MKV Conversion Problem - Video 4 Minutes Too Short!

[Nodoka]

Trying to convert some mkvs to dvd. First used MKVCleaver to split the mkv file. Then loaded the subs into Aegisub to see if they needed tweaking (they do) - and found the subs were WAY out of sync with the video, though as near as I could tell they WERE in sync with the audio. A little further checking showed that the avi video was about 4 minutes shorter than the mkv - 18:45 versus 22:52 in several media players - even though all the video seems to be there. Also checked the framerates in MediaInfo and they're the same, 29.970 for both.

So I guess my questions are, where did the 4 minutes go and how do I get a video that matches up with the audio and subs? I do a fair amount of DVD authoring but am not very knowledgeable about mkvs or AviSynth scripts - is there a way I can get just the video from the mkv into VDubMod without the other tracks?

[Baldrick]

Maybe variable framerate.

Have you tried skip split/extract the video to avi? Convert the mkv directly to dvd mpg with avstodvd and check how it works. You can after add subs.

[Nodoka]

Thanks for the tip on avstodvd - though it's probably going to take me some time to learn to use it effectively. It gave me video of the right length - so that's a step in the right direction. The complication is that my lousy old TV set has very bad overscan that tends to cut off subs (according to Aegisub the subs on this file are outside the "safe zone" as is) - so I need both picture-resize capability and control over sub positioning. That's why I'm hoping for some kind of output that either VDubMod or TMPGEnc can read - I more or less know what I'm doing with those. (Yeah, a new HDTV would probably simplify my life enormously - but it's probably not happening until this set dies.)