HELP! scenarist / mpeg1 / bitrate / tmpgenc / etc.

[clafferty]

i keep running into similar problems no matter what i do, so there must be a flaw in my process somewhere... hopefully someone can point out what i'm doing wrong. here is a step-by-step on my latest project and the problem encountered...

if i am doing something wrong or am doing it inefficiently (as it takes a long time this way), please let me know how to fix it!

i am trying to put some of my VHS tapes on DVD. i want to fit about 8 hours to a DVD... so here's what i've been doing.

using Virtualdub, i capture video from my VCR in MPEG v2 (2400kbps) with PCM audio (48khz). i save the audio out as a WAV file.

i use TMPGenc with the VCD template to make a MPEG-1 file (changing the GOP to 18, which is what i was told to do to make it DVD compliant). i demux that file to a *.mv1 file and throw away the *.mp2 file. then i load the *.mv1 and the *.wav into Scenarist and try to make a VOB out of it.

the issue is i've done this with 4 two-hour segments, all in the exact same way. Scenarist accepts 2 of them... and rejects the other two as "video or audio buffer underflow." i was seeing this same problem before using MPEG-2 files that i had not captured myself... it would reject about half of them as "underflow."

what am i doing wrong? should i set the GOP lower? do i need to change something else in my process? HELP!

Thanks!

[clafferty]

anyone?

[BJ_M]

15 is accually the GOP size i would use for MPEG1 - not that is your problem (but see below)..

To create MPEG1 data, the buffer size must be set to 40Kbyte, the auto mode in TMPGenc should be setting this rate .. if you are getting underflow errors i guess you could raise this to 68 , but ive never seen this problem w/ mpeg 1 ..


common GOP 's

[GOP sequence] GOP_SIZE GOP_N GOP_M
IBBPBBPBBPBBPBBI 15 15 3
IPPPPPPPPPPPPPPI 15 15 1
IBBPBBPBBPBBI 12 12 3
IPPPPPPPPPPPI 12 12 1
IBBI 15 3 3
IPPI 15 3 1

Panasonic and Main Concept both suggest the following GOP for mpeg1

(IBBPBBPBBPBBPBBI---15-15-3)

[clafferty]

ok, i changed the GOP to 15 and still have the underflow problems... TMPGenc would not allow me to change the buffer size.

i thought the problem might be Scenarist, so i ran the files into Maestro. Wow! It accepted them! Unfortunately, when i burned them i hit a snag... when i choose a video from the menu, it will not play. i can hear garbled pieces of the audio and the video freezes on a zoomed in version of the main menu.

any other suggestions?

[BJ_M]

in tmpegenc -> setting -> right click on "VBV buffer size" -> unlock -> change it to 68 (or something else)

you can unlock any setting in TMPGenc by right clicking on any setting name and unlocking it even after loading a template ..