DVD-RB and audio stuttering?
 

I've been using DVD-RB for a couple weeks now, and use RB-Opt to change the default CCE settings to conform with the notch matrix. However every single disc I make suffers from random audio stuttering, where the audio suddenly drops out for a second. The latest release of DVD-RB 0.63a is supposed to fix this, but I'm still having problems. I'm trying to narrow down the cause. Has anyone else had this problem when using the notch matrix? I'm not sure if this may also be because of using DVD Stripper or VobBlanker to remove unwanted VTS material, such as extras and trailers. Currenlty I'm trying PgcEdit to do the same thing, waiting to see if this solves it.

Have you tried v0.60b?

Using the notch matrix shouldn't have anything to do with the issue.

I have never tried v0.60b. Has that one given you the least problems? I've only used v0.61 and now v0.63a. Unfortunately I don't even know how to download previous versions because they only seem to keep the most current on in the Doom9 forum.

Also, I know one would THINK that using the notch matrix wouldn't be causing this problem... But I'm using RB-Opt to change all the CCE settings to from default to notch matrix parameters, and maybe this is just "too much" for RB to handle. What I really want to know is if anyone else in this forum has encounted the same issue.

The v0.60b was attached to the big Star Wars thread at D9 if I remember correctly. It is a version which probably works best, 0.63a is still a bit questionable. You might be able to rebuild with v0.60b so you don't have to re-encode if the DVD-RB working folder still has the stuff from your last project.

okay, I download v0.60b and used it to rebuild the D2AVS folder I had created with 0.63a, but the stuttering didn't go away. Do you think I have to run the Prepare and Encode all over again?

ohmigod, I just finished a prepare and reencode using 0.60b. Stuttering still there! Although a bit less. Going to try encoding with the cce standard matrix. This is darn annoying...! :x

I just encoded again using 0.60b, but didn't use RB-Opt to change CCE settings to conform to the notch matrix. The audio dropouts wer still there, but were much shorter than my last test with the notch matrix.

Please, I know there are other DVD-Rb users in this forum. Are you guys getting error free encodes? Please help me!

The matrix doesn't have anything to do with audio 8O

-kwag

You should post the problems to the D9 forum as the author will appreciate any info he can get regarding the matter.

@boulder: yes, I have been doing so. So far people haven't been all too helpful (many have said "just don't use the notch matrix!"). I understand Kwag's point that the matrix has nothing to do with audio dropouts. BUT, dvd-rb is in beta stage and already does not like a lot of things. For example, any pre-processsing with vobblanker or pgcedit to remove unwanted material (extras, trailers, etc) has been reported to lead to these same audio dropouts. Rb has a lot of bugs in it still, and it looks like the dropouts occur somewhere during the remux/rebuilding stage. So it's entirely possible that changes to CCE settings (i.e. gop, matrix, etc) can also lead to these audio dropouts.

While I am still in discussion in several threads on doom9 about this, my main question for people in THIS forum is: Have you experienced any audio dropouts using RB and RB-Opt to tweak the CCE settings for notch matrix usage? After so many replies nobody has answered this simple question that I posed in the very first post.

No, zero audio dropouts. Matrices have nothing to do with them. As you said, it's most likely the rebuilding/remuxing.

Thanks boulder. I only use the following for filtering:Perhaps cropping to 704x480 is causing some problems. As for Rb-Opt, I change the CCE settings to:Do you have anything different?

The only thing that might cause issues is the min bitrate. Try to raise that to 300 or so. Cropping cannot cause such behaviour.

As they also told you in that thread at D9, preprocessing might cause problems. The only preprocessing I've done is that I've compressed the menus as DVD-RB doesn't touch them at all. Maybe you should try a non-preprocessed conversion to check that point.

BTW, you shouldn't use 20-pixel borders, they should always be mod-8 for optimal compression.

well, I just ran Rb v0.60b with no preprocessing, no cropping, and no CCE alterations. This means all CCE settings were left at the default ones that Rb determined after the prepare phase. I didn't use notch matrix but rather left at standard matrix. But the min/max bitrate was set at 0/9000, so I don't think my previous min of 64 was "too low".

Anyway, the burned result still had audio dropouts, but they were less than before. I'm pretty much at a loss, but now that it doesn't appear to be a matrix problem I really don't know where to go from here.

CCE doesn't keep the minimum bitrate very well, this has been discussed here on the forum. So I wouldn't be surprised if that was the problem. Some players really don't like low bitrates and this is especially true with DVDs.

You can change the default min and max bitrate by adding these entries to rebuilder.ini in the DVD-RB folder, in the [Options] section:

min_bitrate=nnnn
max_bitrate=nnnn

you're completely correct J-Wo. :)
for more that i can read, i learn more about corrections than about results.
dvd-eb still need lots of "repairs". i'm still waiting for a working version.

The amount of bugs is not a surprise. The DVD structure is a very complex thing and as there are a huge amount of different standalone players with some very strictly to the standards and others not, it's a tough job trying to make it work on every player.

I'd say the output works in 95% of all standalones, if not even more. There's always media issues etc. which need to be considered as well.

you're right too Boulder and i can't forget to post that jdobbs(and wmansir) suport is wonderfull, his dedication for dvd-rb is laudable.
great tools have problems but in the end dvd-rb will be amazing ! :wink:
i'm between your opinion and J-Wo's opinion in this moment
and i "can't wait" for a really working version!
dvd-rb have problems but will be a wonderful toy...i only need to wait!

thanks for the tip re: min bitrate boulder. Many have reported tho that these audio dropouts occur during periods of *high* bitrate. For me they always occur during a fast camera pan or when a loud sound effect is occuring. Some suspect that the problem is CCE is not maintaining the desired MAX bitrate. This might make sense because with default settings, RB sets bitrates for 0-9000. But if I change things for notch matrix purposes I use 64-5500. So maybe you're right, maybe it is a min bitrate problem. But it is does seem a little contradictory.... at least to me.

Yes, there are sometimes very high spikes in the bitrate graph. However, I've used CCE a lot and DVD Maestro (a very strict program) hasn't complained once about a too high bitrate.

A too high or a too low bitrate can cause problems due to VBV buffer under- and overflows. That's why the hiccups may occur in either case.

Try to do a copy with min=1000 and max=5000, that way we should see whether the bitrate is the problem.

Right now I'm doing min=300, max=9000 to see if the min was the problem, but I'll try your suggestion next. Annoying thing is the whole encode+rebuild process takes at least 95 minutes -- and that's cause right now all my tests are done with NO filters just to speed things up.

Jdobbs (author of dvd-rb) also suggests I try VBR encoding, that OPV may be the problem. To be quite honest I've *never* tried VBR with CCE, since it seems to be standard kdvd practice to use OPV. But I'll give it a try for sure... I'll report back in a couple hours! :?

Two things :
1/ DVD-RB reports the min/avg/max bitrate of the original source. There is no real need to put your own max at 9000 if the original was 5000 (that means that the movie doesn't need a lot of bitrate peaks).

2/ with KVCD-Notch matrix, you have really excellent result with MAX=5000. I did all my KDVD with max=6000. This way the Q values is a couple of points better than with a max=9000.

Rb by default sets a min of 0 and a max of 9000 for its encodes, I only set it manually down to 5000 per Boulder's request.

I just did an OPV encode with min=300, max=5000 in Rb 0.59, and there was no change in audio dropouts compared to min=0, max=9000 (default Rb settings). This is using standard CCE matrix. When I change to notch matrix, I generally set min=64, max=5500, and still there are dropouts. So right now it really doesn't look like min/max bitrates has an effect (at least not for me).

I'm running a one click mode with v0.59 right now since I've always used three click in conjunction with Rb-Opt. So I'll see how this one turns out...

#1 I know what Rb does and #2 I use 5000 as an instance ;-)
But the day where all that RB does will be the best to do is not for tomorrow. So trust me, even if the default is 9000, do not use so much with a source that is 5328 (for instanbce ;-))

Let say that this is the most common source for that kind of problem but in your case it seems to not be related.

You should try first the multi pass, just to see...

Yes I'm running a one-click encode so EVERYTHING is at DVD-Rb default settings (i.e. 2-pass VBR). Rb reports High/Low/Avg bitrates at 3758/1852/2759. Looking at my CCE window, it says "VBR: 2690 (0-9000) kbps". So I guess I'll just leave it at default settings, even though max=9000 may not be needed.

well hallelujah!! OPV seems to have been the culprit all along!!! Which might be a reason why I've been having so many problems because practically EVERYONE in this forum does one-pass encoding. The default 2 Pass VBR worked like a charm -- video even looked much better than OPV, but of course took twice as long to encode.

So if I'm going to stick with VBR, should I change the min/max bitrate? Again, Rb defaults to 0-9000 but for most KDVDs I do 64-5500. Any suggestions?

We definitely not speaking the same language. Sorry... :-)

I think I gave you mine already :-)

I dunno, but maybe that was true back in the days of kvcd and tmpgenc. But now with cce and kdvds perhaps multi-pass might be better! But I don't much care, whichever will solve my audio problems is good enough for me.

I just wasn't certain if min/max bitrates should be set different for OPV vs. multi-pass

Some movies may look better with multipass VBR, Saving Private Ryan is generally considered one of them. Maybe it's the ultra-shaky camera movements which actually benefit from using VBR..who knows.

In general, OPV will give you better results.

that's interesting... it just seems like OPV is a kvcd "thing" and everyone else using CCE does multipass vbr... or is it just me? :)

The RoBa method was developed for getting the best quality out of CCE, and this is basically OPV encoding. I guess most of the DVD2SVCD users use Tylo's D2SRoBa plugin to do OPV encodes.

Quality-based encoding will result in a better quality in most cases simply because it doesn't have to consider any bitrate reservoirs etc. It just uses as many bits as are needed in a frame. With VBR the encoder must consider whether it can use more bits or does it need them elsewhere.

@ Boulder
as i tryed to explain long time ago, D2S-RoBa can do VBR multipass mode.
(and sorry my poor english now and before a long time in old thread) :oops:

tylo did a version with VBR multipass for me after i ask for it: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.ph...0&pagenumber=9

and now is a"public version":
v3.75 (5th October 2004)
fixed: NB! Bug in AutoIt3 caused wrong calculations in v3.61 - v3.74. Please update.
improved: Computes 'Adjust %' value into the sample estimation directly.
:arrow: changed: Starts DVD2SVCD in VBR multipass mode - forces D2S to calculate accurate BR.
added: Keeps old D2SRoBa_log files.

http://home.tiscali.no/tylohome/history.php

It's not just you (see message of Jorel telling he asked to Tylo to do a vbr version of D2SRoba - that means that Jorel find multi pass better too) but as boulder says : this depend of the source and :
And I underline that. I do anything in quality based mode, whatever the encoder used (OPV for CCE, CQ for Tmpgenc).

jorel,

I'm not going to argue about that with you again. If you read the threads at D9 carefully, you'll see that D2SRoBa is originally meant for OPV encodings. Then Tylo added the possibility to do the resizing pass if the OPV encode is a certain percentage off the target. Then he added the ability to do a multi-pass VBR.

If you don't believe my words, this is what Tylo answered to your request:

D2SRoBa is meant for OPV, all the rest is just added from user requests. In fact, why do you even use D2SRoBa if you do a multipass? You can do exactly the same in DVD2SVCD anyway.

I also wonder what is the added value of D2SRoba if you use vbr (as DVD2SVCD already does that very well). But perhaps Jorel found one and can tell us more.

The only thing that comes to my mind is that the bitrate distribution graph (aka the vaf file) is better when you have a close-to-target OPV run first. But in this case it would be rather useless doing more than one 'sizing' pass since the bitrate distribution should already be optimal or at least very close to it.

Then again, I suppose that multipass-RoBa doesn't do any OPV first or does it?