Would like help analyzing video conversion problems.

[Back2Future]

I hope someone can point me to tools or processes I can use to determine what's going wrong with my DVD creation process. The process I'm using has worked for the most part, but lately I'm having more problems getting a good DVD out of the process.

The main process is:

1. I use TyTool10r4 to extract the video streams from my DirecTivo to my PC's HDD.
2. Use the Multiplex (new format) 2 option to convert the file to mpg.
3. Use either VideoRedo, or DVD-LAB to de-mux the file to elemental streams for use in DVD-LAB
4. Import the streams into DVD-LAB
5. Author the DVD in DVD-Lab. Output to a VIDEO_TS directory for testing and burning.
6. User Nero 8 to burn the DVD from the VIDEO_TS folder.

The last time I did this about 6 months ago, it was working pretty well. Occasionally, I would encounter a bad file after extraction from DTivo. Lately, the extraction has been failing on most files with multiple errors. In some cases, the TyTool will abort when I use the Multiplex (new format) 2 option to convert the .ty file.

Does anyone have any insight to what may be happening? Are there tools I can use to analyze the .ty file or mpg to see what's wrong with them? Any ideas how to fix the files?

I can post the specific errors if someone wants to see them.

I installed TySuiteJ and that seemed to handle the ty -> mpg conversion better, but sometimes the resulting file had macroblocking and stuttering and audio and video would get out of sync in the final DVD.

I've done the usual of uninstalling and reinstalling my software, checked the communication to the DTivo.

Thanks for any pointers.
John

[Baldrick]

Have you searched in http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=48 ?

You can also try run the quickstream fix in Videoredo on the brokens mpgs and see if it helps.

[Back2Future]

Thanks for the pointer.

Yes, tried QuickStream fix on the mpg file generated by TyTool. The file is still broken and VideoRedo reports:

Input Sequence errors: 2002
Video resync frames removed: 194
Audio resync frames removed: 2613

When I run the multiplex operation on the *.ty file one of the errors that TyTool reports are:

Detected Tivo Type: HDTivo
Detected Audio Stream Type: MPEG Layer II
Final standardAudioSize = 592
Final standardFrameLength = 576
Final standardAudioDiff = 2160 or 00:00:00.024
First Video PTS: 01:02:44.425
....
Found an OOB packet... The Video Diff is: 00:00:00.333
sVid is: 01:02:56.570
largestVideoPTS is: 01:02:56.237
BBB the PTS was bad, but the new SEQ check lines up|!?
Found an OOB packet... The Audio Diff is: 00:00:00.384
sAud is: 01:02:56.054
largestAudioPTS is: 01:02:55.670
Is it in sequence??? It is OFF by exactly 16.000000 frames.
It is in the right range. Let's see if it lines up.
It is in sequence. Starting back up after the 'hole'...
...Found an OOB packet... The Audio Diff is: 00:00:00.384
sAud is: 01:03:05.462
largestAudioPTS is: 01:03:05.078
Is it in sequence??? It is OFF by exactly 16.000000 frames.
It is in the right range. Let's see if it lines up.
It is in sequence. Starting back up after the 'hole'...
..

It's looking like the Tivo is getting bad data from DirecTV. Although some of these bad files breakup on the TiVo, some of them seem to play ok on the DTivo. It seems the DTiVo is more forgiving of bad video streams.

Any other ideas how to tackle this?

Thanks,
John