I use VCDEasy 1.1.4 to burn 544x480 MPEG-2 movies (since the Apex 1500 plays MPEG-2 better with 3:2 pulldown). I also like to have chapters in the KSVCD, so I turn PBC on and select chapters every 10 minutes.

However, >SOMETIMES< there seems to be problems playing the KSVCD in the Apex 1500 when burned this way; when chapters are selected, they aren't 10 minutes apart, they are closer together, and the entire movie won't play correctly in the Apex 1500; the movie stops as if it has reached the end of the movie about half way through. The chapters select fine and the entire movie plays fine in my other player, a JVC model. If I burn the movie again using VCDEasy >WITHOUT< using PBC (which does not allow chapters in the Apex 1500), the entire movie plays fine on the Apex.

What throws me is that sometimes the chapters select fine and a movie will play fine with PBC ON when burning the disk using VCDEasy and playing the movie on the Apex 1500, and I can't figure out what is different - same settings on VCDEasy, same template in TMPGEnc, but some movies work and others don't.

I'm just wondering if anyone has run into similar problems and discovered a solution, rather than turning PBC Off when burning the disk - it would save me from burning more than one disk for both players. It's a minor problem, but it's easier to select chapters in the movie rather than fast forward through the movie to find a particular scene.

Thanks for any suggestions!

--TonyK

Hi tonyk,

I seem to recall reading something about the "Output bitstream for edit (Closed GOP)" option in the GOP tab of TMPG relating to some sort of chapter problems on certain dvd players. Doing a search on that might help you. I've actually only tried creating a kvcd with chapters once long long ago, and it didn't play properly in my player, so I never bothered trying again. Maybe I will now that you've gotten me thinking about it though .

1 silly workaround that might work for you would be to use the 'Start Second' and 'End Second' functions of BBMPEG to manually mux together several different portions ("chapters") of your movie every 10-minutes or whatever, and then when you've got your entire movie muxed into several seperate consecutive chapters, simply burn each segment as a seperate track with a zero-second gap in between each one. That way your movie should still play seamlessly (at least, relatively seamlessly), and you'd be able to easily skip to each chapter using your remote control. (note: I've never tried muxing seperate chapters within a regular full-length movie with bbmpeg in this way, so it's possible that you may be able to detect a small hesitation or blip when using this method...I'm really not sure...try at your own risk I've only used this method for putting multiple episodes onto 1 disc...it works great for that). For example, if you mux your first chapter from 0 to 600 seconds, and then mux your chapter #2 from 601 to 1200 seconds, you might visibly notice a small hiccup/gap/pause between chapters...I guess it would depend on how precise bbmpeg muxes from point A to point B. But you'd have to try it and see for yourself I guess. You also might give the program Chapter eXtractor a try so you could find and mux your chapters according to the actual dvd's chapter times, rather than at generic 10-minute intervals.

Anyways, it seems like too much work to me, but if it's worth it to you, then it couldn't hurt to give it a shot. See, I told you it was a silly workaround . But it might work well enough for you...and since nobody else seemed to be biting, I figured you might settle for a "silly" suggestion at this point.

Good luck,
-d&c