Bitrates & DVD Players Question.....

[RKelly]

Hello,
My main questions is, why do higher bitrates on authored DVD's freeze on certain DVD players? My secondary question is what is considered a "safe" bitrate that has universal compatability in the sense that the picture won't freeze? I have authored dvd's in the past and consistently run into the freezing problem, and I'm wondering why. My setup is a Panasonic MiniDV camcorder, inputting the footage as .avi via Vegas, then converting it to Mpeg II via TMPGEnc. I was told the higher the bitrate the higher the quality, and that I should use around 8000 kbps when encoding video from a camcorder. That seems to work fine for decent to higher end DVD players, but it freezes the picture in my "cheapo" AMW DVD player. Even footage encoded at around 5150 kbps freezes (the audio still plays). I am doing a wedding video that will go out to many family members, and I don't know how many have decent quality players and how many have bargain basement models. I would prefer to encode at a "safe" bitrate that all players can play correctly.

[redwudz]

From 'WHAT IS' DVD to the upper left on this page:

Total bitrate including video, audio and subs can be max 10.08 Mbps (10080 kbps)

But most any player should handle 10000. I use around 8500 to 9500 most times.

If you are getting 'freezing' below 9500, you have other problems. 8500 seems a very safe bitrate. Are sure that's your combined bitrate, including audio and subs? Going down below 5000 with a DVD will drop the quality a fair amount.

[jagabo]

Even footage encoded at around 5150 kbps freezes

That's not a too-high-bitrate problem. It's the encoding, the media, or something wrong with the player.

[RKelly]

Interesting comments, thanks. I wonder what it is then. Like I said I use Vegas, then TMPGEnc, then ImgBurn using Verbatim media. Maybe it's the DVD player. I've noticed the freezing on my AMW model, and also on my parent's no name portable DVD player. But these units play regular DVD's fine. Hmmmmm

[jagabo]

Did you use AC3 audio?

[RKelly]

I don't know to be honest with you. I am still using TMPGEnc Plus (I figure the program works well enough) and I don't want to pay to upgrade to their newer line of encoders. Within that, it looks like it's MP2 audio (I think?). Does that make a difference?

[jagabo]

Yes, it can make a difference. MP2 audio is not a part of the NTSC DVD specification (it is included in the PAL spec though). Most players will play it but I've seen a few players have problems with it. They symptoms vary, but from what I recall, playing the audio with jerky video was one of them.

[RKelly]

Interesting because TMPGEnc has that audio as an option under NTSC video standard. I have seen this answered here before, but it escapes me now.....how do I convert to AC3 audio?

[jagabo]

You can verify that MP2 is the problem by using LPCM instead.

You can use Aften to convert to AC3.

[Midzuki]

RKelly wrote:

Interesting because TMPGEnc has that audio as an option under NTSC video standard.

TMPGEnc stands for "Tsunami MPEG Encoder". Not all MPEG files
have to be DVD-Forum~compliant, and all MPEG files have to be
"playable" on any computer. Remember, MP1/2/3 means "MPEG-1 Audio,
Layer 1/2/3".

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