[Scrabbler]

Used DVArchive to pull a 1hr med show, came to 3.7Meg, which seems right, as 1hr shows are showing at ~1.8.


However, wherever I play the show on the PC, it's only showing 1:17 length. I watched this show on the Replay, I know it was 2hrs. I do see the actual ending to the show when I skip to the end of the file in Windows Media Player. When I burn it to DVD, I dont get the end of show.


I ran it through Womble GOP fix, and still the output file that it created it showing 1:17 in Windows Media. I didnt try to burn this file.


Any idea what's going on here?

Thanks,

S

 

[Ed Rempalski]

It's got a bad spot in it. I recall some folks using womble to chop the show into two pieces right at the bad spot, nip out a few frames, and put them back together. Womble seems to make that splice point work again and the few frames won't be missed.


Good luck!

 

[chain777]

It's a good idea to check files transferred from DVA *before* you delete the original. I've had corrupt files more than once when transferring, so I'm in the habit of double checking before I delete.

 

[ClearToLand]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scrabbler ...However, wherever I play the show on the PC, it's only showing 1:17 length. I watched this show on the Replay, I know it was 2hrs. I do see the actual ending to the show when I skip to the end of the file in Windows Media Player...

Does the show still play properly when streamed back to a ReplayTV?


I saw something similar to this over at the DVArchive Forums (within the past few months - I just scanned the first 4 pages of the index, but couldn't pick it out; sorry), relating to, IIRC, maybe a codec problem. If the show still plays OK on your ReplayTV, you might want to spend some time searching over at DVA...

 

[Scrabbler]

Ok, thanks. Fortunately I still have the show on the Replay. I'm going to redownload and see what happens.


S

 

[Wrecks]

Most likely the last GOP has an invalid time stamp in it. A lot of programs will read the last timestamp and consider it to be the correct length of the show. It's quicker than scanning the whole file. Any program that depends on that timestamp being correct (for instance to know when to quit processing) is going to have a problem with that file.

 

[Scrabbler]

The re-download did not help, same exacty length shown.


I agree it's likely a GOP problem, but why didnt Womble's GOP fixer solve it? Is there another GOP tool that might help?

 

[Ed Rempalski]

I still think you can fix it with womble by trimming the file slightly.

 

[ClearToLand]

Does the "problem" show display the correct parameters and play properly on your ReplayTV?

 

[Wrecks]

It would be interesting to see if VideoReDo's Quickstream Fix can fix something that Womble can't. VideoReDo is a free for the first 30 days.

 

[Scrabbler]

Problem solved!!! Thanks Wrecks!


Cutting the first 5 seconds, and last 30 seconds via Womble did nothing. The final output was still 1:17.


Downloaded and installed a trial version of VideoRedDo (thanks again Wrecks!), and immediately upon loading the file it showed 1:59:55 show length! Didnt have time to learn the program, do I just resaved it, which reencoded it, and sure enough, now every program recognizes this show at the proper length.


So THUMBS UP to VideoReDo!!!


Thanks again for everyone's help with this.


S.

 

[Wrecks]

VideoReDo probably didn't re-encode the whole file. To do that would take hours. It generally does what it calls a fast frame copy, only re-encoding the parts of the file that have problems.

 

[Scrabbler]

I think you're right Wrecks, since the re-encoding that it did only took 8 mins on my 2.8G Pentium.

 

[Jeff D]

I realize I'm late getting in on this, but I have stuff to add/ask...

There's issues on PCs with jumping around in replayTV mpeg files. There's something about the timestamps that the PCs (some codecs, and mainly media player) will show the wrong time.


Did womble show the wrong time when you opened and clicked the single step backwards too? If so that would be odd, but not a big surprise.

 

[Scrabbler]

Hi Jeff,

Yes, Womble still showed the 1:17 length after stepping backwards. I also tried everything suggested with Womble: GOP fixer, clipping front/end, etc, nothing helped. I could scroll through the Input window and see that the end of the show (the actual ending of the show) was there. But reoutput of the file only generated 1:17 worth of video.


The only solution was VideoReDo Plus, which instantly detected the show as 2hrs. I did an immediate "save as mpeg" (I think that's the menu item), and then every player recognized the show perfectly. Very fast program, very intuitive.


VideoReDo is now my tool of choice. For me, it's faster and easier (as a novice) to use than Womble.

S.