DV -> SVCD problem

[DirkL]

Hi, I am a new at doing DV-> SVCD conversions and please need some help. I did read the guides and read through the forum threads but could not find a solution for my problem.

When converting the AVI file (converted with Canobus DV File Converter) to SVCD format using DVD2SVCD (in AVI2SVCD mode) I get the following 2 problems:
1. The encoded MPEG2 files look fine when I play it on my PC but when it is played through the standalone DVD player I get a stretched image with the sides cut off (DVD player in 4:3 pan&scan mode - I do not have a wide screen TV).
2. The soundtrack is half the length of the Video (the example clip I used is 19s long and the sound is 8 seconds long - consisting of the first 4 seconds and the last 4 seconds...) As a matter of fact the extracted wave file is already wrong and only 8 seconds long.

I managed to solve the sound problem by only using TMPGEnc to do the video and audio encoding (instead of using DVD2SVCD). But after trying various different settings I have not managed to get the video to appear normal. If I switch the DVD player from 4:3 Pan&Scan to 4:3 Letterbox mode then I manage to see the full width of the video (although still stretched) with black bars on the top and bottom.

In TMPGEnc I have the following settings:
- Video tab: Size - 480x576, Aspect Ratio - 4:3 Display
- Advanced tab: Video source - Interlace, Field order - Bottom Filed first, Source Aspect ratio - 4:3 625 line PAL, Video arrange method - Full screen (Keep aspect ratio)
I tried various combinations of the Source Aspect ratio and Video arrange method but with no good results (just sometimes the image was more stretched). It is as if my DVD player (Pioneer dv355) views the aspect ratio as 16:9 and therefore stretches the picture to this aspect ratio? Can this be right? I really do not understand it.

The closest I got to seeing most of the picture and to have the picture appear normal and not stretched (in pan&scan mode on the DVD player) is by setting the Aspect ratio (on the video tab) to 16:9 Display and on the Advanced tab set Source Aspect Ratio to 4:3 625 line PAL. Then TMPGEnc shows (while encoding) that the picture is compressed with black bars on the left and right sides of the picture... When viewing in normal 4:3 pan&scan mode some (very little) of the picture is still cut of at the top, bottom and the sides but at least the picture does not look stretched! When viewing with the DVD player in 4:3 Letterbox mode the picture has a perfect black frame all the way round (on all sides)...

This all does not correspond to the guides I have read and the settings suggested and it makes me very confused. Can someone please explain to me what is going on here? Is there a problem with the way I encode or with the DVD player itself? I would appreciate any help/suggestions.

Sorry for the long post!!!! I had to try and explain what was happening.

Thanks!

[bb]

DirkL,

I suggest you use ReStream to open your file to verify the MPEG-2 stream created. Which information does ReStream show (aspect ratio, etc.)?

bb

[FredThompson]

PAL or NTSC DV? This is a Canopus DV file, correct? Why don't you load the free playback codec from Canopus? http://www.canopus.com/US/products/free_utilities/pm_free_utilities.asp

[DirkL]

Originally posted by bb
DirkL,

I suggest you use ReStream to open your file to verify the MPEG-2 stream created. Which information does ReStream show (aspect ratio, etc.)?

bb

Hi bb,

Thanks for the replay! I downloaded ReStream and opened the generated MPEG2 files. The Aspect Ratio and resolution is displayed as encoded by TMPGEnc. In other words, in the cases where I selected the video to be encoded as 4:3 on the Video Tab within TMPGEnc, ReStream displays the Aspect Ratio as 4:3.

I assume then that this means the encoding was done correctly but that the problem lies with the DVD player? Maybe it does not read the header correctly (this would also explain why WinDVD plays it correctly but my standalone DVD player does not). This is strange though since normal VCD's plays well on the player (with the correct aspect ratio) and (according to the owners manual) the player should be able to play SVCDs. Is there a way how I can solve this problem?

Thanks!

Dirk

[DirkL]

Originally posted by FredThompson
PAL or NTSC DV? This is a Canopus DV file, correct? Why don't you load the free playback codec from Canopus? http://www.canopus.com/US/products/free_utilities/pm_free_utilities.asp

Hi Fred,

I don't quite understand your reply and why I should use the playback codec from Canopus. When I play the generated MPEG2 files on my PC (WinDVD) they display fine with the correct aspect ratio. I experience a problem with playback on my standalone DVD player (pioneer DV-355).

To answer the other questions: It is a PAL DV file (made with Sony Digital8 camcorder) which I then converted with the Canopus DV File Converter before DVD2SVCD or TMPGEnc would accept the file.

Cheers,

Dirk

[bb]

Dirk,

again: if you want me to help you, you should provide all the information ReStream shows, not just the aspect ratio. If you want to get a good diagnosis, you need to tell the doctor where it hurts.

The audio problem may be a problem with the sampling rate. Maybe you recorded at 32 kHz, but for SVCD you need to upsample to 44.1 kHz (although most DVD players should support 48 kHz, too). A solution may be to encode the audio separately.

Which software did you use to burn the SVCD?

bb

[FredThompson]

I don't quite understand your reply and why I should use the playback codec from Canopus. When I play the generated MPEG2 files on my PC (WinDVD) they display fine with the correct aspect ratio. I experience a problem with playback on my standalone DVD player (pioneer DV-355).

To answer the other questions: It is a PAL DV file (made with Sony Digital8 camcorder) which I then converted with the Canopus DV File Converter before DVD2SVCD or TMPGEnc would accept the file.I am suggesting you limit the number of variables. The only reason you should have Canopus DV is you used Canopus hardware to transfer the file from your camcorder. In that case, there's no need to go through the converter program. It's just one more thing which could go wrong.

WinDVD and PowerDVD are very, very forgiving. I have edited DVD files which play perfectly with PowerDVD and WinDVD but will not work on hardware players. It can be very frustrating.

If you have to redo the compression, reduce the number of operations. DVD2SVCD works great except build 3 doesn't properly do 480 width resizing and that might be what got screwed up. You can see the scripts I am currently using here: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65403 and some notes on using them with PAL (be sure to modify the GuavaComb parameter.)

I noticed you didn't mention anything field dominance. Usually, converting straight from DV->CVD/SVCD/DVD looks fine with a software player but will be all screwed up with a hardware player because of this.

Um...stick all that on a back shelf and work through this with bb. It's possible he can help you salvage what you've got without redoing the whole process. We might be in danger of having too many cooks...

[bb]

Originally posted by FredThompson
I am suggesting you limit the number of variables. The only reason you should have Canopus DV is you used Canopus hardware to transfer the file from your camcorder. In that case, there's no need to go through the converter program. It's just one more thing which could go wrong.
It's generally a good idea to decrease the number of variables, if possible. As far as I can see the converter program is used to convert type-1 to type-2 for VfW compatibility. So there's nothing wrong with this step.

Originally posted by FredThompson
Um...stick all that on a back shelf and work through this with bb. It's possible he can help you salvage what you've got without redoing the whole process. We might be in danger of having too many cooks...
On the other hand we might invent a brand new flavour ;)

bb

[DirkL]

Originally posted by bb
Dirk,

again: if you want me to help you, you should provide all the information ReStream shows, not just the aspect ratio. If you want to get a good diagnosis, you need to tell the doctor where it hurts.

The audio problem may be a problem with the sampling rate. Maybe you recorded at 32 kHz, but for SVCD you need to upsample to 44.1 kHz (although most DVD players should support 48 kHz, too). A solution may be to encode the audio separately.

Which software did you use to burn the SVCD?

bb

Hi bb and Fred,

Yes you are right, I should have provided all the information from the start. Since I don't know how to include a screen dump in the thread I will list the information. Here goes:
Sequence:
Resolution: 480x576, Aspect: 4:3, Framerate: 25, Bitrate: 2200
VBV buffer size: 56, Constrained parameters: 0
Intra matrix: standard, Non-intra matrix: manual (Same as source)
Picture Coding Extension:
Frametype progressive (tick box not selected), Intra VLC format 1
top field first (not selected), Intra DC precision: 8bit
Picture Structure: frame-picture
Scanning-mode: alternate
Quantisizer scale: nonlinear
Group Of Pictures:
First GOP-timestamp: 0h 0m 0s 0f
Reset timestamps (not selected), Zero broken-link flags (not selected)
Fields coded: IPBBPBBPBBPBBPBB
Bottom fields: IBBPBBPBBPBBPBBP
Sequence Extension:
Progressive sequence (not selected)
Correct sequence extension length (not selected)
User Data:
Char string: ‡q#‪‡‪’QC_VBR
Hex string: 0087712381008781009251435F564252
Sequence Display Extention:
"don't change" Sequence Display Extension
"480" Horizontal Size, With color (selected)
Stream extras:
Remove seq end codes (not selected), Cut dest at seq:(not selected)

--------------------------

OK, now about the audio. I only experienced the audio problem when working with DVD2SVCD to do the conversion. Then the audio is half the length of the original test clip (approx first 4 sec and last 4 sec of the 19s clip....). I noticed that the extracted wav file generated by DVD2SVCD already had the wrong (cut) audio track. After experiencing this problem with DVD2SVCD I stopped using it for the conversion and just used TMPGEnc to do both the audio and the video for the conversion (producing a system stream instead of the 2 elemental streams). This worked fine for the audio. I converted the audio with 44.1kHz set in TMPGEnc (the original DV file was 48kHz). I tried 48kHz but (although my player would play it) the audio sounded funny and not normal.

At the end of the conversion process, I took the MPEG2 file generated by TMPGEnc and burnt the SVCD using Nero 5 (version 5.5.10.54).

OK, this was another marathon post. I hope the information is useful though.

Thanks again for the help!

Dirk

[bb]

The VBV buffer size seems to be a little too small. I usually have 112 here; I guess you should change this parameter.

For the "Horizontal Size" you could try 540.

The rest seems normal to me. Try to play your SVCD on another DVD player; this way you can easily find out if your Pioneer is somewhat picky.

bb

[FredThompson]

540?

I was incorrect, CVD is busted in build 3, not SVCD.

@DirkL, did you change any of the default settings in AVI2SVCD? If so, which and why?

[DirkL]

Originally posted by FredThompson
540?

I was incorrect, CVD is busted in build 3, not SVCD.

@DirkL, did you change any of the default settings in AVI2SVCD? If so, which and why?

Hi Fred,

The first time I used AVI2SVCD I left all the default settings the same. Later I played around with the audio settings (since I was experiencing a problem). I changed the bitrate to 224kbps (I think the default was 192) and also checked the Audio 1 downsample (48 -> 44.1kHz) box - I cannot remember if this was set with the default settings. Still though the audio problem persisted. I am wondering if it won't be worthwhile to reinstall it, maybe something went wrong with the installation...

Cheers,

Dirk

[FredThompson]

It can't hurt to reinstall and doesn't take much time at all.

Have you tried that SVCD disc in other hardware players? How about making some short test samples to see if it was just that one time through the process or if the problem might be your player? It's not that common anymore but there are hardware players for which you'll have to patch the file with something like DVDPatcher http://mitglied.lycos.de/dvdpatcher/. I don't have that requirement and can't advise you about that but other people here can.

Sure, reinstall and try a few short test samples and see what happens.

[DirkL]

No, I have not managed to test the SVCD in another hardware player yet. In the meantime I did stumble onto something interesting though ...

I did a internet search on SVCD problems experienced with Pioneer DVD players and found a post where someone also had a SVCD aspect ratio problem with a Pioneer player. He mentioned that he solved the problem with "VCD header trick". After a search in Google I found a guide on using the VCD Header Trick and tried it out. It worked beautifully!! The video is displayed correctly without any AR problems. What was nice about the guide is that it used software I was already using e.g. TMPGEnc and Nero.

Once I managed to test the old SVCD (without the VCD header trick) on another player I should be able to verify that the problem is the DVD player. Strange that it plays VCDs correctly but not SVCDs. It is especially frustrating since the owners manual specifically states that the player can play SVCDs.

Anyway, for those who are interested, here is the guide I used:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Some DVD players will not play SVCD but will play VCD. So people are forced to re-encode their SVCD's to VCD! VCD is MPEG-1 and the quality is not as good as MPEG-2, which is used by SVCD. However, some DVD players can be tricked into playing an MPEG-2 file if the headers are non standard VCD headers, this is known as the VCD Header Trick!

In this little guide I will show you how to rip an mpg file from an svcd disc and rewrite the headers to non standard VCD OR rip an mpg from an image file and rewrite the headers to non standard vcd!

The following programs you will need are..

Alcohol 120% (Optional, needed for image files)
VCDEasy (Definately needed to extract an mpeg file)
TMPGEnc (Needed to add VCD headers, no encoding will be done!)
Nero Burning Rom (To Burn)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Step 1 - Rip mpeg from CD/Image File
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Rip From CD

For this You need VCDEasy. Open VCDEasy and click Tools. Then Click the Mpeg Tools button. You will see CDXA2MPEG at the bottom of the program now!

There are 2 fields, dat file and mpeg file. Click browse and browse to your cd drive, under the MPEG2 folder select AVSEQ01.mpg (may also be .dat but not usually on an SVCD). Now in the mpeg file field, click browse and browse to a folder you would like to save your new mpg file in. Then click Convert and in a few minutes you will have a true mpeg file.

Rip From Image File

First what you need to do is mount your cd image onto a virtual drive in Alcohol 120%. There are many other programs that will do this but I prefer Alcohol 120% and think everyone should have that program!

The first thing to do is add the image file. So on Alcohol 120%, right click on the image list (will be a big empty space right above your list of cd/dvd drives) and click Add Images. Now browse to your image file which could be an iso, bin/cue, ccd etc etc.. If it is a bin/cue, select the cue file and click open.

Now that it is in your list, you have to mount it onto the Virtual Drive so either right click it and mount it that way or drag it from the image list to the virtual drive in the list of drives! If it mounts properly you will see it beside the Virtual Drive! Then use VCDEasy

Open VCDEasy and click Tools. Then Click the Mpeg Tools button. You will see CDXA2MPEG at the bottom of the program now!

There are 2 fields, dat file and mpeg file. Click browse and browse to your virtual cd drive, under the MPEG2 folder select AVSEQ01.mpg (may also be .dat but not usually on an SVCD). Now in the mpeg file field, click browse and browse to a folder you would like to save your new mpg file in. Then click Convert and in a few minutes you will have a true mpeg file.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Step 2 - Rewrite Headers!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

You now need to Open TMPGEnc. Please make sure that you properly extracted TMPGEnc and that you are running it from the exe file and not a shortcut!

Click File - MPEG Tools. It should already be on the Simple Multiplex tab. Click the browse button beside Video input, and then browse to the mpg file you got from VCDEasy. This will also load in the Audio input and will fill in the Output field. Change the Output filename, just make sure it isnt the same! Change Type, to MPEG-1 Video-CD (non-standard). Then click RUN, in a few minutes you will have another mpg file with VCD headers!

NOTE: TMPGEnc might warn about an error in playback due to buffer underflow, but you dont need to worry about it, it usually happens when things are non standard!

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Step 3 - Burn To CD!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Open Nero Burning Rom. When it opens, either the New Compilation window will appear or the Nero Wizard. If it is the wizard, click Close Wizard! In the New Compilation Window, use the scroll bar on the left to find Video CD. Click it!

Under the Video CD tab, UNSELECT create standard compliant cd! That is very important! Now click the New Button.

Now on your left you should have, your VCD compilation window and on your right you should have your file browser! Use the file browser to browse to the folder you have your mpeg file in. When you find it, drag it from the file browser to the compilation window! DO NOT drag it to any of the folders, drag it to the blank space underneath! Nero will then scan the file, if it tells you that it is non standard (which it shouldnt) click "Turn off standard compliance and continue". When you have the file sucessfully loaded, click file - write cd and make sure that you have the VCD Compilation selected or else you wont be able to click it! Choose a LOW burning speed! I recommend 4x!

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bb and Fred, Thanks for all your help and patience!

Cheers,

Dirk

[bb]

So I assume we can summarize that your player is not SVCD compatible, although the maufacturer made a different statement. This should give you the right to return the player and get your money back (at least in Germany).

bb