Tmpgenc/mydvd authoring problem

[Painfulexperience]

I have encoded my video that I have edited in Premiere 6.0 with TMPGEnc. Some of the settings that I have used is 720x480 29.97fps, interlace, 2-pass VBR, 4:3 525 line (NTSC), Sampling frequency: 48000Hz, audio bitrate 192kbits/sec.

After encoding I try to put it in MyDVD, the software that came with my hp DVD200i burner, which I think is MySonic. MyDVD says that it is not DVD Video compliant and of course wants to re-encode it.

Are my settings off? I need help desperately. Any advice would be appreciated

[bugster]

In TmpGenc, before encoding, go in to settings, GOP structure tab and set "Number of P Picture in GOP" to 4 rather than the template setting of 5. MyDvd may then accept it, this has worked for me in the past. Test out on a short clip to save re-encoding all your video!

[curritch]

Painful. You don't mention max bit rate. There is max allowable, 9000 I believe. I use 8000 and other parameters like yours and P-in-GOP of 4 like bugster says with no problem when working with miniDV source video.
PS. You might double check audio rate. TMPGEnc has this nasty habit of defaulting to the input rate. I made several non-compliant mpg's before I realized what was happening.

[Thorn]

I haven't used mydvd, but since TMPGenc encodes to mpeg audio beware that the NTSC spec for DVD requires pcm or ac3 audio (since many dvd players won't play mpeg audio, I'd assume that some authoring programs wouldn't allow it).

One way to test this is to demux your video and audio, then decode the audio to pcm. Then ensure the names are the same (file.m2v and file.wav) and see if mydvd is any happier. I know several higher end authoring programs require the source like this but since MyDVD is 'user friendly' I don't know how it would work. Usually, if you demux but don't have an audio file present (just the m2v), the program will figure you just have video (so that might help troubleshoot if it's video or audio that causes the problem)

One last thing, get a program like movieid that tells you exactly what specs (audio/video bitrates, formats, sizes, etc). Look in the tools section here or on divx-digest.com

[yamato72]

Painfulexperience, PLEASE let us know if demuxing your audio from your avi works. I'm having the same problem. Frankly, I can't understand why TMPGEnc doesn't let you keep the audio as PCM.

My first try at DVD authoring, I had tmpgen encode at 9500 max, (oops) and of course, mydvd transcoded to 7000 cbr. Aargh! So I re-rendered the file with a max of 8000, and MyDVD STILL wanted to transcode. I didn't let it finish, so I don't know if it was going to re-render just the audio, or both.

Tell us what you find out, and I'll be trying these same tips sometime this week.