pioneer users!

[garman]

I convert most of my movies with the audio set to 128kbps. It sounds pretty good on my dv525. Now I took these discs to a friend of mine who has a panasonic rv31 and it sounded tin like and distorted. My question is has anyone encountered this problem and can it be rectified.

Also, this may sound like a dumb question... but is it better to keep the audio bitrate @ 224kbps. to avoid this problem
.

programs used
smart ripper
dvd2avi
tmpg (set the audio to 128 and normalize to 200 %)

thanks garman

[kinneera]

224 Kbps is really the most standard bitrate for SVCD, there have been various reports of problems on some players with other bitrates, so yes, stick to 224 if you're worried about compatibility problems.

Also, I would venture to say that 200% normalization is rather high...

[kmiura182]

Yeah, it could be the audio bitrate, but technically SVCD should be ok with anything from 32 to 384 kbps. Have you made sure the frequency is 44.1khz and not 48khz? Standard SVCD is 44.1 but my Pioneer dv333 plays 48khz SVCDs perfectly, and I asume this would not work so well on other players.

[TheeeGod 3]

personally i dont think anyone can tell the difference between 148 kbps, 160kbps, 190kbps or 224kbps. i would rather devote those extra bits to the video rather than the audio. i rarely do any encodes at 224 kbps unless it's a concert or a musical of some form with little action. most of my encodes are at 160kbps and no one can tell the difference between the highs or the lows.

edit: and yes pioneers do have a tendency of playing rather funky encodes. i have a pioneer and it damn near plays anything i throw at it. the downsampling may be needed in order for it to be played on other players.

[lucindrea]

personally i dont think anyone can tell the difference between 148 kbps, 160kbps, 190kbps or 224kbps.

hehe i just happen to be one of those pepole who can pick out a mp3 over a wav with my eyes closed , maby thats why i go to such legenths to perserve DTS in my dvd -> dvd-r 's ...... of course i think i'm the exception

[Cosmo Kramer]

But seems that Pioneers have problems with over 2520kbps and also over 45minute playing time what comes to SVCD's. As you can pretty easily encode using DVD2SVCD and CCE, over 65minutes to 80min CDR without any overburning, i find Pioneer not being that good of a SVCD player.

Well, luckily i dont own one

C.K.

[kinneera]

Most players have problems with bitrates higher than 2520, because the combined bitrate (video+audio) exceeds the spin speed of the 2x drive used in most DVD players. This is not specific to Pioneers.

I have made SVCDs longer than 65 min. (burned to 99 min. CD-Rs) that played just fine on my Pioneer.

[TheeeGod 3]

i second that kinneera!

[kmiura182]

My Pioneer also goes crazy if the bitrate is higher than 2520 (but I guess thats to be expected) but I have no problems playing SVCDs longer than 65 min. I think Pioneers are among the most forgiving DVD players on the market when it comes to playing non-standard forms of VCD/SVCDs. Lucky for us Pioneer owners but it does suck when you take these discs over to a friends house and their DVD player wont play them!

[sue denim]

Hi all!
Just thought I'd add my thoughts here ...........

I have a DV-444 and love it to bits -- picture's great, sounds superb etc etc ......
However, it's not very forgiving at the lower end of the bitrate scale!
Give it a stream that dips below 450Kbps for any length of time and the audio cuts in and out.

Kinneera ....... have you managed to playback using a FULL 99min CDR on your Pioneer?
My DV-444 only seems to play to around the 'CD-standard' 90mins and refuses to track the disk any further!

Cheers,
Sue xxx

[kinneera]

@sue: I can't really test whether the DV-343 goes past 90 min, because my CD-burner won't! Still, my discs get a little glitchy at the very high range (88+ min), whether its the burner or the Pioneer is hard to say. Still, 90 min. to a disc is certainly plenty. I used 99 min. discs because they were the only ones at the store longer than 80 min. And the conclusion that Pioneers don't have problems with video >45 min. to a disc is still valid.

In fact, it indicates a high tolerance for CD-R media, since 99 min. CD-Rs have an extremely tight track density, and the discs in question are generic CompUSA discs...

[Martok]

tmpg (set the audio to 128 and normalize to 200 %)

Unlike analog, you CANNOT produce digital audio above 0db - it is simply not there (clipping).
Normalizing at 100% means the peak of the wave is at 0db...you can't get any more. If you try, it will cut off the top and bottom of the wave...just like a distortion pedal for a guitar.

[sue denim]

Martok - I'm not trying to be patronising here but .........

The '200%' that Garman mentions is actually the level of positive gain applied to the original audio to create a 0dB normalized waveform.

TMPGenc just displays this value next to the normalization heading ...... I agree this can be confusing!

You can click the normalize button and TMPGenc will scan the audio file and compute the 'normalization' value for you. It's pretty good and very fast but does require that you give it a little headroom to avoid clipping on fast transients - I suggest you normalize to 85% of fullscale to be on the safe side.

Hope this clears some things up!

Sue xxx

[Martok]

Sue,

Yes, the controls are next to each other, but you CAN NOT set ether of them to 200%....it WILL clip.

Just to make sure the software uses the term properly, I normalized a wave at 200% with TMPGEnc. It did as it indicated...also,it did indeed clip and sounds distorted.

(FYI)
Normalization is not compression and is not the amount of positive gain. It simply increases the peak (or RMS) volume to the % or db (decibels) you set. TMPGEnc does not have compression or limiting capabilities. Gain is measured in decibels (db). "0" is the maximum for digital, analog will saturate above that point.

The absolute maximum for normalization is 100% peak, though the rule of thumb for mastering most digital audio is a maximum of -0.30db or 97% (96.61%). Most movies are normalized using the RMS method with values between -16db and-10db.
Gain should never be set above 100% unless you have editing software that shows the waveform and/or VU meters to monitor the dbs.

Stay out of the red

Here is a screen cap of what happened to the wave:




Just to clear things up,

Dave Kern

[leebo]

My two cents:

I have an RV31 and my initial tests with SVCD gave poor results.
It coulden't play them w/o studdering and freeze framing to the point the discs were un-watchable.

I did not persue testing because I have two other players that play SVCDs fine, and also I don't make that many of them.