TMPGenc dropping audio track?

[KSJ]

I have a strange problem when I encode to VCD-MPEG1 with TMPGenc. If I encode the straight, compressed AVI without frameserving, it drops my audio track after a couple minutes. If the encode it long enough, it might pick it back up 20 or so minutes later--but it will pick it up where it dropped it, so the audio is 20 minutes or so behind the video. Does anyone know why this happens and what I can do to prevent it?

It doesn't happen when I frameserve to TMPGenc, but when I frameserve, I have a host of different problems, such as blockiness in the background. When I save the audio track as a wav from the avi and try to multiplex it back in later, I get strange messages in BBMPEG (it's been a while since I tried it, so I don't remember what they were--something relating to the padding, I think) and the audio starts out minorly out of sync and gets worse the longer it plays.

I can't get Panasonic encoder to work on my system either frameserving or encoding the compressed avi directly (I've heard people have issues with Panasonic and Win2K. For myself, it will SAY it's encoding, but the "encode" only takes a couple seconds no matter what I'm trying to encode, and the resulting file won't play at all) and any attempt I've made to encode to MPEG1 with CCE 2.5 ends up desperately wrong. (When I hit PLAY on the VCD, the picture is in only the top right quarter of my TV screen, with the DVD player's "curtain" in the other 3/4 of the screen. This continues until I scan backward, at which point the image will become full screen, and will play full screen, but the top two or three inches will be a couple inches out of alignment with the rest of the image--i.e. the very top of someone's head it floating in the air next to them somewhere--and there's all sorts of blocky static at the top of the image that will "bleed" down into the rest of the image whenever something in the main portion of the image comes in contact with it.)

Anyone know why any or all of these problems are occuring and want to give me a nudge in the right direction toward fixing them? I'm using a Win2K machine, 1.4 GHz, 512MB memory, applications on a 6GB/5400 RPM C: drive, storage on a 40GB/7200 RPM D: drive, Nvidia G-Force MX200 capture card, capping in VirtualDub using Huffy codec.

KSJ

[c_looj]

i have same problem:
Windows xp
tmpgenc 2.02
avi compressed with huffyuv
amd t-bird 1.2 ghz
iwill kk266-r
2x maxtor 30 gb drives
1x wd 100 gb drive

[KSJ]

Surely someone has encountered this issue before?

[Fnomna]

I had this problems with my last 2 VCD/SVCD movies.
I had a 45-50 minute AVI which I had captured with iuVCR and when
I opened it in mediaplayer worked fine.

With the first movie, I was doing a VCD and used VirtualDub to cut bits
from the AVI which I didn't want. Then saved the AVI. Then I noticed
after encoding with TMPEG that at about 2 minutes the sound dropped and
I had no idea why. I ended up extracting the audio in VirtualDub to WAV,
then using TooLame to encode to mp2 audio and multiplexing with the
video mpg in TMPEG. (This was my last resort - short of reencoding!)

Just this weekend I was doing a SVCD and followed the same procedure.
Captured in iuVCR, trimmed in VirtualDub -> save AVI. This time I went
to play the trimmed AVI in mediaplayer and it would start alright and then
sure enough the sound would drop at about 2 min into the movie! If I
tried to click on the slider bar to go to 15min, an error would come up.
I opened TMPEG and went to 'Source range' to look at the movie.
Here I could move the slider through the whole movie and saw the
audio level drop at the 2min mark and then COME BACK at about 47min!!
WHO KNOWS WHY!!

Anyway, this time I did not want to mess around with WAV and mp2 and
muxing. So I knew the only thing I had done was trim the captured AVI
in VirtualDub and saved it. The problem had to be there. For no reason
I tried saving as OLD FORMAT AVI instead and guess what - it worked!
NO audio drop out. So that's my problem solved. Maybe yours occured
the same way?

Now my problem left is that iuVCR dropped frames and now the audio is
out of sync. For one captured AVI I removed the dropped frames and
offset the audio in VirtualDub and that worked. But for the second AVI
I did the same and now when I append this AVI in VirtualDub the audio
gets out of sync at the join point. Any ideas?

[rmac]

I found the same problem and just posted it this morning in this forum. (See below). I'm also convinced the problem is caused by VDub. I tried a quick 5 minute test after I posted with both stripping the audio to a WAV and doing the regular method, and BOTH WORKED; so no news yet. Unless the file has to be over a certain length to cause the mis-registration.

I'll try the OLD FORMAT process tonight and report back.

[Fnomna]

I have done other VCD/SVCD without using VirtualDub in-between and
things work fine. I usually capture 45 min of video for the first disc and
the remaining part of the movie in a separate capture. Then just use the
source range in TMPEG to 'cut' the bits at the beginnning and end.

The last couple of times I have tried iuVCR and captured the lot in one
go. The reason i had to use VirtualDub is because iuVCR dropped frames
and lost audio sync. So I cut out the frames and offset the audio in
VDub and then saved to a new 2.3Gb file. This is the only time I've had
problems. (Is there a fix for this? or do I go back to VDub capture?)

Previously, I was using VDub to capture and that worked well. At least
when frames dropped, the audio was still in sync. iuVCR has some good
options and uses WDM drivers which use less CPU% on my computer.
Capturing using MJPEG set to 19 in SVCD resolution now works well.
Using VDub and VfW drivers I had to drop back to 16 or frames would
drop.

I'm pretty sure it's a VDub problem with large files.
I don't think it's CPU/setup related. Some extra info:

Duron 750 @ 900, Epox 8kta3, WinME, 10Gb WD ATA66/5400,
20Gb Seagate U5 ATA100/5400, TVExcel capture card (highly
recommended : captures PAL 720x576! - bt878 chip)

[rmac]

Last night I converted two 45 min files; one using the VirtualDub "old AVI 1.0" file structure and the other using the regular AVI save, but with the audio stripped to a WAV file.

Unfortunately both worked fine. I can't think of anything else that happened in between the good and the bad, not even a reboot, so the problem may be intermittent.

I'm using the latest build of VDub 1.4.8, WindowsXP. a slightly overclocked AthlonXP 1800, 512 MB; nothing that should present a hardware bottleneck. The only strange thing I'm using is an IDE RAID 0 array, but I think that's really a stretch. I'll be looking for more clues.

OOPS- I lied. I just looked at the VirtualDub website and 1.4.9 has been released.

http://www186.pair.com/vdub/virtualdub_kb

In the bug fixes he mentions MJPEG frame error bug, but that may only apply to my situation. I'll update tonight and see if that has any affects.

[rmac]

I downloaded and tried VirtualDub 1.4.9 last night, and it looks like the problem is unaffected.

Using the WMP slider test, a direct stream edit saved as a version 2 AVI has the audio problem while the same edit saved as a version 1 (OLD AVI) doesn't. In fact it seems that taking the direct stream V2 and resaving the same file as a V1 fixes it. Thanks to Fnomna for the workaround.

[omf]

Just to add another data point: I'm having the same problem.

Trying to join two large AVIs along with trims at the beginning and end of each. The AVI's are about 10GB each (45min of DV). I've tried both the Panasonic and MainConcept DV codecs, but both result in the same problem: my joined AVI plays fine in VirtualDub, but looses sound after a couple of minutes in MediaPlayer. The sound returns part-way through the joined AVI, but it's seriously out of sync with the video.

Trying this with VirtualDub 1.4.9 on XP Pro. I'm about to give the "Save as Old AVI" option a try...