Babylon 5 Episode Audio Sync (1 Good; 1 Bad)

[Donchik]

Dear all,

Please can anybody help a relative newbie on an audio sync issue.

I am trying to back up Babylon 5, Region 2 (PAL), DVDs, and have been relatively successful using DVD2SVCD ver 1.2.3 Build 1 and TMPGEnc 2.5

I have a hearing impaired member of the family, thus I am trying to back-up whilst retaining Subtitles.

The DVDs are structured with a single large VOB file, containing 4 episodes at a time. These are each broken down into 6 chapters, thus selecting chapters 1 thru 12, and then 13 thru 24, has permitted be to put 2 episodes on a regular DVD-R.

Backing-up a single episode at a time has worked fine, and each retained the Subtitles, and perfect Audio Sync. When I tried to do as above and put a pair of episodes onto each DVD the second episode has a significant audio lag throughout. I have experimented with using the original audio, and re-encoding, but to no avail. The total audio track is several seconds shorter than the video prior to multiplexing.

I checked the initial ripped VOB files, and these do not contain the sync issue, thus it must come somewhere in the de-multiplex phase, but I cannot see where.

Is there a way to individually set the audio delay when extracting from multiple episode DVDs? Or can somebody help identify where I am going wrong?

Any guidance that allows the retention of the subtitles, and gets a pair of episodes onto each DVD would be most appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your assistance,

[Nick]

Hmmm. You can't set the audio delay manually. This is auto-detected.

Are you saying if you convert chapters 1-6 you get a perfectly synced single episode, likewise 7-12. But if you select chapters 1-12, you get 2 episodes but the second is out of sync?

If this is the case, I would suggest selecting No Images in the image tab and set the disc size in the Bitrate tab to half what it is now. Then convert each episode individually. The output will be DVD compliant MPEG files, each half a disc-length. You can then author discs manually from these MPEG's, using TMPGEnc DVD Author, or one of the many equivalents.

[Donchik]

Hi Nick,

Thanks for replying. Your assesment is correct, when two episodes are selected, concurrently the sync on the second item is lost.

If I author the episodes seperatly am I correct in assuming the subtitle information not be retained?

Part of the problem was to retain this feature.

Can you assist with this?

Many thanks,
Donchik

[Nick]

Aargh! Forgot about the subs.
You are quite correct.

The only way out of this I can see is to do both conversions as I outlined above, to separate output directories, but select DVD Author in the Image tab instead of No images.

Then, copy the subbed mpg file from the second directory to the first directory overwriting the first. Now copy the DVD Author commandline from the logfile of the first conversion and run it manually using the Run option in the Windows Start Menu.

This will create a second title in the DVD folders in the first output folder.

I can't guarantee it will work - I've not tested it - but you can try it if you like.

[ralphthedog]

I would suggest what Nick says, encode each episode seperately, no images.

But then........renumber all the .vob's created by DVD2SVCD so all the episodes will be in the correct order, put them all in one directory, and use IfoEdit to "create new IFO's" (there is a button).

You can keep your chapters, subtitle and audio streams that way, just make sure you do each episode with exactly the same number and type of streams. And it's quicker than re-authoring etc..

[Nick]

Good call ralphthedog!

Just to clarify though - don't select No Images in the DVD Image tab - select DVD Author, but uncheck the ISO Image box.

[Donchik]

Hi Nick, Ralfthedog,

Many thanks for your guidance and support. After a week of tinkering I have got it sorted. Ended up pulling the ripped vob files into a seperate folder, renumbering and creating a new ifo as advised.

All appeared to work fine except the subtitle colours became corrupted, kind of a fuzzy green.

Tried importing the original colour masks, from the earlier rips, and the actual DVD, all to no avvail, led to a fuzzy grey colour!

Eventually through trial and error sorted out a working colour mask, and this process is working fine.

Once again many thanks for your input and ideas, keep up the good work,
Donchik:thanks: