AVI to DVD playback problems

[Pikeman]

Hi, I have a 1.16 GB AVI file that I wanted to burn onto a DVD to watch on my DVD player. I followed these instructions exactly (except for the subtitles part which I didn't need) and chose the DVD mpeg2enc quick present. Previously, I had tried the same thing with the DVD ffmpeg quick preset, but the burned disc came up as unreadable on both my DVD player and Apple DVD Player. So this time I used DVD mpeg2enc, and encoded the file:



After it was done encoding, ffmpegX produced these outputs:



That's exactly what the tutorial said it would do, so I took the movie.avi.ff.DVD folder and dropped it into Toast 6 (making sure to use the DVD-ROM (UDF) option), and burned it onto a blank DVD. However, when I went to play the DVD in my DVD player, nothing showed up on the screen. It read the disc and the timer started going, but no matter how much time elapsed, the screen was still blank. No sound, no video, nothing. I tried the same disc on my computer, but Apple DVD player did the same thing. Here are my questions.

1) What, if anything, can I do differently to make this work?
and
2) What are those 'movie.avi.ff.m2v' and 'movie.avi.ff.ac3' and 'movie.avi.ff.mpg' files at the top of my second picture there for? Am I supposed to do something with them? ffmpegX automatically created them along with the movie.avi.ff.DVD folder, so I figure they're there for something...

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[Case]

1. Next time, try the VIDEO_TS folder in Apple DVD Player before burning. If the computer software won't play it, chances are your home DVD player won't either.
Also rename the movie.avi.ff.DVD folder to a regular disc title; short, caps and no spaces. Doing this in Toast is good enough. Apple DVD Player won't care, but some home players may do.

2. movie.avi.ff.m2v - the video
movie.avi.ff.ac3 - the audio
movie.avi.ff.mpg - the video and the audio, just like a big VOB.

They're intermediate files, needed to create the content of VIDEO_TS folder.

[alph]

At 25fps you've created a PAL DVD and not an NTSC one, which is the standard in North America. This may be your problem. If you think it is, try changing the framerate to NTSC film, 23.9 fps, and then applying Pulldown in the tools tab, if you used the ffmpeg engine, or just turn on the 3:2 option if you are using mpeg2enc. I've had less sync issues doing the conversion that way than going to NTSC 29.9 directly.

Cheers,
Alph

[Pikeman]

Aha. Well, I set the framerate to NTSC Film and set it to 3:2 with mpeg2enc, but the same thing happened. No picture or sound when I play back the VIDEO_TS file with Apple DVD player. I'll try again with the ffmpeg engine to see if that'll make a difference.

[Pikeman]

Alright, I think it worked. Using these settings...



...the video encoded successfully, and I was able to open and play the VIDEO_TS file in Apple DVD player. However, when I went to burn the movie.DVD file to a DVD... it was 4.8 GB, which is just too big to fit on a DVD.

What would be the best way to make that small enough for a single DVD? I'm thinking I could just change the autosize settings to something smaller than 3:2, but I was wondering if anyone could recommend anything in particular?

Thanks.

[alph]

Since your video is already encoded, use the "DVD4" tools in the Tools tab to shrink your vob file down to 4 Gigs so it will fit on your DVD. This is a lot faster than reencoding the movie again. Next time, however, use the bitrate calculator in the Video tab to set your bitrate lower so that your resulting movie fits on 4 Gigs without having to use the DVD4 tool.

Cheers,
Alph

[Pikeman]

Ok, that worked. I got the movie.DVD folder below 4 gigs, and it burned onto a DVD, which plays on both my computer and DVD player. There's only one problem... no sound. Here's what it looked like in Toast:



As you can see, there's nothing in the AUDIO_TS folder. I'm guessing that has something to do with there not being sound. Is there some more I need to do (like add the movie.avi.ff.ac3 file to the AUDIO_TS folder) in order to get sound on the DVD?

[alph]

I'm not sure what the purpose of the audio folder is, but in my experience there is never anything in the audio folder. The audio is included in the VOB files. Try playing your vob files in VLC or MPEG Streamclip to verify that they contain audio. If not, then something happened at an earlier stage in the process, likely the encoding.

Alph

[Pikeman]

Ok, I opened up the vob files in MPEG Streamclip, and there's no sound.

[major]

You must also remove the .DS_Store files.

[Pikeman]

Would removing the .DS_Store files do anything to affect the audio, or is my problem of having no sound related to something else entirely?

[major]

It should be something else, try using VLC to play the files and check if it reports any audio.

[Pikeman]

Ok, I'm playing the vob files in VLC, and no audio is showing up for any of them.

[major]

Then possibly there was a problem at encoding time. You should in this case keep a copy of the process output (blue "i" icon in the progress window) and email it to me to major4@mac.com for diagnostic.

[Czeko]

Im also having this problem... is there a fix in the way? how can i help?

[major]

Keep a copy of the process output (blue "i" icon in the progress window) and email it to me to major4@mac.com for diagnostic.