[Wasatch Rider]

I'm having some mixed success burning DVD from Replay .mpgs. I'm seeing occasional stutters and hangs on some of the finished products. No problem with audio sync and the videos aren't unwatchable, but I'm loking for perfection.


I'm following the recommended procedure of [email protected]>DVArchive>Womble>Ulead. I am using my 2Ghz pentium 4 laptop and a external Firewire TDK DVD burner. Some of the shows are being stored on external HD then run through my laptop and burned on the DVD writer using DVD +RW discs.


Is it normal to have the occasional stutter or hang (~2 per hour) when burning from a Replay MPEG? Is this what most people are seeing or should I expect more? If so, any idea what might be the weak link in my chain?

 

[moyekj]

No, stutters and hangs are not normal in playback of DVDs authored from RTV mpegs, at least in my experience. You may want to try adding rtvtools (rtvedit & rtvconvert) in your flow before Womble to see if it helps. Do the stutters and hangs happen only on a set-top DVD player or in all players you have tried (including software players on your PC)? The only other thing I can think to try is use different authoring/burning software (perhaps a trial version of something) to see if Ulead is the culprit.

 

[Jeff D]

HQ recordings?


the other thing is that some players just don't like some media or even burn methods. I know toshiba players use to HATE cd's burnt with EZ-CD, but Nero discs worked great.


My best guess would be the HQ problem, and a panasonic dvd player. But you didn't mention record quality settings nor your DVD player. Kinda makes all responses guesses.

 

[moyekj]

Actually he did mention medium quality: "[email protected]"

 

[ScottJ]

I had this problem on some set-top players using cheapo discs (Princo 1x white top). I switched to Maxell DVD-R which work much better.

 

[Wasatch Rider]

I'm watching on a Pioneer DV-444.


The video looks better but not perfect on my laptop.


I'm burning to Phillips DVD+RW media


I'm just not sure which step to suspect, recording, editing, authoring, or burning.


I've edited using Womble only.


Authored with Ulead (Good), Roxio (Good except it caused windows explorer to crash when viewing a raw Replay MPEG), TMPGEnc (Fair), DVD-LAB (Excellent).


Burned with Roxio (Good), Ulead (Unsure now), Nero (Bad), DVD-LAB (Good but won't recognize DVD-R media)


Any of this help?

 

[ScottJ]

Try playing the authored DVD from your hard drive. Some software players allow this directly; for others you can use Daemon-Tools to create a virtual DVD drive from a directory on your PC (wherever VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS are). Then use your laptop DVD player to play this virtual disc. That should tell you if the burning is the culprit.

 

[Jeff D]

well, you can rule out the bitrate (encoding problem) by using bitrate viewer. Run the mpeg file (audio and video multiplexed mpeg) through bitrate viewer. Check that the peak doesn't go above 10Mbps. That will get one step eliminated.


The thing with the (bad) burns, why are they bad? Becuase the DVD player won't reconize the disc or because there are problems during playback? If it's that the player won't reconize the disc make sure you are closing the disc. If you leave the disc open for furture writes this has an negative effect on some players.

 

[gizmo91]

I had the exact same problems (hangs/stutters/etc) whenever I used Womble. I know others use it with success - but not for me. I was using their latest version 3.14 I think and still had the problems.


I eliminated all other possiblities (software, media, processor, burner) because I was able to burn everything 100% if I ran the ReplayTV MPG through DVD2AVI/TMPGenc on the DVD setting. So the only time I had problems was with Womble - haven't had an issue since I stopped using it.


I haven't tried the RTVTools yet, mainly because I no longer commute on the train - so don't need to have 2 hours of shows ready each day to watch.


Bob

 

[Wasatch Rider]

I'd really hate to think it's Womble. I love that software. It has the best scrubber ever, and makes editing hours of home movies a relatively easy chore. I don't think I've made any DVDs without using it. I will have to try.


As for the bad burn I had with Nero. I Authored the DVD with DVD-LAB and burned with Nero. The thing stuttered like Mel Tillis. I then took the same authored files and burned with Ulead and got a much better, but not perfect, result.


I did play a DVD with my InterVideo WinDVD on my laptop. It was almost perfect, one or two herkys but no real stops or stutters. However this makes me wonder, because when I watch raw Replay MPEGs with it they play flawlessly. Something must be going wrong in the process.


Thanks for all the ideas, and if anyone comes up with more just keep 'em comin'.

 

[bwall]

Don't rule out the media. I have tried just about every media out there, and the only ones that work 100% of the time are TDK and Maxell. DVD-R is better than DVD+R. Burn at 2x or less.......

 

[rmanaka]

If you have chapter points, try burning a disc without them. I've found that some discs I burn will stutter or skip around a chapter point.


Another thought, does the DVD skip around a Womble edit point? Womble is fast because it doesn't re-encode the file, but to reassemble the mpeg around the edit points is sometimes has to make a short sequence. As I understand it, Womble is a frame accurate editor and will allow edit points at non-I-frames. your ULead program may, however, be reencoding or at least demuxing and remultiplexing.


I've been using Womble Mpeg Video Wizard (and MVCR prior) for about 300 discs, and for the most part, haven't had many problems. Every once in a while I'll get a RTV file that I have to re-encode with either TMPGEnc or with MediaChance to get it to play correctly.


Although I use ReVue and RTVtools quite a bit for restreaming, I have found that I have many timecode problems (even with time-fix) unless I either reencode or Womble the files...note: even if you produce a ReVue'd CLN or DMX (de-multiplexed) output, the timecode is so messed up that the resulting DVD will either be horribly out of sync or will not play the final few minutes of the video (usually the audio segment is several seconds shorter at the end, at least by internal timecode).


I share the sentiments about Womble...I have Adobe Premier Pro, Vegas 3.0 & 4.0, Sonic, Edit Studio 4, DVD Complete Deluxe, Studio 8, uLead Video Studio 7, Screenblast Movie Studio 3.0, Nero 6, Roxio EZ-CD 6.0...yes, they're all legal) and I find that 95% of the time I use Womble Mpeg Video Wizard, Media Chance dvd-Lab and Nero 6 to produce my miniDVDs and full DVDs.

 

[Jeff D]

Wasatch Rider, Did you check out bitrate viewer?


gizmo91, how about you do the same. Running through dvd2avi and tmpgenc will reencode the mpeg, which would correct any bitrate problems.


Running a

 

[Jeff D]

rmanaka, from my experience womble will fix problems for the exact reason you stated (and I just did too without reading your post) because of how it works.

 

[Wasatch Rider]

What is bitrate viewer and how will it help me?

 

[Wasatch Rider]

It's looking more and more like Womble is the culprit. I made a test DVD of the same Monk episode processed 3 different ways.


1) DVArchive>Womble

2) DVArchive>EVTEdit(RTV Tools)>Womble

3) DVArchive>EVTEdit


The disc was authored and burned using UleadMF3. The only one that played flawlessly, without any pixelation, stutters or hangs was method 3. As I stated before I love Womble and want use it for editing my home videos tranferred from VHS. Is there a way I can reencode the Womble output so it works? As for TV shows I can use EVTEdit to take out commercials and won't need Womble, but the home movies need to much massaging, plus I like the Womble transitions.

 

[cdurys]

i used to have the same problem 3 things i did seem to have solved the problem


1) I don't do anything on the computer when it's burning


2) Keep disc spinle covered and check discs for ANY dust. a minute piece that never seemed to bug a cdr will ruin a DVD look on your discs that don't work and see if there are any darker spots on them


3) faster cpu changed my cpu from Duron 650 to Athalon 2000 XP everthing else the same


I no longer have the problem I'm not sure if it was one or a combination the 3.

 

[DavidEC]

Quote:

Originally posted by Wasatch Rider I'm having some mixed success burning DVD from Replay .mpgs. I'm seeing occasional stutters and hangs on some of the finished products. No problem with audio sync and the videos aren't unwatchable, but I'm loking for perfection......?

I have found the following-- I Burn DVD+R/RW


MEDIA.. MEDIA... MEDIA...


While I never had any troubles with:

Maxell and TDK


Limited (25% or less bad):

Phillips and Verbatim


Potluck [50/50]

Fuji


Never Again [75% or more bad]

Generic eBay buys


Also a new trick that I found is by setting the 'BOOK TYPE' on DVD-/+R disc's set the type of disc to DVD-ROM and not the default DVD-/+R and I now get 100% compatibility between set-top drives tested on.


--David

 

[j.m.]

Quote:

Originally posted by DavidEC Also a new trick that I found is by setting the 'BOOK TYPE' on DVD-/+R disc's set the type of disc to DVD-ROM and not the default DVD-/+R and I now get 100% compatibility between set-top drives tested on.

Note that the BOOK TYPE setting only applies to +R and +RW media and can only be changed by Ricoh-based drives.

 

[Jeff D]

Quote:

Originally posted by j.m. Note that the BOOK TYPE setting only applies to +R and +RW media and can only be changed by Ricoh-based drives.

I believe Philip's isn't a Ricoh drive and it supports this too.