DVD Chapters: Player freezes

[-KeeK-]

hi dvd2svcd-fans,

i got the following problem with dvd2svcd:

svcds made with 1.0.5 build 4 without chapters work flawlessly.
when i create a svcd with dvd-chapters, my player (cyberhome ad-l 528) hangs after playing approx. half of the cd (chapter 8). the error occurs to cd 1 and cd 2.

the player doesn't show chapters in the display either - he always refers to chapter 1, but i can skip forward and back till chapter 7 without problems. (cd1: 12 chapters, cd2: 10 chapters).

using windvd 3.1 and powerdvd 4 there are no problems with the playback and chapters.

any suggestions? thanks!

cu
-KeeK-

[Arianos]

Greetings Keek
The Cyberhome AD-L528 is notorious for having problems in all kind of playback, be it DVD, CD or MP3. Probably with SVCDs too. The problem is mainly the cheap DVD "loader" Cyberhome uses.
If I were you, I would try the SVCD on a different standalone player.
You may be surprised....
Also, it wouldn't hurt to visit the CH help forum:
http://forum.cyberhome-help.de/index.php

[-KeeK-]

hi arianos,

thanks for the post. the cyberhome-forum is not unknown to me. i hadn't any probs with the AD-L528 so far. maybe the chapter-problem is vcdxbuild-related...
i'm thinking about buying a grundig xenaro 5100, but at this point the 5100-firmware doesn't support 2 audiotracks.

cu
-KeeK-

[Arianos]

I doubt that your chapter problem is VCDXbuild related. I own a CH AD-M212 myself, which as you know is the "ancestor" of your 528,and if the chapters are there, they exist without a problem.
As for the Grundig Xenaro 5100, it was my #1 choise for an upgrade, till I found that it does not support SVCD subtitles. Maybe a future firmware upgrade will fix that too? :)

[Infinite_stupidity]

Originally posted by -KeeK-
the player doesn't show chapters in the display either - he always refers to chapter 1

You'll find most players do that, becuase almost none of them actually support true svcd chaptering. Abusing Selection Lists by using them to do chaptering is not the way it was originally meant to be done, and on some players just should not be done...

[daxab]

I've had really strange results with SVCD's with "chapters" on my standalone, an old Apex AD-600A.

With the original DVD-ROM in it (the loader) a disk with chapters isn't even recognized. Doesn't play at all. "INVALID ENTRY" etc. Disks with no chapters that I build using the DVD2SVCD-produced MPEG work fine.

When I replace the DVD-ROM with an ancient Hitachi GD-2000, chapters work flawlessly. I find this strange since I would think that chapters working/not working is a firmware issue, not a DVD drive issue. The Hitachi also is good for playing high bitrate XSVCDs etc. Unfortunately, it periodically dumps colored blocks of garbage out to the screen, even at low bitrates, so I took it out.

Now you're supposed to be able to use a Toshiba DVD-ROM with the Apex AD-600A, specifically the SD-M1202. I tried this drive as well as the new SD-M1612, and both of them cause the player to completely fail to recognize any SVCDs. Bummer. Wasted my money.

I've been wishing for an option to build a chapterless image in DVD2SVCD because of all these problems. Currently I use my own finalize script that just reruns VCDXBuild without the PBC tag in the XML file.

(Sorry if this post wandered a bit off topic, but all of the fiddling started with me trying to get DVD2SVCD discs with chapters to play on my standalone!)