Weird audio problem

Superstar · #1 01-15-2010, 08:10 PM

I'm trying to make a DVD in DVDWrkshop and the video is 3 hrs and 40 min long, towards the end of the video around the 3:10 mark or so, the audio sometimes cuts out..so I'll stop the video, and go back to it and it plays normally, but when I mark a chapter, it cuts out again, and when I go test that chapter in the finish tab, there's no audio at all, and it really sucks because this video will have 14 chapters and it's the very last one that it keeps doing it on..
I didnt restore the audio for this, I just converted it to wav, I tried to make it ac3, but it wouldn't do it, I've never had that happen either..why do you think it's doing this? It's not doing it on any other spot in the video, just at that one spot, but it's weird because sometimes there will be no audio at that spot but as I said, I stop the video and go back to the spot and its there, but as soon as I mark the chapter, it's gone again..

Superstar · #2 01-16-2010, 10:42 PM

A little update on my post...the audio plays fine until I try to make the last chapter and then its gone. It happens on the last chapter that I want to make....the audio is playing fine and as soon as I hit the add chapter button, the audio disappears..and it stays gone for the rest of the video..
I've never had this happen before, do you know it could be doing this?

admin · #3 01-19-2010, 07:47 PM

DVDWS2 has a bug with AC3 sometimes. I've only seen it maybe 3 times in the past 6-7 years. This may be happening. In those cases, I found that the AC3 stream was not "clean".

One solution I used was to drop the video and WAV into Womble MPEG Video Wizard, and then use Womble to convert the WAV to A3 -- in addition to muxing the file to a new .mpg file.

A few times, I just put less on the disc, and just went with WAV. Another time, I used MP2 audio instead.

You'll just need to figure on a workaround.

Superstar · #4 01-20-2010, 09:10 PM

Do you think this problem with workshop you're talking about with ac3 could be why I'm having the other problems with the restored audio?

When I convert a master copy (original vhs video, not a dubbed video) vhs over to dvd, i've been using just he hiss cut 2 filter, because on a master, the audio normally isn't really bad to begin with, so not much needs to be done to it, but even just using hiss cut 2 as I told you before, it still doesn't really sound great...on master copies, I was thinking, do you think maybe I should still seperate the audio from the video, convert to wav and just skip sf and convert it to ac3?

When you do master copy vhs to dvd, do you still do the hiss cut 2 twice then 1? or do you use less filters?
I know I've posted on this a few times, so forgive that, but I'm just not getting past this problem. If I could, I'd be very happy with my final results

admin · #5 01-21-2010, 11:10 AM

It sounds the same, sure, could be.

Run filtering only when it sounds like it's needed. Just be sure to use good speakers. And I mean legitimately "good" speakers, not something Joe Bob consumer would call "good". If the speakers cost less than $50, or came free with the computer, then they're probably not good. Cheap speakers often add noise. Laptop speakers have a "telephone" quality to them. I don't currently have any specific suggestions or examples on what to buy, what is good in 2010.

I use whatever filters I think are required, based solely off my ears, and a visual analysis of the waveform data. For VHS sources, I usually have to run something, as hiss is inherent to the format.

Superstar · #6 01-23-2010, 10:38 PM

If I choose not to run filtering, should I still do the other steps? save as wav, and then convert that to ac3?

Do you think Hiss Cut 2 could be too strong or something? Do you suggest another one, or should I just stick with that one whenever I can?

admin · #7 01-24-2010, 11:07 PM

Ater your workflow however you feel is necessary.

Hiss Cut 2 is not a harsh filter. It can cut out upper tonal range on a good studio-quality file, but it will carve out most ugly hiss/tape noise quite well with only minimal (if any) tonal augmentations.

Hiss Cut 0 and Hiss Cut 1 are less strength.

But I don't know what the filter has to do with your AC3 encoding problems.

Superstar · #8 01-25-2010, 04:04 AM

"One solution I used was to drop the video and WAV into Womble MPEG Video Wizard, and then use Womble to convert the WAV to A3 -- in addition to muxing the file to a new .mpg file."

I think I might give this a shot, to see if the TMPEG is really the problem in the AC3 conversion. I didn't even know Womble could do this, how exactly would I do that?

Superstar · #9 01-25-2010, 08:13 PM

Do you think trying this in Womble is the easiest thing to try next to TMPEG?
You don't need to include screenshots, unless you think they're necessary, I'll just need the steps explained to me because I didn't know I could do this with Womble.
Thanks.

admin · #10 01-26-2010, 07:20 PM

Yeah, easy.

Drag audio and video onto timeline.

womblemvw-timeline.gif

Export. Change audio setting to AC3 with a good bitrate.

You must be logged in to view this content; either login or register for the forum. The attached screen shots, before/after images, photos and graphics are created/posted for the benefit of site members. And you are invited to join our digital media community.

Confirm that the new file will have a re-encode AC3 stream. Go to MONITOR tab, click DETAIL and look at it.

womblemvw-export-ac3.gif

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If all looks well, go back to the GENERAL tab, give it a filename and save location, then go back to MONITOR tab and START it.

If you need more help with basic operations of Womble MPEG Video Wizard, then refer to the video-based guide at
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...-mpeg-381.html

Maybe that AC3 encoder will do better for you.

Superstar · #11 01-26-2010, 07:48 PM

It's not letting me do that....it has the audio right now as Layer 2, but the AC3 button is greyed out, and I can't select it..
This is the WAV file that I converted over in Goldwave. I tried to import the original audio file mp2, and the AC3 is still greyed out..

admin · #12 01-26-2010, 07:54 PM

It only works on Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD and not the plain non-DVD Womble MPEG Video Wizard. The DVD version of the software has more features and options. The most you can do on the non-DVD version is encode to MP2 and then just use MPEG audio.

Superstar · #13 01-26-2010, 09:31 PM

Check PM please.

Superstar · #14 01-26-2010, 10:24 PM

Since I already encoded the video file, will it effect the picture quality of the video in Womble when it re-encodes the audio to AC3 since the video file is with the audio file in Womble?

admin · #15 01-26-2010, 10:32 PM

Womble should not re-encode the video, it will stream copy it. Refer back to the photo above. It shows the video in blue. It will also say stream copy. I don't have an MPEG on this computer, so the image above is blank instead of saying "Stream Copy". You just need to try it for yourself, to see what it looks like. If it's red, then the file isn't an MPEG, or you did something. Only the audio will be red.

Superstar · #16 01-27-2010, 11:48 AM

I think it seems to be taking up more space doing it in Womble. When i do the audio transfer in Womble, the DVD size ends up being 4.0-4.1 in Workshop, but when I try to burn it in ImgBurn, it says it's too big by a little bit...
However, when I transfer the audio to AC3 in TMPEG, it ends up being the same size in Workshop, 4.0-4.1, however that one will burn just fine in ImgBurn....
This is really weird to me..because it ends up being the same size from transferring the audio to AC3 in both Womble and TMPEG ...but it's too big to burn when I transfer it in Womble. Should I drop the bitrate from 384 to 256 in Womble, or should I just go back to using TMPEG?

admin · #17 01-27-2010, 12:53 PM

Some programs multiplex larger than others.
Just drop audio on the timeline, and export audio only. No video.

The max size available on a DVD is 4.37GB.

Superstar · #18 01-27-2010, 05:59 PM

I don't think it's working. I tried to do only the audio, but it says it's a wav file, yes I did it correctly, selected the AC3 option, followed the pics you put up step by step..after it's done it says its 451 MB and when I try to open it in Workshop, it says "cannot open file, file format mismatch"

I just noticed in Workshop, I tried to open both the vidoe and audio to try it that way again, and when I go to the General tab, it tries to save it as "video name.wav" and under it, it says "save as type" Mpeg Files. mpg and when you click the drop down, the options are mpg or mpv. Should I save it as mpv instead or keep it as mpg?

I forgot to mention, the reason I don't think it's working is because when I just do the audio in Womble, I go to Imgburn to burn it and it says the image size is 5,936 mb...but in Workshop, it says the file is 3.9...that really makes no sense to me..why's it doing this?

admin · #19 01-27-2010, 07:04 PM

I don't know. Maybe something got re-encoded by accident?
-- Either a bad project setting in DVDWS2 (accident),
-- or the input MPEG was not 100% to the NTSC/PAL specs as it needs to be (not an accident per se, but rather something you were not aware of).

Authoring should only take 15 minutes, if you have a still menu, and are creating a single-layer DVD-Video. If it takes longer than 45+ minutes (often many hours), it's re-encoding. Only when motion menus are involved, would it take an average 30-45 minutes.

You can't trust the filesize meter in DVDWS2 (or any other authoring app, for that matter). Look at your assets, and see how big the files are.

Please don't make 2-3 posts in a row. Go back and edit the last post if it's not yet received replies. I've merged them for you.

MPV is video only.
MPG is just an MPEG container, usually video+audio. (Sometimes just audio, sometimes just video).
AC3 is Dolby audio
Not the same.
We've gone over this before in other posts in the past: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...6&postcount=16

You never "open" audio or video in DVDWS2. The only thing that can be "opened" is a project file.
We've talked about this before: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...40&postcount=9

You import audio and video into the various asset libraries, as shown in the DVDWS2 guide. Audio can also be separate imported through the audio tab, when the video file is imported properly on the asset timeline, and you're in edit mode. I know that sounds complex, but it's been explained in past posts -- in the video guide, I believe.

Superstar · #20 01-27-2010, 09:42 PM

I don't try to make 2-3 posts in a row, but when I try to edit the post, an error comes up saying admininstrator disabled editing or something like that, and the only option it gives is to cancel changes..so, that's not on me.

I've made several DVDs with Workshop, and I've never had any problems like this until I started trying to use the Womble to put audio to AC3. I click the video tab, import the video, it's always the mpv file because that's what's left after I encode the video in MC. Then I click the arrow tab, go to audio, import the audio, & do the same for the menu.

In Womble, I've done both bringing the video & audio in, just putting the audio to AC3, (as your pics told me to do) and once it's done, it saves both the video & audio as "file name.mpg"
When I just bring the audio into Womble, and transfer it to AC3 as you suggested earlier, it saves it as "filename.wav" but now, that audio file will not open in Workshop..

At first, as I stated earlier, it was working (everything was opening) but the DVD size was too big...but now, the problem is the new ac3 file, the one that is being saved as filename.wav in Womble, won't even open. I get the error "cannot open file, file format mismatch"

So, I don't know what's going on now. I'm getting very stressed out. I haven't changed any settings, or done anything any different then what I've been doing, that's what's so discouraging..