Random freeze on pioneer dvd

[MALmen]

Hello.. i got a pioneer dv-444 and movies encoded by dvd2svcd get jerky, somewhat random i think. The image can freeze for a sec sometime.. any ideas what this can be ? i don'
t think it's caused by too high bitrate.:mad:

[Matthew]

I have a pioneer 344 (sold in au and the pacific). I use an audio bitrate of 224 and keep the video bitrate at 2400. I've had no troubles with the few encodes I've done. But I made a small sample with 2496 video bitrate and I got a freeze (audio kept going). So try setting the max video to 2400. It's still pretty good ;)

[markrb]

My Pioneer 343 is capable of video bitrates as high as 2600 no matter what the audio is without any problems.

Try a different CD burner software. I use CDRWIN with no problem.
Also try slowing down the burn rate. I always use 2X, but I think 4X would work for me too.

Lastly try a different brand of CD-R disks.

Mark

[MALmen]

i don't think the burner is the problem i've tested alot of speeds and different medias =(

[markrb]

I can burn a data disk at any speed and it works perfect 100% of the time. DVD players are not as good reading CD's as a computer CD drive is. Thus you need a more perfect copy and use a slower speed burn. It is very, very commom and does not mean there is a problem with the burner drive. It all comes down to the slower the burn the more accurate the tracks. A computer cd drive has no problem compensating a DVD player drive does.

Plus certain players do not read certain types of CD-R disks well. Some will not read blue, some will not read green, some will not read black, etc, etc...

Look at www.vcdhelp.com and look at the many players that have issues with certain CD-R disks.

Some people have issues with Nero. Nero does not seems to make complaint SVCD disks. EZ-CDcreator 5 will not work and 4 only sometimes works.

Mark

[Matthew]

I've burned my rips at 24x speed on verbatim blue-backs and they play fine :D

[markrb]

You are one of the very few lucky ones, that I hate :eek:
Even the great DVD2SVCD himself cannot burn faster then 4x.
If I burn any faster there is a 50/50 chance it won't play right.
Even with very good quality CD-R disks.

Mark

[markrb]

Never mind my first theory. It seems that this is not an unknown issue with this player. Have a read of this http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdlist/703.html
Try dropping your bitrate a bit. Experiment. Use a CDRW disk and just encode a chapter or two that you knew had problems.
I would try dropping the max video down to 2400 from 2498 first and if it it still has problems keep the video the same and drop the audio to 192. Keep trying until you have the best for you.

Funny line if you read the link.
444 in Chinese bad 4=death.

Mark

[Matthew]

I'm curious, what kind of problems? Occasional stuttering or what?

I neglected to mention I've only burned 2 rips at 24x and only actually watched discs 2 and 3 of one of those rips (although the others seem fine from a quick check) :p. Quite a lot of samples burned at 10x on a cdrw have played fine as well though.

Originally posted by markrb
You are one of the very few lucky ones, that I hate :eek:
Even the great DVD2SVCD himself cannot burn faster then 4x.
If I burn any faster there is a 50/50 chance it won't play right.
Even with very good quality CD-R disks.

Mark

[j6]

@Matthew

What player (brand and model) do you have? and what brand of cd-r do you use? I'm surprised you could burn at 24X and not have playback problems. I have a Pioneer DV-333 and I can play anything burned at up to 12X but when I up the burn speed to 16X or more I see huge pixelation and distorted video on parts of the movie. So have you watched a whole movie burned at 24X or just fast forwarded and browsed through it?

[Northpack]

Hi,

I also encountered these freezes on my brand new Pioneer DV-444 :( I encoded Starship Troopers, with two audio-streams and subs. Subtitels are obviously not supported by this unit, but these freezes are realy a pain in the ass. Some here stated, that for them there are no freezes, but no one made clear whether they own a DV-444 or another player. So IF it is a 444 could you please give more details, how do you encode? Bitrate, aspect ratio, audio, subs, etc.? Did it *never* stumbled anywhere? Perhaps there is a simple workaround?

Thanks a lot,
Northpack

[MALmen]

444 seems to handle video encoded by tmpegenc better than cce, and u have to set minumum bitrate quite high, it seems that stuttering appears when bitrate falls to low.. i will try more..

[markrb]

If I burn too fast sometimes the disk won't play at all. Other times it's like the disk is scratched and it will stop. Other just wierd things.
If it works fine for you at a faster burn then go for it. I think it is more how accurate your burner is at faster speeds. The faster the burn the harder it is to make it accurate. Try hitting a moving target the faster it goes the harder it is to hit. Newer burners seem to work better. It seems that the mechanisms are getting better. I have an older 10x max burner by HP.
I think maybe a poll is in order to see what brands of burners seem to work best at higher burn rates. After the 32x burners hit the stores in a few weeks I will start one.

Mark

[Wh00pS]

ok i have the pioneer dv-444 and to be honest its brilliant.i have done over 50 films all with bitrate at 2498 and not had any problems except for 1 disk,this one disk was burnt at 8X instead of 4X which i normally use and resulted in skipping and green blocks.
I have a few friends who also own these players and they havnt had any problems either.

[markrb]

WhOOps thanks I forgot about the green blocks. It's been so long since I did a burn faster then 4x I forgot about them. Thats the other wierdness I mentioned.

Mark

[Northpack]

O.K., it seems that I simply burned them too fast, I will try at 4x next time! :)

Other question: if I go for 2 audio streams, must they *both* calculeted into the max. bitrate, or just one of them? For example: if I have a movie with two streams, one at 128 the second at 192, would be the max. bitrate ~2400 or ~2530? Furthermore, is the maximum video bitrate realy such a critical factor as some people imply? markrb even states that his Pioneer is capable of videobitrates up to 2600 independently of the audio stream(s)!? seems a little confusing to me :confused:

Northpack

[Matthew]

Pioneer DV-344 (only sold in au and pacific), used verbatim 74min and 80min bluebacks. But also tried a plextor cdrw at 10x.

I watched discs 2 and 3 of clockwork orange (80 mins worth of video) all the way through and couldn't tell the difference from the dvd (although the dvd itself wasn't the best). But the point is there was no pixellation anywhere. Used 5 pass VBR min 300 max 2400 average ~2200.

I guess it must be the burner, like markrb suggested - it's a brand spanking new Sony CRX 175E (IDE).

But now you all have me worried and I'm probably going burn at 4x just to be sure :p


Originally posted by j6
@Matthew

What player (brand and model) do you have? and what brand of cd-r do you use? I'm surprised you could burn at 24X and not have playback problems. I have a Pioneer DV-333 and I can play anything burned at up to 12X but when I up the burn speed to 16X or more I see huge pixelation and distorted video on parts of the movie. So have you watched a whole movie burned at 24X or just fast forwarded and browsed through it?

[markrb]

I understand your confusion I think.
When DVD2SVCD is calculating bitrates the whole reason behind this is for file size only.
I only ever used 1 audio stream, but the final size must be calculated based on the room all streams will take on the disk. If you have 2 audio streams you either must increase the amount of disks or lower the bitrates to keep them on the same number of cd's.

Now a seperate issue is what your player is capable of handling. My player is able to play XSVCD at 2600 kbit video and 224 audio and anything lower then that no problem. I have never tried upping the audio and keeping the video at the same rate to see what would happen.
When you watch a DVD only the stream you are watching matters to the player.

If you want to find out the max abilities of your player make test encodes using chapters that need high bitrates on a CDRW disk.
Simply rip just a chapter or two of heavy motion or water scenes a good test disk for this is Waterworld. Use it in the player and keep adjusting the video bitrate by 50 points and try the audio at 224 and 192 until you have a glitch free encode. It's the only way to be certain that you are making the best possible encode for your player. It sure beats spending all day encoding a movie only to find that the bitrate is too high and the video is jerky. Waterworld and other DVD's have chapters with good scenes as short as 10 minutes. A good 3 pass encode on that might take an hour.
Take a day and figure out the best settings.

Mark

[The Incredible One]

Hi there,

I found my problem according the movie freezes. When I burn the cd's there is no problem with the movie. When I playback the movie on the pc no freezes at all. But when I playback it on my standalone Cyberhome the movies freezes as hell.

So you guys aren't the only ones with this problem. But maybe it could be the settings. Is there somebody that don't have this freezing problem and will give his settings in this forum. It will maybe help me and others.

Thanks

[markrb]

The Incredible One how does this apply here? This is a thread about the Pioneer DVD player not yours.
Your problem is your DVD player.
Keep these threads on topic.

Mark