After conversion with CCE there is a/v async (unique)

[vumpler]

I believe this is a unique problem because I have searched the forums for about an hour...

My problem has been long and extensive, but so far I've been able to fight through it until this point.

I've got a series of 6 avi files. All of which have the following stats except the bitrate and frame quality are slightly different:


My problem seems to lie with the 4th .avi file. There is one point in the video where part of a comercial got recorded. It shows the comercial for about 1-2 seconds and then back to the show. From that point on the audio is out of sync by a small margin and seems to get worse as it goes on.. Anyway I went through a long process of exacting the file with virtualdub and then going into soundforge and fixing the sync problem. So then I went on to attempt to merge all the 6 files to 1 large avi file.

I tried seval programs. A few of which I saw suggested while searching the forums here :
1: All Video Joiner (it says "failed merger" immediately when I try.
2: AVI MPEG RM WMV Joiner (it crashes immediately after i hit join
3: Nandub (Finally I got it to merge)

With Nandub I used the guide here on the forums to merge and convert. I also tried one of the ones on doom9's site.

Regardless with Nandub the video merged great and the avi has full sync audio and video all the way though.

But then I encode it with CCE using the guide from linked earlier. The process took 2-3 hours to completely convert (which is fine) and I come back and play it. It's fine until that same spot that I was having problems earlier.. By then end of the video (counting all 6 merged) about where the 6th one is it's off by a couple seconds... But this doesn't make any sense because the AVI source file is perfect...

Are there any suggestions or anything I can do?

The reason I'm using CCE and Nandub and Virtualdub is because I want an awesome HD quality encode. I've used WinAVI and a boat load of others and they never come out with great quality at all. Minimal quality at best. Example: when I did just one of these 6 files with winavi the quality is poor on my HDTV. You can see blocks when the camera moves and it's grainy the whole 9 yards. When You loock at the quality of the one done with CCE the quality is perfect. Very blown away with the quality but the audio is off!? I've messed with this for about 18 hours now and I still can't get it and I've given up to ask for help.

Thanks guys!

[guns1inger]

Variable BitRate MP3 may be an efficient way of storing the audio for size, but it definately causes issues with some playback devices and most encoders. I generally have success by letting virtualdubmod rewrite the headers with CBR data, extracting as uncompressed wav, then encoding to AC3. However there has been, on the odd occasion, a vbr audiotrack that has so screwed with the timing that I cannot recover it without expending far more effort than the file was worth. The symptoms are similar to what you are experiencing, where it appears to be in sync, then drift out, and only by cutting the audio into very small pieces and syncing these individually will it come good.

You are compounding your problem further by then trying to join the pieces to gether into a single large file.

I would suggest the following approach to see if it improves your results

1. Encode each video indivually
2. Extract the audio to uncompressed wav and encode it to AC3 with ffmpgegui or sound forge if you have the ac3 plugin. Do not encode audio with cce.
3. Author them as seperate assets, but in the same titleset. TDA is particularly good are allowing you to place multiple items in the same titleset, and by removing excess chapter points, get seemless (or virtually) playback.

18 seems like a lot, but in reality, it's not much time at all.

[vumpler]

Well I guess it's really not a long amount of time, but to me it is... Because this is just for recreation to watch with some friends.

I'm trying what you suggested right now. I'll keep you posted.

[vumpler]

I can't seem to find that ac3 plguin for soundforge and I can't find a download for ffmpgegui? Do you have a link to either by chance Thanks

And this step:

3. Author them as seperate assets, but in the same titleset. TDA is particularly good are allowing you to place multiple items in the same titleset, and by removing excess chapter points, get seemless (or virtually) playback.

You're just saying (because I use TDA) titleset as the movie?

Also:

I generally have success by letting virtualdubmod rewrite the headers with CBR data, extracting as uncompressed wav, then encoding to AC3

When you say have it rewrite the headers with CBR data, where is this option in virtualdubMod? I just downloaded it and this is different from the virtual dub I have of course... Is there a tutorial on this somewhere?

[guns1inger]

ffmpeggui - my typo.

You will know if you have the plugin for Sound Forge because you will be able to choose AC3 as a file type under Save As . . .

Add the first movie to the titleset. Add the second movie. TDA will put a chapter point at the start of the second movie. Remove it. Add the chapters that you need, create menus etc, and compile. Test the playback and see how it goes.

[vumpler]

What bitrate of AC3 do you suggest 128 or 192? And sample rate of 4800 or 44100? Thanks for all your help

[guns1inger]

Sample rate of 48khz is mandatory for DVD. Bitrate for AC3 depends ont he source quality and the number of channels.

If the source is stereo mp3 in the 128 - 150 range, 192 kbps is OK. 224 is better. If you have high quality stereo source, 256 - 384 should be considered. For 5.1, 384 is a minimum for quality, and 448 is better.

[vumpler]

One thing I did fail to mention is when I take the files into TDA I get an error saying I"ve went over the 9800 audio + video bit rate total.. And I'm at like 10,008. Is this something to worry about? It says its a pretty serious error however when I took the final DVD it played fine on my xbox360? Also I don't know how this error is occuring I'm guessing its only momentarilly because of the VBR multipass.

[guns1inger]

You can check with a bitrate viewer to see if this is sustained. If it is sustained you may have playback problems in some players.

[redwudz]

Here's one guide on how to use VDM to extract the audio as a WAV: https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=280779 I usually use ffmpeggui for a fast encode to AC3 after I extract the WAV.

If you're not familiar with VirtualDub Mod or VirtualDub, it's a tool well worth learning.

[guns1inger]

When you encoded the video, did you encode it as 23.976 fps with 2:3 pulldown, or as 29.976 fps ?

For your source you should encode at 23.976 fps with 2:3 pulldown, or you might introduce a drifting sync problem.

[vumpler]

Well I've kind of gotten a hang of Virtual Dub but VDM is missing the pull down menu's I'm used to in VirtualDub. Thanks for the link I'm now trying what guns1inger suggest about doing the video files as individuals... Why is it that these people who write these tutorials so highly suggest merging all the avi files prior to encoding? I really don't understand this now that you said something guns1inger because in CCE you can que more than one video to do at a time. *shrugs*

[vumpler]

Well I did it with 23.976 but I didn't much pay attention to the "pulldown." first off I don't understand what it means and secondly it seems like the options are pretty locked in with CCE.

Oh and I looked it up in the tutorial I used:
https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=222898
and he suggested 2:3 pulldown always so that's what I did use.

[vumpler]

guns1inger I want to say thank you very much because in one try that fixed my whole problem. I just can't believe they would suggest for me to merge them all when you don't have to. And wasn't even like a suggestion it was more like you have to or its going to take wayyy more time, when it doesn't. It works great and I thank you!

[vumpler]

Question:

What's the lowest bitrate you would suggest for a DVD wanting to sustain near hd quality? Where it will still look HD on my HD tv. Not grain or block filled with motion etc. I would like to squeeze 3 hours of video onto a DVD but I'm afraid it wont be decent enough quality. 3 hours mean i have to use 2,999kb/s bitrate...

[manono]

I'm not guns1inger, nor can I pretend to speak for him, but you can stop deluding yourself that you're getting HD or near HD quality. You're starting with AVIs. The detail and sharpness has already been wiped out. Even if you were to start with the original source DVD, it's only Standard Def. The usual advice about encoding AVI to DVD is to use 3-4 times the bitrate of the AVI. I wouldn't know, as I don't reencode AVI to DVD. I watch them in my DVD/MPEG-4 player. They look bad enough without being reencoded.

[vumpler]

Heh I hear ya. Well I guess what I'm saying is the AVI's I downloaded are from the HD rips from TV. Therefore I just mean good quality I guess. So that's fine Thanks for the general info

[guns1inger]

Gotta agree with Manono on this. The best you can hope for is to preserve the quality you have, maybe reduce the macro-blocking that comes from heavily compressed mpeg4 material, and get it to DVD. Given that to do this you have to resize, and therefore also lose some fine detail (if there was any left).

That the source for this was HDTV doesn't really matter once it was resized down to lower than SD resolution, and then compressed.

Realistically, you can put maybe three 45 minute episodes to a disc without reducing the quality too much (you might not even notice the drop). 4 or more will show visible effects. If you want more than 3 on a disc, you are better off getting a player than can play Divx/Xvid etc files. (That's what I'm doing)