it on the Apple DVD player in the computer, it
refuses to play.

AHA!

I can drag the file from the disc to VLC and it plays with sound.
I can drag it to quicktime and it plays there but no sound.
I do have 3ivx installed.

I thought I unchecked "decode" with quicktime but in the confusion
it may have been an earlier encode attempt. Dechecking and trying
again. I'll be back in five hours or so with my result.

I'll be an expert at this yet!

I still want to have it play in any hardware DVD player but I'll settle
for one for the moment.

[major]

1/ Did you burn VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS inside another folder? If yes, this is not correct, they must be located at the first level of the DVD.

2/ Did you burn both the .MPG file and the VIDEO_TS structure? If yes, this is an error. The .MPG file must not be included.

3/ If some files inside the VIDEO_TS folder are 0Kb, it could mean that the authoring step failed. In that case you should author the DVD folders again starting from the .MPG file.

You can email me to major4@mac.com for direct help.

[aliensporebomb]

Now I think I have an idea why it's not working.

When ffmpegX gets done, I've had it do its work in a
directory called "converted".

Inside the "converted" directory we have this:
rot.avi.ff.mpg which is 1.84 GB

and a directory which is labeled:
rot.avi.ff.mpg.DVD

inside are AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS directories.
AUDIO_TS has no files at all in it.
VIDEO_TS has a single IFO and a single VOB file in it.
each file is 8 kilobytes each.

So I copy AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS but NOT the MPEG file that
contains the content? Puzzled.

[major]

The content gets copied in the VOB file when the authoring process runs without errors. If it is 8kb, then there has been an authoring error. The DVD authoring is the process of creating the VIDEO_TS structure from the .mpg file.

[aliensporebomb]

I think the problem I had here is the original source material is
in some way corrupt. The original file plays fine but that doesn't
really help me here, since it will only play on a computer.

I note that at 47% in the encoding process an error shows up - I'll
post that here later.

I have to encode it with mplayer instead of quicktime or we get no
sound at all.

I was able to get six episodes of this old cable show to encode
correctly, some just by re-encoding it. Sometimes errant processes
(software update and the like) on the computer cause the encoding
process to be interrupted in some way.

But there are several more that may be corrupted in some way -
not corrupted enough to actually cause it not to play on the computer
but once converted there are issues that show up such as audio that
is out of synch.

Stay tuned.