Need help with DVD

[Durandal]

Huh, stops counting after 9 seconds? Smells like a timecode problem to me, but digital media is more up Durandal or Phong's alley.

Either Mike's DVD player isn't fully compliant with the standard, or Mike's MPEG-2 encoder isn't fully compliant with the standard.

It could also have to do with the way he's encoding the footage. Normally, an encoding house would scan the film in and break it up into even and odd fields. If you put those fields back together (every 2 fields is one frame), you'll have the original film running at 23.976 fps. However, since they're interlaced, NTSC DVD players can work their 3:2 pulldown mojo and display them at 29.97 fps. If Mike is trying to play progressively-encoded frames on an NTSC DVD player, I can see how it would either not play or lead to timecode problems.

[Darth Wong]

Huh, stops counting after 9 seconds? Smells like a timecode problem to me, but digital media is more up Durandal or Phong's alley.

Either Mike's DVD player isn't fully compliant with the standard, or Mike's MPEG-2 encoder isn't fully compliant with the standard.

What's maddening is that it works perfectly on PowerDVD. But I don't know how tolerant PowerDVD is of off-spec data. It should be noted that even on the two players where the disc works, the timeclock still stops at 9 seconds. The only difference is that they keep playing anyway, while the one in the basement craps out at that point.

It could also have to do with the way he's encoding the footage. Normally, an encoding house would scan the film in and break it up into even and odd fields. If you put those fields back together (every 2 fields is one frame), you'll have the original film running at 23.976 fps. However, since they're interlaced, NTSC DVD players can work their 3:2 pulldown mojo and display them at 29.97 fps. If Mike is trying to play progressively-encoded frames on an NTSC DVD player, I can see how it would either not play or lead to timecode problems.

The video is inverse-telecined to 23.976 fps and then the 3:2 pulldown playback code is put into the MPEG-2 file. I'm using TMPGEnc's DVD template. Maybe I need better authoring software, but that involves money, and money out the door is bad

[phongn]

Huh, stops counting after 9 seconds? Smells like a timecode problem to me, but digital media is more up Durandal or Phong's alley.

Either Mike's DVD player isn't fully compliant with the standard, or Mike's MPEG-2 encoder isn't fully compliant with the standard.

What's maddening is that it works perfectly on PowerDVD. But I don't know how tolerant PowerDVD is of off-spec data. It should be noted that even on the two players where the disc works, the timeclock still stops at 9 seconds. The only difference is that they keep playing anyway, while the one in the basement craps out at that point.

PowerDVD is very tolerant.

It could also have to do with the way he's encoding the footage. Normally, an encoding house would scan the film in and break it up into even and odd fields. If you put those fields back together (every 2 fields is one frame), you'll have the original film running at 23.976 fps. However, since they're interlaced, NTSC DVD players can work their 3:2 pulldown mojo and display them at 29.97 fps. If Mike is trying to play progressively-encoded frames on an NTSC DVD player, I can see how it would either not play or lead to timecode problems.

The video is inverse-telecined to 23.976 fps and then the 3:2 pulldown playback code is put into the MPEG-2 file. I'm using TMPGEnc's DVD template. Maybe I need better authoring software, but that involves money, and money out the door is bad

I've very little experience with DVD mastering - I've played with Sonic Foundry's higher-end kit before (it's bundled with Xpress DV) but nothing much - and certainly nothing on the low-end.

[Phil Skayhan]

What's maddening is that it works perfectly on PowerDVD. But I don't know how tolerant PowerDVD is of off-spec data. It should be noted that even on the two players where the disc works, the timeclock still stops at 9 seconds. The only difference is that they keep playing anyway, while the one in the basement craps out at that point.

Is the one that works the Pioneer DVL? I'm also considering copying my LDs to DVD so I'm very interested in seeing how this works out.

Of course, I first need to digitize the Trilogy.....

[Darth Wong]

What's maddening is that it works perfectly on PowerDVD. But I don't know how tolerant PowerDVD is of off-spec data. It should be noted that even on the two players where the disc works, the timeclock still stops at 9 seconds. The only difference is that they keep playing anyway, while the one in the basement craps out at that point.

Is the one that works the Pioneer DVL? I'm also considering copying my LDs to DVD so I'm very interested in seeing how this works out.

Of course, I first need to digitize the Trilogy.....

OK, I've tracked down the problem (and yes, my Pioneer DVL works fine). It appears that the problem lies with TMPGEnc, because I tried making an MPEG with Studio 8, and it worked fine. So there's two possibilities:

1) TMPGEnc is making off-spec MPEG files

2) TMPGEnc's inverse-telecine and 3:2 pulldown is causing problems with the timebase.

3) A combination of both

I'll do some more tests. I wish I had some competing MPEG encoders to try, though.

[Darth Wong]

OK, after much mucking around, I've solved the problem: IFOEdit just won't handle progressive-encoded MPEG files properly, and neither will the other authoring programs I tried. So I simply encoded it at 29.97fps as a telecined MPEG file, and it worked perfectly. Now the disc plays smoothly on every player in the house, and I finally have my ANH Classic Edition DVD.

Now it's time to move on to TESB and ROTJ (and maybe the SE's too), and then the extra materials on the THX boxset.

Thanks to Yogi for helping me out with some software issues.

[phongn]

No progressive scan?!

[HemlockGrey]

Lucky bastard! I want a copy, but I don't have the $400 to fork over for a DVD-R drive...


Eh, I can prolly find a bootleg...

[Darth Wong]

No progressive scan?!

I'm keeping two copies. The progressive-scan version works on some of my players, while the telecined one works on all.

[Durandal]

OK, after much mucking around, I've solved the problem: IFOEdit just won't handle progressive-encoded MPEG files properly, and neither will the other authoring programs I tried. So I simply encoded it at 29.97fps as a telecined MPEG file, and it worked perfectly. Now the disc plays smoothly on every player in the house, and I finally have my ANH Classic Edition DVD.

Ah hah! So I was right. You can get the progressive version to work by inverse-telecining the captured footage into a progressive MPEG-2 stream. Once there, you need to separate each frame into two fields, but don't telecine it. Then set the 3:2 pulldown flag on the interlaced footage. A 3:2 pulldown flag on progressive footage doesn't do anything, and it makes sense that it would fuck with some DVD players.

[Darth Wong]

Ah hah! So I was right. You can get the progressive version to work by inverse-telecining the captured footage into a progressive MPEG-2 stream. Once there, you need to separate each frame into two fields, but don't telecine it. Then set the 3:2 pulldown flag on the interlaced footage.

Interesting. But now I need to find a tool that will separate the frames into two fields.

A 3:2 pulldown flag on progressive footage doesn't do anything, and it makes sense that it would fuck with some DVD players.

That explains much.

[Durandal]

Interesting. But now I need to find a tool that will separate the frames into two fields.

I'm pretty sure that Terran Cleaner 6 will do the job, but it's far from free. It runs on Mac and Windows, though.

That explains much.

Yup. The key to the 3:2 pulldown is having interlaced source material, which is what is on the vast majority of NTSC DVD's. Progressive-scan DVD players simply assemble the interlaced fields back into a progressive stream of frames.

[Ted]

Mike, if I gave you blank DVD's to burn on, would it be legal for you to burn me copies of SW?

[phongn]

Mike, if I gave you blank DVD's to burn on, would it be legal for you to burn me copies of SW?

Only if you yourself had the same LD set that he does.

[phongn]

Interesting. But now I need to find a tool that will separate the frames into two fields.

I'm pretty sure that Terran Cleaner 6 will do the job, but it's far from free. It runs on Mac and Windows, though.

Terran Cleaner is overkill, Durandal :p

What, next you're going to make him buy Avid Xpress and Sonic Foundry's DVD mastering kit?

[Darth Wong]

Well, it turns out to have been a multiplexing problem. I had resigned myself to encoding at 29.97 with pulldown built into the stream, but I couldn't help but fuck around with it a bit more, and I managed to solve it.

After discovering a freeware program which will add 3:2 pulldown codes to a 24fps progressive stream, I thought I'd solved the problem already, but IFOEdit was muxing the audio and video streams together improperly, and it just wouldn't play.

But when I tried doing the same thing with Spruce DVDMaestro, even with the same stream data, it worked fine. Moreover, it even parsed the streams and warned me of standards-compliance errors so I could fix them, and better yet, it has a really easy-to-use chaptering feature. I've tried it now on my brother's Panasonic player, my own three different Pioneer players, and my father's Toshiba player, and I'm pretty confident that this final version works on just about anything except for the crappiest DVD players out there (frankly, it doesn't get much crappier than Panasonic).

So now, I finally have ANH Classic Edition on DVD, with proper chapter stops. I'm pretty happy with the way it looks, too.

PS. Now I'm busy making my own customized version of ANH, by taking the Battle of Yavin from the Special Edition version and grafting it onto the classic version which I prefer up until that point (Han shoots first, there's no crappy scene with Jabba, and the DS detention centre guard's chest blows up properly). Kit-bashed ANH DVD!!!

[Dalton]

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