Audio sync problems with VBR MP3 in XVid

[wongnog]

I'm having a darn time getting my audio and video in sync. My source is an XVid DVDrip of Sweet Home Alabama. It has VBR MP3 audio, so I used the Vdub-MP3-freeze to open it. If I select Full Processing Mode for audio and save the resulint WAV file, I get an error message "ACM reported error on audio decompress". So I switch back to Direct Stream Copy, save the "wav" file but then rename it to MP3. No matter which way I convert this file to MP2, I end up with a file which is shorter in length than the video file. My source video is 1:48:51 but the audio comes out 1:48:48.960. When I mux the two together my audio comes a couple seconds ahead of the vidoe, and it never resolves itself. I suppose I could add ~2 seconds of silence to my audio, but I'm certain there must be a more precise way of extracting the audio!

I've checked the file for video freeze errors and there were none. I've also converted the MP3 --> WAV using both Winamp and Goldwave, then WAV --> MP2 using both HeadAC3he and BeSweet. Same problem. I'm using the KVCDx3 template at CQ 100. I know this isn't a site which advocates KVCDs, but I've had no problems previously with other XVid/Divx files, even those with VBR MP3 audio. Here's my avs script:

LoadPlugin("d:\program files\avisynth2\plugins\MPEG2DEC2.dll")
LoadPlugin("d:\program files\avisynth2\plugins\LegalClip.dll")
LoadPlugin("d:\program files\avisynth2\plugins\Blockbuster.dll")
LoadPlugin("d:\program files\avisynth2\plugins\FluxSmooth.dll")
LoadPlugin("d:\program files\avisynth2\plugins\Sampler.dll")
LoadPlugin("d:\program files\avisynth2\plugins\GripFit_Preview.dll")
LoadPlugin("d:\program files\avisynth2\plugins\decomblegacy.dll")
LoadPlugin("d:\program files\avisynth2\plugins\dustv5.dll")
LoadPlugin("d:\program files\avisynth2\plugins\temporalcleanerold.dll")
LoadPlugin("d:\program files\avisynth2\plugins\convolution3d.dll")

avisource("E:\Movies\Sweet.Home.Albama.DVDRip.XViD-ViTE\sha-xvid.avi", false)
LegalClip()
#FieldDeinterlace()
GripCrop(528, 480, overscan=2)
GripSize()
SpaceDust()
TemporalCleaner()
#Blockbuster(method="noise", variance=.3, seed=1)
GripBorders()
LegalClip()

Can anyone give lend me a hand here please? Thanks!

[Gazorgan]

It's been discussed to death.

You need to re-encode the extracted audio and time adjust it to match the length of the video. Padding the beginning with silence will not work. Try BeSweet and correct the length.

[wongnog]

It's been discussed to death.

You need to re-encode the extracted audio and time adjust it to match the length of the video. Padding the beginning with silence will not work. Try BeSweet and correct the length.

Thanks for the quick reply, and sorry for my newbie-ness! But I honestly have tried to search the forums for this topic but to be honest, entering some keywords like "audio sync vbr mp3" gives you so many hits that it's often hard to narrow it down to find the exact topic you're looking for. I'd really appreciate a link to a previous discussion if someone could provide one! I will of course keep looking.

A couple questions still though... What's the most accurate way to determine the length of the video for time adjusting? Virtualdub only shows the length as 1:48:51s. But to be more accurate should I be incorporating the # frames somewhere? Thanks in advance.

[wongnog]

Okay, still have problems here...

I used Goldwave to open my WAV file, and then time warped it to stretch the audio to 1:48:51.490s which is the length of the video file. When I muxed the two together using AVI2MPG2 I _still_ have audio sync problems.

I KNOW there must be a solution to this problem. Can anyone please help me with this?

[maccool111]

Do NOT extract audio. Just straight convert with TMPGEnc.
Also works for About Schmidt

[1000watts]

wongnog

What did you use to find the exact length of your audio and video? I'm having the same problem with the sound being slightly off at the end of the movie. I've just downloaded Besweet and I thought I'd try that for expanding the audio.

Judy wanted to know what you found worked the best.

Thanks,
1000watts

[maccool111]

Tried BeSweet, tried Avi2Wav, tried ac3fix, tried, CoolEdit Pro, tried headac3he etc etc all to NO avail.
So just on the off chance I stuck Sweet Home Alabama straight into TMPGEnc 2.58 as it was and my settings were the basic VCD Pal settings and I ended up with it fully in sync.
Did the same to About Schmidt CD1 but had to put it through DivFix first but again great result.
I have XviD-04102002-1.exe installed and divx_311alpha.exe (with all its bits) and OdioDec1.23. I'll be honest dont know what does what but it seems to be working.
Hope you get it sorted.

[wongnog]

Well I guess the only problem I have with this is I'm using KVCD to encode the video. It's template involves using AVISYNTH scripts, which produce a video-only encoded MPEG-1 thru TMPGENC. What this means is I have to mux the video and audio together in the end and can't use TMPGENC to do it for me. The reason I'm using KVCD is their templates are far superior than anythign else to achieve near-DVD quality MPEG-1's, and their conversions of Divx/Xvid encodes are superb.

Anyone else know why I might be having problems with this particular movie? I had no problems converting The Two Towers XViD which also had VBR MP3 audio. Please help!