AVStoDVD Support Thread

[manono]

I though that it would be a problem to resize 476 interlaced lines to 480, but I can't see any problems. So, what is the magic behind resizing interlaced content in AVStoDVD?

It's either separating the fields and resizing before reinterlacing or bobbing and resizing before reinterlacing. A quick look at the AVS it's using for your video should tell the tale. Or post the AVS here and someone can explain what's going on.

[manolito]

AVStoDVD is smart enough to resize interlaced content vertically by using bobbing (it uses LeakKernelDeint) before resizing.

But resizing vertically from 476 to 480 is not a good idea. I believe you would be better off adding 2 pixel borders at the top and the bottom before encoding. I would also add borders to the left and right to reverse the cropping done by Handbrake to bring the frame size back to 720 x 480. AVStoDVD lets you edit the AVS script to do this.

Cheers
manolito

[manolito]

@jjcinema

Sorry for the delay, I just came back from my annual motorcycle trip (Northern Italy and Switzerland)...

Good to see that you were able to sort out most of your issues by yourself. For the audio sync problems I think that your DVD recorder which splits up the files is the most likely culprit. But muxing with FFmpeg can under certain conditions also cause sync problems. I posted this some days ago in the Doom9 forum:

FFmpeg always muxes the audio tracks into the MPG file with a -40ms delay. The MPG itself plays fine, even after repacking it into an MKV container there are no sync problems.

But after transcoding such a file to AVC/AAC (I use StaxRip for this) I do get an audio sync problem. MediaInfo reports this -40ms delay, and StaxRip feels that it must correct the delay. If you override the delay correction manually, everything is cool again.

Editing out commercials directly in AVStoDVD is not possible. What it can do is trim off unwanted frames at the start and at the end of a source clip. This is done in the preview window. You have to use "View/Edit title settings" and select the "AviSynth" tab. Uncheck the "Auto Avisynth Script" option and start the preview. Now you can see the "Set Start Frame" and "Set End Frame" buttons. Mark your start and end frames and close the preview window. Now you can see the according trim command at the bottom of your script.

Unfortunately this does not work if you want to cut out more than one part. So you need to use a separate software to edit out commercials. My weapon of choice for this task is VirtualDub together with a small tool called VCF2AVS. Just write an AVS script containing just a source filter for your input clip. Open the script in VDub and make your cuts. Then click "Save processing settings" from the File menu. Open the resulting VCF file with VCF2AVS, this will create an AVS script with all the necessary Trim commands. Paste these Trim commands to the end of your AVS script created by AVStoDVD.


Cheers
manolito

[jjcinema1]

@ manolito

Thanks Manolito for the reply, I hope you enjoyed your holiday, yes I was able to get all sorted and I think you are spot on that the culprit was the recorder that was splitting the files. I have not has this issue since I have fixed the recorder file split issue. Now I'm recording in one large file which is a lot better to handle for me anyway. I will have a read on the thread in the doom9 forum regarding the FFMPEG muxing.

Its a shame that AVS2DVD does not have a utility as such for editing out footage such as commercials ect but I will have a look at virtual dub and give that a go. Thanks again.

jjcinema

[manolito]

If you are going to try VDub for editing out commercials, here are some hints:

To load the source video into VDub you can either use an AVS script with a suitable source filter, or you can use VDub source plugins (written by fcchandler). I always use a script with just 1 line:
FFVideoSource("...Full path\file name...")
But of course you can also use DirectShowSource or any other source filter which recognizes your source.

Editing out commercials works by setting start and end points for the stuff you want to delete and then press the DEL key. After editing is finished, you save the processing settings to a VCF file. Make sure that the option "Include Selection and Edit List" is activated.

There are 2 different VCF2AVS programs. The one written by BB is a little more complex, the other one by DarkSoul is easier and will get the job done. It is hard to find these days, so I have uploaded it here:
http://www32.zippyshare.com/v/dxrZ0UND/file.html

The trim commands can be added to an existing AVS script, but when using AVStoDVD you just need to specify a new script which you can then open and copy & paste the trim commands into your AVStoDVD script.


Good luck
manolito

[RBTO]

I noted in looking at video frames, the original PAL are anamorphic while the converted NTSC are not, if that's worth anything.

It's not. By that definition, all DVDs are anamorphic. I think you mean in the PAL DVD, at 720x576 and unresized, the people look tall and thin while in the NTSC DVD, at 720x480 and unresized, the people look "normal". Except they don't. 720/480=1.5. "Normal" would be 1.33:1, like 640x480. The people you're seeing at 720x480 are actually somewhat squat and fat, before the resize.

Please correct me if I've not said what you meant. Anyway, none of this has anything to do with the subtitle problem you encountered.

Not all DVDs are "anamorphic". When widescreen features are transferred to DVDs, there are two choices: letterbox the image and insert black lines at the top and bottom which results in these blanked lines not contributing to vertical resolution of the image; stretch the widescreen image vertically so it occupies the full 480 lines thus utilizing full vertical resolution for the image, and then have the DVD player recompress the image vertically to its widescreen format (DVD players have this capability). The latter approach is used on "anamorphic" DVDs (Blu-Rays tossed this process). This process still didn't fit every widescreen movie, but it increased the utilization of the video lines available, and of course it still results in letterboxing of the final image.

Anyway, when I saw the PAL image, I incorrectly concurred that it was an "anamorphic" DVD. As it turns out, "The Saboteurs" has a 16:9 aspect ratio so no widescreen treatment is needed (hence this DVD is not "anamorphic"). You are completely correct in saying the 720x480 format needs to be resized to fit the 16:9 aspect ratio (the pixels aren't square but rectangular). My bad.

What I was trying to say is that if the PAL frame is resized to the NTSC frame and the subtitle frame isn't, it might be the reason behind the problem I was having. Take a look at the attached images. I placed a sample subtitle across the PAL frame in the first illustration. In the second, I resized the frame to approximately 83.3% height (dropping the pixel count from 576 to 480) for the NTSC conversion. This was applied to both the image and the subtitle. In the third illustration, I applied the reduction to just the image and look what happens to the subtitles - just about what I was seeing before I raised them 90 pixels so they were back on the image area.

That may or may not be what happened, but that was what I was trying to say in my original post. Scratch the anamorphic bit.

[fbreve]

I though that it would be a problem to resize 476 interlaced lines to 480, but I can't see any problems. So, what is the magic behind resizing interlaced content in AVStoDVD?

It's either separating the fields and resizing before reinterlacing or bobbing and resizing before reinterlacing. A quick look at the AVS it's using for your video should tell the tale. Or post the AVS here and someone can explain what's going on.

AVStoDVD is smart enough to resize interlaced content vertically by using bobbing (it uses LeakKernelDeint) before resizing.

But resizing vertically from 476 to 480 is not a good idea. I believe you would be better off adding 2 pixel borders at the top and the bottom before encoding. I would also add borders to the left and right to reverse the cropping done by Handbrake to bring the frame size back to 720 x 480. AVStoDVD lets you edit the AVS script to do this.

Cheers
manolito

Thank you

[jjcinema1]

@manolito
Thanks for the hints on virtual dub I will try this method out when i get a chance. On another off subject matter if or when you burn to blank dvd what brand is best to use and at what speed? Also I have always used dvd-r but would switching to dvd +r have any advantages? I was having this discussion with a few people in the last week and some have had dvds they burned 15 years ago that still work 100% perfect, so this brought up discussions about disc brands, format and storage methods , burning speeds ect so I was just curious what you and others on the forum use ect. I have mostly used TDK -R in the past and they seem to be lasting well has my 12 year-old discs are still working great.

Thanks
jjcinema

[manolito]

Which brand of DVD blanks using which burner at what speed...
Ask ten different people and you will get ten different answers. But you asked for my own experiences, so I'll try:

First of all DVD burning has matured a lot, the situation is much better today than it was 10 years ago. Most burners handle -R(W) and +R(W) blanks equally well, but this still depends a little bit on the chipset of the burner. Generally you can say that Philips based burners prefer +R(W) blanks. All my burners have a Philips chipset, so I generally prefer the +R(W) blanks.

Today most DVD blanks come from India, as far as I know the top notch Tayo Yuden blanks are not made any longer. I think that any brand name blanks are quite usable these days, and for myself I have not used expensive blanks for some time. I found that my burners handle most no-name blanks quite well. The reason is that I use BenQ / Philips burners exclusively, and these burners have a feature called WOPC (Walking Optimum Power Calibration). During the burn process the burners adapt their strategy dynamically to the characteristics of the blanks which results in a more reliable burning process even when using mediocre blanks.

Unfortunately burners with these chipsets are not available any more. In my experience the DVD burners you can buy today have a somewhat lesser quality, and especially some laptop burners are crappy these days. I have a collection of 6 different BenQ / Philips burners lying around which I got from Ebay.

And of course there are some general precautions for burning. I never use a speed higher than 8x, I avoid to fill the disks to the last byte because the outer edges are often problematic. After burning I always verify the disks, and storage is also important. Never expose the disks to direct sunlight, extreme temperatures and humidity should be avoided.

During the last 10 years it happened to me only once that I had a bad batch of blanks. These blanks could be burned and verified successfully, but after only a month or so they became unreadable. Other than this all my old burned DVDs are still readable.


Cheers
manolito

[jjcinema1]

@ manolito

Thanks, some really great information there, I never knew that about the burners but its good to learn stuff. I guess I will try any brand then for my next batch of Blank dvds but since dvd-r has been working well for me I will probably stay with that just to be sure.

Thanks again
jjcinema

[jjcinema1]

@ manolito,
I am currently trying out an experiment.
This has nothing to do with my original work flow its just a comparison test between ConvertXDVD FFMPEG 1PASS and AVS2DVD HCENC 1PASS.

I am trying trying to put two movies ripped from DVD discs to one DVD using AVS2DVD.

I am comparing the results to ConvertxDVD to see if and how the AVS2DVD hcenc codec compares against the ffmpeg in cxdvd.
Now from our previous chats I am expecting AVS2DVD to be a lot more superior than cxdvd especially when using hcenc codec.
My test is purely to see which programme basically compresses the files better to give a better overall output.
I have the output from CXD ready to compare but am having difficulty getting AVS2DVD to compress the movies.

Now I have ripped the Both movies VOB files sets with VOB2MPG from original DVD's so i get 2 single packed mpg files. I then add these to AVS2DVD and then in the Video properties I unchecked option "Auto Video Setup" & "Video Direct Stream Copy" to force Avs2DVD to use Hcenc rather than ffmpeg, I set this for both titles in the project. I then selected a custom out put of 4300 to allow me to build a menu ect with DVD styler.

Both files converted ok but together are reading 6.26GB. I selected in the output muxed mpg files so knowing thinking back would this be the reason they did not compress to my custom 4300GB disc setting? what am I doing wrong?

Thanks
jjcinema

[manolito]

Sorry I have no idea...
HCenc 1-pass VBR can of course have problems to reach the desired bitrate / output size exactly, but I never encountered an error of this magnitude. Are you sure you disabled Direct Stream Copy for both of your input files? Sometimes it is a good idea to make this setting under "Preferences" before loading the source files (uncheck "Keep MPEG2 DVD Compliant Video"). Also set the output size before loading the source files.

And you should upload your AVStoDVD log file...


Cheers
manolito

[jjcinema1]

@Manolito
I never unchecked the "Keep MPEG2 DVD Compliant Video" so I will try that and also change the preferences before I load the source files. Thanks again for your input.

jjcinema



-----------------UPDATE-----------------------

@Manolito
I tried your suggestions and had no luck. I also unchecked the "auto bitrate calculation" and changed it from 2500 to 2300 for each title. This made the output size bar at the bottom go from red to blue so I though I was on to a winner here, I did the convert and both my Test files came out with a combined size of 7.31GB so now I am totally confused.

Forgetting about quality for a second surely, if ConvertxDVD as no issue compressing the same files to one DVD then AVS2DVD should be capable of the same?? I included my log file just encase its useful but at the moment I have suspended my testing until I figure out why AVS2DVD wont output to the desired size like CXD does.

Thanks
jjcinema

[manolito]

I do not really know what went wrong with the encoding of your second file, but it is quite obvious that something did go wrong with it...

This is from your log file for the second file:

Target Video FileSize: 1512.7 MB
*BITRATE 2300

END VIDEO ENCODING OPERATIONS
Video Source Filter: A2DSource (DirectShowSource)
Created File: C:\Users\IntelVPro\Videos\test_Title_02_Test 2 (2014).m2v (4564.4 MB)
OUTPUT VIDEO INFO: MPEG-2 Video - 6939 kbps - 720x576 - DAR 16:9 - 25 fps - Interlaced (TFF) - 1:31:57 hours - 137931 frames

As you can see, HCenc did not obey the requested bitrate of 2300 kbps but created a file with a bitrate of 6939 kbps instead.

The only reason I can see for this behavior is that you neglected to lower the minimum average bitrate in the AVStoDVD preferences. The default setting for the "Lower AVG Bitrate" is 2500 kbps. If you specify a lower average bitrate, A2D might simply ignore this.

If you really need to do encodes at bitrates lower than 2500 kbps (which is not recommended for DVD output at full D1 frame sizes), go to "Preferences - Video" and change the value for the minimum average bitrate to 2000 kbps or lower. Don't forget to tick the "Save current preferences as default" option.


Good luck
manolito

[davexnet]

It might have been interesting to see the HCenc log for that particular encode ...

[jjcinema1]

@ manolito

Its a strange one I have to admit.
I will try it again but before I add the source files I will lower the bit rate in the AVStoDVD preferences as you advise. I am trying to understand lower bit rates full D1 as I am a bit confused in this area but have been researching to learn a bit more.

I used VOB2Mpg to repack my ConvertXDVD output (same source files used for the AVS2DVD conversion) and used Media info to check what bit rate CXD used for this as it has no issues at all with the conversion. I thought I was seeing things with the results in media info so I added the files into AVS2DVD to see what properties it would show up about these files and it was the same as media info.

Now I might be wrong but Title 1 is showing a bitrate of 2079kbps and Title 2 is showing 922Kbps Both at a FULL D1 Resolution. I have included the screen grab. This is were I get confused because in theory the lower bit rates (especially 922kbps) should be dreadful quality but it is actually pretty decent to be honest and I have ask a few people to look at it just to get a second opinion and again they were happy with it so the only thing I could think of is maybe I am not reading these results correctly??

So far here is a run through of my comparison test:

- Same source files loaded into both programes at FULL D1. With outputs set to 4300mb.
- CXD Converts fine in about 1hour in ffmpeg 1 pass and the bitrate results of each titles are shown above.
- AVS2DVD Converts in about 1hour 30min with Hcenc 1pass But fails to meet the output size so I cant compare final results.

Thanks
jjcinema

[manolito]

Well I think you are wasting your time trying to get decent results for DVD conversions using full D1 frame sizes at bitrates below 1000 kbps. If you cannot see any problems with such conversions then either your source files already were of a very bad quality, or you should see an eye doctor to check your vision...

If you really need bitrates below 3000 kbps then do not convert to DVD. Convert to AVC / AAC instead, with these codecs you can get very good results at bitrates around 1500 kbps depending on the source characteristics. You just loose the menu capabilities.

Cheers
manolito

[davexnet]

I did a few tests, seems like a bug or limitation in HCenc on certain sources at low bitrate.
I encoded my own clip @ 2500 kbps, produced an output of almost 4000 kbps. Switched to 2-pass and this time the result was accurate.

EDIT - seems like HCenc is only indirectly to blame.

On my system using A2Dsource/Directshowsource with MPG, even with AVSRELOAD, results in many SMALL/LARGE SOURCE MISMATCH
messages from HCenc. Even still 2-pass finishes with good tolerance to the specified bitrate. 1-pass is about 30% too big on my test clip.

As soon as you substitute MPEG2Source/D2V as the source filter, the source mismatch messages disappear and both 1-pass and 2-pass
are accurate sizes.

[manolito]

Yes, this is a known problem with HCenc 1-pass VBR using DirectShowSource as the source filter. DirectShowSource is not frame accurate when seeking, and the first analyzing pass of HCenc 1-pass VBR involves a lot of seeking. When using HCenc 1-pass VBR it is highly recommended to use a source filter which indexes the source (DGIndex or ffms2).


Cheers
manolito

[jjcinema1]

I tred another conversion and this time I changed the "Lower Average Bitrate" and it made no differance the out put was still oversized by 2-3GB from the 4.5GB selected output.

This all came about from my brother who has a large DVD Collection (4000 odd Movies) from all different years and genres, who had converted all his movies to reduce space on his shelves. He used convertXDVD to put 2 movies on one DVD 4.7GB, He then stored his originals in the loft. This has basically halved his collection space which I must admit he did a great job with it. He watches his movies on a sony bluray player on a Sony Full HD 42Inch LCD TV, the weekends we have been over and had a Movie Night I could not believe that he had put Nearly 3.5 to 4 Hours approx on one dvd 4.7GB but I thought it looked ok myself.

Now I have perfect eyes LOL! (as far as I know) But any on of the family or friends who have been over all agree the same and most of them especially the wife's dont notice any difference at all from the original Movie DVD, But the men who are all movie buffs think Its very acceptable (and we are talking about 20 people so all could not have bad eyes lol!). So we where in a discussion and I said that I think if he used AVS2DVD he could maybe improve it even more as its used HCenc and so thats when I started to test it out with AVS2DVD and CXD to see the difference as we where planning to watch one of the conversion Next weekend to see If anyone saw a difference. Just a Family discussion that we thought would made a good little test and thats why I came here to ask for advice as I couldn't get AVS2DVD to do the compression.

I guess I will use AVS2DVD For my HD 720P Conversions but I do think that CXD is a well written programme and whatever method it uses with FFMpeg it does give really good results quality ways. Yes with compression you will loose a bit but when your watching a Good Movie at 3 Meters away from TV I Think the majority of people wont Notice the difference to be honest. I do understand where you are coming from with low bit-rate under 3000 but Its very confusing to how the outs on the CXD Test where Low but the Playback was very acceptable not to mention it only took 1 Hour and a few Minutes to complete.

Thanks
jjcinema

[davexnet]

When you add MPG source to AVStoDVD is seems to use directshowsource by default resulting in the above problem as you say.

Are you implying that AVStoDVD does not handle MPG properly? Or does AVStoDVD avoid HCenc 1-pass in this situation?


IT seems possible that jjcinema1's problems with oversize are caused by this as I believe he's using 1-pass ...

[jjcinema1]

When you add MPG source to AVStoDVD is seems to use directshowsource by default resulting in the above as you say.

Are you implying that AVStoDVD does not handle MPG properly? Or does AVStoDVD avoid HCenc 1-pass in this situation?


IT seems possible that jjcinema1's problems with oversize are caused by this as I believe he's using 1-pass ...

I think that HCenc is not frame accurate as Manolito says, so I would think this is why it can have difficulty producing a result accurate to the requested output size but I though it may only be off by a few MB not a few GB lol! AVS2DVD Does the conversion ok and the results seem to be really good but as I said if it fails to meet the desired output of 4300 which is what CXD has (4300) Then I cant really compare the two so it makes our little comparison test pointless and invalid really. Now I am only comparing 1 pass on both as a start but as you can see didnt get to far with AVS2DVD lol!
In this sense I have to give full points to CXD for a no nonsense, relatively fast conversion with very acceptable results.

Thanks
jjcinema

[davexnet]

When you add MPG source to AVStoDVD is seems to use directshowsource by default resulting in the above as you say.

Are you implying that AVStoDVD does not handle MPG properly? Or does AVStoDVD avoid HCenc 1-pass in this situation?


IT seems possible that jjcinema1's problems with oversize are caused by this as I believe he's using 1-pass ...

I think that HCenc is not frame accurate as Manolito says, so I would think this is why it can have difficulty producing a result accurate to the requested output size but I though it may only be off by a few MB not a few GB lol! AVS2DVD Does the conversion ok and the results seem to be really good but as I said if it fails to meet the desired output of 4300 which is what CXD has (4300) Then I cant really compare the two so it makes our little comparison test pointless and invalid really. Now I am only comparing 1 pass on both as a start but as you can see didnt get to far with AVS2DVD lol!
In this sense I have to give full points to CXD for a no nonsense, relatively fast conversion with very acceptable results.

Thanks
jjcinema

Why don't you create a D2V project and hard code the MPEG2source filter on the AVStoDVD Project AviSynth tab,
replacing A2dsource ?

[jjcinema1]

When you add MPG source to AVStoDVD is seems to use directshowsource by default resulting in the above as you say.

Are you implying that AVStoDVD does not handle MPG properly? Or does AVStoDVD avoid HCenc 1-pass in this situation?


IT seems possible that jjcinema1's problems with oversize are caused by this as I believe he's using 1-pass ...

I think that HCenc is not frame accurate as Manolito says, so I would think this is why it can have difficulty producing a result accurate to the requested output size but I though it may only be off by a few MB not a few GB lol! AVS2DVD Does the conversion ok and the results seem to be really good but as I said if it fails to meet the desired output of 4300 which is what CXD has (4300) Then I cant really compare the two so it makes our little comparison test pointless and invalid really. Now I am only comparing 1 pass on both as a start but as you can see didnt get to far with AVS2DVD lol!
In this sense I have to give full points to CXD for a no nonsense, relatively fast conversion with very acceptable results.

Thanks
jjcinema

Why don't you create a D2V project and hard code the MPEG2source filter on the AVStoDVD Project AviSynth tab,
replacing A2dsource ?

Honestly davexnet it was just a basic comparison test between AVS2DVD with HCenc 1 pass and CXD FFMPEG 1PASS and CXD doesnt need any extra steps at all, Just add source fiels and off you go, My brother is sticking with CXD for his work flow, so I guess I will be using AVS2DVD for my HD conversions and if I want to add 2 movies to a DVD or around 3.5 Hours I will get him to use his CXD as the results are pretty decent especially for the time it takes to convert.

I guess there is a tool for everything and no 1 programme will ever do all lol! Im just surprised that AVS2DVD wont even match CXD on the basics of Compression as its not even meeting to desired output but it is very powerful in other areas.

Thanks
jjcinema

[davexnet]

I guess there is a tool for everything and no 1 programme will ever do all lol! Im just surprised that AVS2DVD wont even match CXD on the basics of Compression as its not even meeting to desired output but it is very powerful in other areas.

Thanks
jjcinema

You may be leaping to the wrong conclusion here. AVStoDVD and HCenc are capable of good quality *and* accurate sizes.
You have hit upon an unfortunate circumstance producing this error. I have described in my earlier remarks what I think the
cause may be.

CXD uses FFmpeg to do it's encodes; pretty good at high bitrates, but HCenc is superior, especially at the lower bitrates.
You seem to have a workaround, let's leave it at that.

[jjcinema1]

I guess there is a tool for everything and no 1 programme will ever do all lol! Im just surprised that AVS2DVD wont even match CXD on the basics of Compression as its not even meeting to desired output but it is very powerful in other areas.

Thanks
jjcinema

You may be leaping to the wrong conclusion here. AVStoDVD and HCenc are capable of good quality *and* accurate sizes.
You have hit upon an unfortunate circumstance producing this error. I have described in my earlier remarks what I think the
cause may be.

CXD uses FFmpeg to do it's encodes; pretty good at high bitrates, but HCenc is superior, especially at the lower bitrates.
You seem to have a workaround, let's leave it at that.

davexnet I thought thats Hcenc would be a lot more superior thans cxd ffmpeg but I cant get it to output to the correct size so I cant really make a comparison between the two due to this. If I can get AVS2DVD to out put to the 4300 Custom or even the 4.7 standard out it would be great.

I even tried converting each title separate in AVS2DVD with a custom of 2200 but again it fails to meet this size by a few GB so I really dont know what else to do with it, as it seems to ignore all output sizes custom or not. Its just strange that CXD has no issue with this and AVS2DVD has, and to be honest I would like to see why its ignoring to output size.

Thanks
jjcinema

[davexnet]

manolito - regarding my earlier comments. Everything works great if before you
add the project,you deselect "keep mpeg2 compliant video" in the preferences. When you do this AVStoDVD asks you if you want to
index the file to which you should reply "yes"

If you forget to set that preference and add the MPG, then edit the project to deselect "video direct stream copy", you're now going to
re-encode using directshowsource - AVStoDVD doesn't give you a second chance to switch to indexing the source with DGindex.

I tried it, and for some unknown reason when a mixture of Mpeg2source for video and A2dsource for audio is in the project, the execution
just hangs when you press the start button. Hcenc opens but does not progress, Task Manager show no CPU usage. Ended up using
Task Manager to "kill" the HCenc process. To allow the project to continue, I had to comment out the AUDIO = and AudioDub lines from the
A2D avisynth script and add "return video" at the bottom - then I got a good project

jjcinema - if you would like to try this with your troublesome source, set the preferences as mentioned above, add your source, say yes to indexing,
and set your project as you normally would. If it hangs when you go to start it, you can try my workaround.

[jjcinema1]

manolito - regarding my earlier comments. Everything works great if before you
add the project,you deselect "keep mpeg2 compliant video" in the preferences. When you do this AVStoDVD asks you if you want to
index the file to which you should reply "yes"

If you forget to set that preference and add the MPG, then edit the project to deselect "video direct stream copy", you're now going to
re-encode using directshowsource - AVStoDVD doesn't give you a second chance to switch to indexing the source with DGindex.

I tried it, and for some unknown reason when a mixture of Mpeg2source for video and A2dsource for audio is in the project, the execution
just hangs when you press the start button. Hcenc opens but does not progress, Task Manager show no CPU usage. Ended up using
Task Manager to "kill" the HCenc process. To allow the project to continue, I had to comment out the AUDIO = and AudioDub lines from the
A2D avisynth script and add "return video" at the bottom - then I got a good project

jjcinema - if you would like to try this with your troublesome source, set the preferences as mentioned above, add your source, say yes to indexing,
and set your project as you normally would. If it hangs when you go to start it, you can try my workaround.

davexnet I am about to try your method now, Should I also set the output size before I add the MPG Files to the project?

[davexnet]

Do you mean the "lower Avg bitrate" in the preferences? Yes you can set it before you add your source .

[jjcinema1]

Do you mean the "lower Avg bitrate" in the preferences? Yes you can set it before you add your source .

No I mean the overall "DVD Size" from the main window tab.
I will it to a custom of 4300 and when I will also set the "lower Avg bitrate" in the preferences before I add my source files. I will set these values for both titles until the Output size bar at the bottom of the AVS2DVD windows goes into the the Blue.

Thanks
jjcinema