Scenarist Hangs When Generating DVD Files with 24/96 Audio

[BassPig]

We have been very successful with Scenarist 2.7 for a couple of years, with projects ranging from Dolby stereo to 5.1 surround Dolby.
This time, we are doing an audiophile DVD, containing some very high end audio recording samples as a demo disc.
The disc features a concert in Dolby 5.1, but also two music tracks in stereo at 24-bit/96KHz with video limited to 5300kbps, avg 4700kbps. The total data rate should be below 10mb/S.
The problem is that Scenarist is stopping at random percentages of completion during the Generating DVD Files process. The first time we attempted this, it stopped at 48%. The second time it stopped at 34%.
Task Manager says Scenarist is 'running'. But it shows no sign of any activity. Normally it takes ten minutes to MUX these files. It has been over an hour at 34% with no progress.
As I watch the log progress, the freeze happens when Scenarist starts to process the VOBs that are comprised of the 24/96 audio tracks, so I am quite certain the HD audio is causing Scenarist to choke.
Does anyone have any experience with Scenarist and successfully including 24/96 audio in a project? We were quite careful to observe the specifications to make sure that they were compliant with DVD video, but since we're treading in new territory, perhaps someone here can point out some error we made.
Any ideas?

[jel]

hi BassPig,

i know that i am not answering your query but as i have not yet tried this in scenarist, i thought that this thread may help:

Muxman - 24/96 PCM audio (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=97284&page=1&pp=20&highlight=muxman+96KHz)

not only does mpucoder give a detailed description of the requirements for 24/96 audio but also indicates that muxman can sucessfully mux compliant streams ... so as a test for wether it is scenarist or your assets, you could try muxman ans see if it works. at least then you would know the culprit.

good luck
j

[bigotti5]

LPCM Audio 96/24 Datarate 4.608 Mbps
Video Datarate max. 5300 Mbps

9908 Mbps exceeds max datarate 9800 Mbps for Video and Audio

from 9800 Mbps to 10080 Mbps is for muxing overhead

[BassPig]

I've set the max video datarate to 5300 and the avg to 4700, in light of this requirement, however, that is not what's causing the stalling problem.
There's nothing too unusual about the audio... originated from a MotU 896, recorded 24/96 in Vegas 4, tracks copied to editing system and brought into Premiere Pro 1.5 in a 24/96 project setting, video added to audio and exported to stereo WAV and MPEG2 video files for processing in Scenarist.
It just seems that Scenarist can't handle either the bit depth or the sample rate. It doesn't produce an error, it just stalls. I let it run all night and it made no progress at all. Task Manager says the application is "running", which seems odd. CPU usage at 100% the whole time. I may have to scrap the HD audio portion of the demo DVD as a result of the fact that we are way behind schedule delivering this demo to a client.

[bigotti5]

I did a test with a 96/24 PCM File (created with Steinberg Wavelab) and a 4700 (max 5300) video file
You are right - it did not stall


log:
Video or Audio Buffer underflow: (Dts: 375054, SCR 375115)
Error dvd_mux : DoMux Multiplexing Error
Error Terminated Multiplexing (test.scn-avs-t_t.vob).
Error Total bitrate is too HIGH. Please reduce the stream bitrate or the number of stream.
Error Multiplex is failed.
Info Multiplexing failed, Track<avs-t>

Error MuxFromDB:MuxVTS failed
Error Multiplex failed
Error DVD files could not be created


with 5150/4700 Video and 96/24 Audio no problems at all

[BassPig]

I don't understand. You say it didn't stall, but you seem to have an error log there which suggests the bitrate was too high.

I'm not getting an error log. Just shows normal processing, and when the process starts on the VTS with the 96/24 audio, it simply stalls. No error, no sign of any trouble, other than the fact that 20 hours later, it's still sitting there processing and essentially doing nothing. I doubt it takes hundreds of hours to process a 96/24 stream, since it only took minutes to process everything up to it, so I think there is some kind of problem handling these audio streams.

[bigotti5]

I don't understand. You say it didn't stall, but you seem to have an error log there which suggests the bitrate was too high.

I got the error log with VBR 4700 (max 5300) and audio 96/24.
Scenarist stops with the message above.

Then I made a test with VBR 4700 (max 5150) and audio 96/24 and scenarist did the job without any error. So Iknow that Scenarist can handle these bit depth and sample rate.

[BassPig]

Okay, now I understand. That's helpful. What bitrate was your audio? Mine is 4.608mb/S and didn't encode with 5300 max bitrate on the video. Even so, that's below 10mb/S so I can't understand why that's not working.

I will try reencoding to 5150 max br and see what happens. This has been very frustrating. I wanted to get this demo out before my vacation starts next week.

[bigotti5]

What bitrate was your audio?

Codec : PCM
Bit rate : 4608 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Channels : 2
Sampling rate : 96 KHz

[BassPig]

That's interesting. The combined bitrate of audio and video are well below the 10.08mb/S spec for DVD in my demo that refuses to encode. I guess we have to drop below 9mb/S when using 24/96 audio. I'll re encode the MPEG2 stream later tonight and post my results..

[BassPig]

That doesn't seem to hold true for Dolby audio, because our encoder is defaulted to 9800 for max bitrate all the time with Dolby 2/0 projects. The 10.08 data rate seems accurate and we use bandwidth right up to 10mb/S on many of our DVD titles.
Perhaps Scenarist doesn't enforce this unless the audio is in PCM format? For all we can tell, it doesn't care when the audio is 192kbps and the specs (as we understand them) allow it.
Nevertheless, we will try reencoding the video stream at some level below 5000 and see if it makes a difference.

[BassPig]

I reencoded the MPEG2 video stream so that the max bitrate is 5150, 4700 avg and have re loaded the streams into the scenario. I am attempting to make the DVD layout yet again.
However, it is stalling just as it gets to the VTS#04 VOB with the 24/96 audio again.
Here is the log so far:

Info Remaking Vob
Info Preparing to multiplex track DSO PPP_1-t
Info Remaking Vob
Info Preparing to multiplex track DSO WWorld_1-t
Info Remaking Vob
Info Preparing to multiplex track DSO Sclock_1-t
Info Remaking Vob
Info Preparing to multiplex track DSO Bridge_1-t
Info Remaking Vob
Info No VTS<Setup> Language Tracks found
Info Creating DVD data (VTS Title) VTS#03
Info Preparing to multiplex track Dolby Setup Intro-t
Info Remaking Vob
Info Creating DVD data (VTS Language) VTS#04
Info Preparing to multiplex track AUDIO_MNU-t
Info Creating Multiplexer info
Info Multiplexing
Info Multiplexing VOB Main Stream
Info Creating DVD data (VTS Title) VTS#04
Info Preparing to multiplex track Penny Whistle-t
Info Creating Multiplexer info
Info Multiplexing
Info Multiplexing VOB Main Stream

I think we're going to have to forego the 24/96 part of the demo, the most important portion of the program, as we're out of time on this project and the demo has to be shipped out this week.
We have tried again and again, both reencoding the video to lower bitrates, carefully checking the project, etc. and this stall problem persists. Either that or we cheat and resample the audio down to 48/16, but the video has a title in it that announces that the audio portion if 24/96... a bit of a dilemma.
I'm out of ideas and very much out of time now.

[bigotti5]

I guess there is something wrong in your audio - try to resample with Wavelab or similar programm that can handle 24/96 audio

[BassPig]

The audio originated with a MotU 896, driven by Vegas 4, producing the discreet tracks of audio. That was mixed down in Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, using a template for 24/96 audio tracks. I would be very surprised if there was something wrong with the audio.

[Cheesus]

Another suggestion then. If it's not the audio it's possible that there is something wrong with your video instead. Some encoders do not always stick to the peak level that you have assigned them, sonics $15000 encoder is one of them. You can analyse the video bitrate with a number of different tools, to double check the integrity of your encode. Bitrate viewer is pretty good, you can get it from here

http://www.tecoltd.com/bitratev.htm


Good luck

[BassPig]

Bitrate of the video has never been a problem since we started using CinemaCraft SP 3 years ago, but I did find a curious problem with the 24-bit audio that Premiere Pro exports. It would not load into SoundForge.
After much tinkering, I found that I could export a "32-bit float" format and open that in SoundForge, then convert that to 24-bit and save it. That did the trick and the DVD could be produced.
Apparently Premiere Pro's 24-bit export is broken.
BTW, I was able to bump the video bitrate up to 5300 and all's well.

[bigotti5]

Apparently Premiere Pro's 24-bit export is broken.

I guess there is something wrong in your audio - try to resample with Wavelab or similar programm that can handle 24/96 audio

hehe ;)

[BassPig]

Okay, you can say "I told ya' so." :)

PS: Thanks for the good suggestions.