motion menus dvd-lab with audio... problems

[thepoeticdragon]

hey all, long time reader but new member here. i've searched for the solution for this problem, but i don't think anyone's really come across it.

i've been making DVDs for a while now and have just started making what i hope to be my best creation. i am using tmpgenc to create the dvd/mpeg2 files - no problems there. but as i have progressed with dvd-lab pro, my work has run into a snag.

the dvd is of a concert. my chapter menus are switched menus, and every time a new chapter name is highlighted, i have auto-actioned it to switch over. each switched menu has a preview of that particular performance, usually around 30 seconds each. now, i understand that i had to put together the text and the links first, and then add in the sized video preview. then, i had to render motion. however, this is where things went odd.

beforehand, i had created the preview files by cutting up the original in tmpgenc. then i had them put in as assets for easy finding (that way i'm not jumping around in the source video for the exact point of the preview and what not) i kept the demultiplexed .mpa for use with the preview (of course, because they're previews i wanted them with the corresponding audio)

i rendered motion, and then i had my motion menu with the video chapter preview. however, when i went back to tmpgenc and checked it with the corresponding audio file, they were out of sync! i've tried everything but after i do the render motion (whether mpeg2 or avi for later encoding), they're always out of sync.

one thing i've noticed is that after rendering motion, it's as if the preview lost some frames at the beginning or something like that.

my goal is to just get the end result of 'render motion' to remain in sync with the audio i want to correspond with it.

i hope that i have described this situation with enough clarity. i thank you for any help.

[whitejremiah]

ive heard that tmpgenc can be kinda picky about splicing mpeg video....ive never personally had it happen to me, but that may be part of the issue......try another program to cut the preview out and see if that works or not....

[thepoeticdragon]

i'll try that, but i'm not all too sure.

the thing is, i'd play all of the spliced videos in my media player after the cutting and what not... they're always perfect. it's during the 'render motion', i believe, that the problems arise. for example, when the original file would have 844 frames in it (around 27 seconds), the output file from 'render motion' would have 821.

i'd be more than happy to try an external solution to creating these menus, if needed. dvd-lab has never failed me until now, but i've not lost faith in it. all i'd like is for the video and audio in them to be in sync.

[mikiem]

Rendering the menu pages outside of DVD Lab pro should fix it - the easiest way would probably be in a video editor (wax, vegas etc) but it can be done in Avisynth as well.

In DVDLab if I remember correctly you can set the video length & start point, but assuming the start point's set correctly, and you can't set it before video start , you might be limited to editing/trimming the audio to match your DVDLab rendered menu video. But it is an alternative to creating the menu video in other software.