DVD audio sync issues.

[Mr Alpha]

Not sure where exactly to post this but this issue has me so confused I feel like a newbie so I figured these was the right place.

I'm ripping a DVD (Lost Season 2 PAL) but there is a weird audio sync issues. After going over all my steps one by one I found the issues on the DVD itself.

If I play the IFO, go through the menus and start the first episode everything works perfectly fine. But if I play the VOB file directly the audio is ~1s or so ahead of the video. The same audio mismatch I got when I ripped the DVD.

After a bunch of back and forth checking it seems like when playing the VOB there is and extra second worth of black frames at the beginning of the episode that don't get played when playing the episode via the IFO menus but the show up in DGIndex.

How would I go about dealing with this?


My workflow goes like this: DVDFab -> DGIndex -> Avisynth -> x264 -> mkvmerge.

MediaInfo for the IFO:
General
Complete name : H:\temp\FullDisc\L210EUT1\VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_0.IFO
Format : DVD Video
Format profile : Program
File size : 60.0 KiB
Duration : 41mn 31s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 197 bps

Video
ID : 224 (0xE0)
Format : MPEG Video
Format version : Version 2
Duration : 41mn 31s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Standard : PAL
Compression mode : Lossy

Audio #1
ID : 128 (0x80)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Duration : 41mn 31s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Language : English

Audio #2
ID : 129 (0x81)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Duration : 41mn 31s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Language : French

Audio #3
ID : 130 (0x82)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Duration : 41mn 31s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Language : Spanish

Audio #4
ID : 131 (0x83)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Duration : 41mn 31s
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Language : English
Language, more info : Director's comments

Text #1
ID : 32 (0x20)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : English
Language, more info : Normal

Text #2
ID : 33 (0x21)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : English

Text #3
ID : 34 (0x22)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : French
Language, more info : Normal

Text #4
ID : 35 (0x23)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Spanish
Language, more info : Normal

Text #5
ID : 36 (0x24)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Dutch
Language, more info : Normal

Text #6
ID : 37 (0x25)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Swedish
Language, more info : Normal

Text #7
ID : 38 (0x26)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Norwegian
Language, more info : Normal

Text #8
ID : 39 (0x27)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Danish
Language, more info : Normal

Text #9
ID : 40 (0x28)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Finnish
Language, more info : Normal

Text #10
ID : 41 (0x29)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Icelandic
Language, more info : Normal

Text #11
ID : 42 (0x2A)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : French

Text #12
ID : 43 (0x2B)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Spanish

Text #13
ID : 44 (0x2C)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : French
Language, more info : Director comments

Text #14
ID : 45 (0x2D)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Spanish
Language, more info : Director comments

Text #15
ID : 46 (0x2E)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Dutch
Language, more info : Director comments

Text #16
ID : 47 (0x2F)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Swedish
Language, more info : Director comments

Text #17
ID : 48 (0x30)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Norwegian
Language, more info : Director comments

Text #18
ID : 49 (0x31)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Danish
Language, more info : Director comments

Text #19
ID : 50 (0x32)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Finnish
Language, more info : Director comments

Text #20
ID : 51 (0x33)
Format : RLE
Format/Info : Run-length encoding
Bit depth : 2 bits
Language : Icelandic
Language, more info : Director comments

Menu #1
Duration : 41mn 31s
00:00:00.000 : Chapter 1
00:00:32.160 : Chapter 2
00:04:03.880 : Chapter 3
00:11:19.000 : Chapter 4
00:19:42.040 : Chapter 5
00:27:32.160 : Chapter 6
00:36:34.880 : Chapter 7
00:40:52.400 : Chapter 8
00:41:21.400 : Chapter 9
00:41:30.680 : Chapter 10
List (Audio) : 0 / 1 / 2 / 3
List (Subtitles 4/3) : 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
List (Subtitles Wide) : 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19
List (Subtitles Letterbox) : 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16 / 17 / 18 / 19
List (Subtitles Pan&Scan) : 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0

Menu #2
Duration : 480ms
00:00:00.000 : Chapter 1
List (Audio) : 0 / 1 / 2 / 3
List (Subtitles 4/3) : 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
List (Subtitles Wide) : 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
List (Subtitles Letterbox) : 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0
List (Subtitles Pan&Scan) : 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0


MediaInfo for the demuxed audio:
General
Complete name : H:\temp\FullDisc\L210EUT1\VIDEO_TS\ep1 T80 3_2ch 384Kbps DELAY 6ms.ac3
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
File size : 114 MiB
Duration : 41mn 28s
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 384 Kbps

Audio
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Duration : 41mn 28s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 114 MiB (100%)

[Guest]

In DGIndex, hit the > button until you see video, then hit the [ button to start the project there.

[Mr Alpha]

In DGIndex, hit the > button until you see video, then hit the [ button to start the project there.I thought about that, but if I do so I end up cutting off too much. When playing properly (with audio in sync) there is still a second or so of black frames while a narrator says "Previously on Lost" and then the video fades in. When the audio is out of sync there is a longer stretch of black frames at the beginning, around 2 seconds. So I can't get rid of all the black frames at the beginning only the first ~1 second of them.

[Guest]

Just try cutting GOPs until you get the right amount. You can use the log timestamps feature to determine the correct number if you know how to interpret it.

[Mr Alpha]

Thank you for your help. I got it working. I found this Parse d2v tool and taking a gander at the resulting text file I noticed that eight GOPs in it switches from GOP: closed to GOP: open. So trying it eight steps in resulted in synced audio.
:thanks:

[Chetwood]

When you rip each ep separately in main movie mode with DVDFab, there will be not delay in audio.

[Mr Alpha]

When you rip each ep separately in main movie mode with DVDFab, there will be not delay in audio.
I tried this, but the delay is still there.

[hello_hello]

What if you re-author your ripped files with DVD Shrink?
When you re-author you can also do very basic editing (it's really only useful for trimming bits off the start and end of titles etc). Just curious if DVD Shrink would re-author the ripped files okay...

Or.... if you've got something like DVD Fab running in the background you could probably use DVD Shrink to open and re-author the disc directly.

[manono]

I'd first run FixVTS over the DVD decrypted using DVDFab HD Decrypter to remove the unreferenced cells. DVDFab sometimes does an incomplete job of it.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/FixVTS

[Mr Alpha]

I'd first run FixVTS over the DVD decrypted using DVDFab HD Decrypter to remove the unreferenced cells. DVDFab sometimes does an incomplete job of it.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/FixVTSI tried FixVTS. It didn't help.

[Ghitulescu]

I'm ripping a DVD (Lost Season 2 PAL) but there is a weird audio sync issues. After going over all my steps one by one I found the issues on the DVD itself.

If I play the IFO, go through the menus and start the first episode everything works perfectly fine. But if I play the VOB file directly the audio is ~1s or so ahead of the video. The same audio mismatch I got when I ripped the DVD.

I tried FixVTS. It didn't help.

To summarize, when you play the DVD normally (in a DVDplayer or on a PC but taking the IFOs into account), there's no delay. But when you play the VOBs, there's one.

And, yes, FixVTS can't help you here, because it has nothing to correct. You have to edit manually the IFOs to remove all references to the bad cells, then run FixVTS. That was actually what people say when they say use FixVTS. Before attempting any other tool to convert to anything else (DVDFab -> DGIndex -> Avisynth -> x264 -> mkvmerge), do clean the DVD (dvdfab -> pgcedit/ifoedit->fixvts-> dvdshrink or any other tool -> the rest of processing). One can reverse the steps 2 with 3,4.

It appears that you have little experience with these tools, so read them the manuals and their associated threads, here in forum.

[hello_hello]

And, yes, FixVTS can't help you here, because it has nothing to correct. You have to edit manually the IFOs to remove all references to the bad cells, then run FixVTS.

I'm not following. Isn't the problem not that the video won't play in sync when an IFO is opened, isn't it that the video won't play in sync when a vob file is opened?

I guess I've misunderstood what FixVTS actually does and what it's "remove unreferenced and blank cells" option actually does.

[Ghitulescu]

Some unwanted cells are referenced and thus not removable with FixVTS. Disney discs I've ripped (not many) all had unwanted cells (not bad cells, just cell that are not wanted).

[Mr Alpha]

So, after poking around pgcedit and randomly pressing buttons just to see what they do (and managing to break the dvd structure a few times) i found that there are a bunch of weird cells in the beginning of the episode. Deleting them seemed to be a bit trickier proposition since they seemed to be quite entrenched into the functional structure of the DVD. I didn't realize there are this many fiddly bits to making the DVD structure work.

On the other hand two commenters had already given me an easy answer, I just hadn't been smart enough to put two and two together. When ripping in Main Movie mode DVDFab strips out much of this structure, including the references to the unwanted cells. So running FixVTS on the Main Movie rip fixed the problem, I just hadn't been smart enough to do it on my own earlier.

[hello_hello]

Some unwanted cells are referenced and thus not removable with FixVTS. Disney discs I've ripped (not many) all had unwanted cells (not bad cells, just cell that are not wanted).

I'll have to take your word for it as I'm not quite sure how referenced cells could be unwanted.
Looks like the OP got FixVTS to work anyway so I guess it found something to do.

[Ghitulescu]

So.... i found that there are a bunch of weird cells in the beginning of the episode.

.... I'm not quite sure how referenced cells could be unwanted.

No comments.

[hello_hello]

No comments.

Oh.... so you're saying those weird cells were actually referenced?
I didn't know FixVTS removed referenced cells.
Oh... apparently it doesn't.

Some unwanted cells are referenced and thus not removable with FixVTS.

I guess FixVTS must have got bored waiting for the OP to manually remove all references to bad cells and decided to take matters into it's own hands?

[manono]

I'll have to take your word for it as I'm not quite sure how referenced cells could be unwanted.
Looks like the OP got FixVTS to work anyway so I guess it found something to do.
I also admit to being unsure as to why it didn't work the first time but did the second. I don't know what Mr Alpha did differently the second time. Maybe I wasn't entirely clear myself about how to go about it in my earlier post.

Running FixVTS over a DVD movie decrypted to the hard drive using DVDFab is a known fix for exactly this kind of problem. Starting DGIndex a little ways into the movie is perhaps a little bit easier and faster, if all the unreferenced cells are found only at the very beginning of the movie (not always the case).

[setarip_old]

If I remember correctly, several years back, the SOP was to use the "pure" "RipIt4Me" (that at the time did NOT have "FixVTS" incorporated in it) followed by running "FixVTS"...

[Mr Alpha]

What I did was this:

When using DVDFab to rip the whole move there are a bunch of extra cells at the beginning of the PGC.
Screenshot:
http://mralpha.s3.amazonaws.com/dvdfab-wholedvd.png

The actual video for the episode doesn't start until cell 5.

When ripping with DVDFab in Main Movie mode the PGC ends up looking like this:

http://mralpha.s3.amazonaws.com/dvdfab-mainmovie.png

Here the extra cells at the beginning are gone. They are still in the VOB file but now FixVTS will remove them.

[Chetwood]

The problem is with the asinine copy protections of the LOST discs. And as Fengtao pointed out, the only way to get rid of ALL copy protections, is to copy the title you want in main movie mode. This usually takes care of bad cells. It's been a while since I ripped LOST, so I'm not sure if I also re-authored each ep in Shrink, manually deleting all black frames at the beginning.

[Ghitulescu]

What I did was this:

When using DVDFab to rip the whole move there are a bunch of extra cells at the beginning of the PGC.
Screenshot:
http://mralpha.s3.amazonaws.com/dvdfab-wholedvd.png

The actual video for the episode doesn't start until cell 5.

When ripping with DVDFab in Main Movie mode the PGC ends up looking like this:

http://mralpha.s3.amazonaws.com/dvdfab-mainmovie.png

Here the extra cells at the beginning are gone. They are still in the VOB file but now FixVTS will remove them.

For some strange reasons I cannot see the images you posted.
But I have no reason to believe they will show anything else than I said, the first cells are the reason for the audio delay, and since they are referenced (otherwise you couldn't see them in figure 1 :)) they can't be removed with FixVTS.

I assume that the second figure shows a cleaned up main movie, the same result you could obtain following yourself the path I've indicated you some posts above. Many roads lead to Rome.

Glad you solved this issue, and keep this in mind for the rest of the discs ;)