looking for a walk-through.. making a dvd

[ubernewb]

as the title states, i'm wondering if anyone knows of a step by step walkthrough to help me create my first from-scratch dvd. i have a bunch of downloaded avi files (before anyone says pirate, they're perfectly legal episodes of red vs blue) and i would like to create a dvd with them. i love watching the avi's on my modded xbox, but being able to put them on a dvd and watching them at a friend's house would be even better

ideally i'd like to set up each episode as it's own individual chapter so i can skip to a specific one. a menu system of some sort would be cool, but is far from neccessary. i would however like to have two titles.. one title made up of all the episodes, then another title made up of all the specials.. then i believe i can switch between the two of them using the title button on my dvd player (i think)


hopefully this all made sense.. if not, please feel to tell me. if anyone here can point me in the right direction i'd be much appreciative. thanks :)

[influenza]

Hi, seems you've posted this to the wrong forum. I will move it to the dvd authoring forum.

[ubernewb]

oops.. sorry about that.

but question still stands.. any ideas? tia..

[setarip_old]

Hi!

One set of procedures (other posters may/probably will suggest alternative methods) would be:

1) Use "TMPGEnc" (or "TMPGEncPlus") to convert the .AVI (DivX-compressed or otherwise) to compliant MPEG2-for-DVD format - Use "TMPGEnc's" DVD wizard/template to accomplish this

2) Use "TMPGEnc DVD Author" (a different program than "TMPGEnc") to easily create the required additional DVD files and structure (and chapters and a menu, if you wish)
You can obtain a FULLY functional free 30 day trial version of this commercial program at:

www.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tda.html

**If the combined filesize of the DVD "package" written to your hard drive is greater than 4.37Gb, use DVD Shrink (or similar) to compress


If your O/S is either Win2000 or WinXP, TMPGEnc DVD Author can also burn your DVD. Otherwise, use NERO to burn in "DVD-Video" mode
(As an alternative to "TMPGEnc DVD Author", you could use "DVDLab")


Let us know of your success ;>}

[ubernewb]

actually i stumbled onto that very same program myself and gave it a shot.. first off, let me say that that is an excellent program! very easy to use and by following a few simple prompts i was able to create my first dvd!! (did take a very long time to do though.. lol)

only one problem... kinda odd one too..

i got all the avi files from the same source (redvsblue.com) .. then used tmpgenc to convert the whole lot to mpeg2 files. the avi files all play on my pc and xbox with no problems, and so do the converted mpeg2 files.

once i use tmpgenc to convert the files into dvd-video files, i lose audio on half of the episodes.. ?? avi.. sound, mpeg.. sound, vob.. no sound ?? i did everything the same for the entire setup, but still i get no sound on the last eps..

any ideas as to what i might be doing wrong? this has got me stumped..

[setarip_old]

avi.. sound, mpeg.. sound, vob.. no sound ??

I'd sooner believe that you had no sound (but didn't notice) when the .AVIs were converted to MPEG. Is it possible that the problematic .AVIs have a different audio format (not accepted by TMPGEnc) than do the non-problematic ones?

1) Load the .AVI file into VirtualDub (or any of its variants) or NanDub

2) From the "File" dropdown menu, select "File Information"

3) Post (here) EVERYTHING you see (both video and audio information), or post a screen capture .jpg of the information box


The audiostream is probably in either .AC3 format or Variable Bitrate MPEG Layer 3 (VBR .MP3).

If it proves to be .AC3:

In TMPGEnc, under the "Environmental Settings" "VFAPI plugin" tab rightclick on the "Direct Show Multimedia Reader" and increase to one greater than the highest priority of listed items.. This will enable TMPGEnc to accept a properly encoded .AVI with .AC3 audio for input...


If it proves to be VBR:

Simply use VirtualDubMOD (Different than standard VirtualDub), to save the audio stream as an Uncompressed PCM (WAV) file as follows:
Using VirtualDubMOD to Convert "VBR" .MP3 to Uncompressed .WAV

1) Load the .AVI file into VirtualDubMOD (a different program than the standard VirtualDub)

2) From the "Video" dropdown menu, select "Direct Stream Copy"

3) From the "Streams" dropdown menu, select "Stream List" - and rightclick on the audio stream, then select "Full Processing Mode" - then click on "OK". Rightclick on the audiostream again, then select "Compression" and make certain it is set to "No compression (PCM)"

4) From the "File" dropdown menu, save the .AVI with a new filename

[ubernewb]

no, i swear the avi and the mpeg both have audio.. i triple checked it after i caught the problem on the dvd. i know it might sound odd, but it's true. if it matters, both files were viewed on media player..

but anyways, here's some screens i took of virtualdub. i got info for 4 total files..

first, here's the avi of a working episode..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v208/ubernewb/goodavi.jpg

and then one of the ones that didn't end up working..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v208/ubernewb/badavi.jpg

next, here's the mpeg of a working episode..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v208/ubernewb/goodmpeg.jpg

and then one of the ones that didn't end up working..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v208/ubernewb/badmpeg.jpg

[manono]

DVD audio has to have a sampling rate of 48000 HZ. The good AVI does; the bad one doesn't. Evidently something happened during the conversion in TMPGEnc. I'd suggest extracting the audio and doing the conversions in BeSweet.

It doesn't say whether the AVI audio is VBR or CBR. If you opened them in VDubMod, it would have given you a warning screen if it was VBR. In any event, you're likely to get synch issues if it is VBR, and again, it's a good reason to handle the audio externally. GSpot will give you more complete information about the audio.

[ubernewb]

ok.. here's what the avi's look like in gspot

first the good one..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v208/ubernewb/goodavi_gspot.jpg

and the bad one..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v208/ubernewb/badavi_gspot.jpg

[ubernewb]

holy crap.. that one does work.. argh. so looks like i have to dig thru these one at a time to find the bad ones.

i know i saw vbr on one of the files i checked with gspot last night..

[ubernewb]

ok.. turns out only 10 of the 60 eps are different..

when run thru gspot, i get the following different line of info:

128kb/s (64/ch, stereo) VBR fs 44100hz

[setarip_old]

You can follow the suggestion made by "Manono" or, as I previously suggested:

If it proves to be VBR:

Simply use VirtualDubMOD (Different than standard VirtualDub), to save the audio stream as an Uncompressed PCM (WAV) file as follows:
Using VirtualDubMOD to Convert "VBR" .MP3 to Uncompressed .WAV

1) Load the .AVI file into VirtualDubMOD (a different program than the standard VirtualDub)

2) From the "Video" dropdown menu, select "Direct Stream Copy"

3) From the "Streams" dropdown menu, select "Stream List" - and rightclick on the audio stream, then select "Full Processing Mode" - then click on "OK". Rightclick on the audiostream again, then select "Compression" and make certain it is set to "No compression (PCM)"

4) From the "File" dropdown menu, save the .AVI with a new filename

[ubernewb]

ok, so i have virtualdubmod.. i'll follow the suggestion you posted. just one question, when the warning pops up am i supposed to click yes or no?

here's the warning:


VirtualDub has detected an improper VBR audio encoding in the source AVI file (audio stream 1). The current preference is to rewrite the audio header with standard CBR values during processing for better compatibility. This may introduce up to 1993 ms of skew from the video stream. If this is unacceptable, decompress the *entire* audio stream to an uncompressed WAV file and recompress with a constant bitrate encoder

Do you still want to rewrite the header?

yes no


i'n guessing i just click yes and proceed from there?

[setarip_old]

i'n guessing i just click yes and proceed from there?

I'm afraid you've guessed wrong ;>}

"Just say no"...

[ubernewb]

figures... hahaha

i'll go ahead and give that a shot tonight. thanks for all your help with this, i really appreciate it.

[setarip_old]

i'll go ahead and give that a shot tonight.

Let us know how it goes!


thanks for all your help with this, i really appreciate it.

As always, my pleasure ;>}

[ubernewb]

you sir, are indeed the man! followed your advice, and success!! red vs blue in my standalone with fully functional audio..

wish you were local, i'd buy you a round or two.. lol

thanks again.. now off to make more dvd's :)