Possible Dropped frame message

[Barry_W]

I am trying some experiments to see how DVD Rebuilder compares to other utilities like DVD Shrink etc.

To do it thoroughly I decided I needed to create several DVDs and then closely inspect them to judge whether one was always better or whether it depended on the length of the original file.

So I started off with a file of 4 hrs 30 and gradually chopped it down deleting 5, 10 or 15 minutes each time from the end.

The problem I have is it worked perfectly for the following lengths

4 Hrs 30
4 Hrs 20
4 Hrs 10
4 Hrs
3 Hrs 45
3 Hrs 30
3 Hrs 10
3 Hrs
2 Hrs 45
2 Hrs 20

Unfortunately for the following lengths I got a possible dropped frame message and the resulting size showed that a chunk was missing in one case almost a third.

4 Hrs 15
3 Hrs 20
3 Hrs 15
2 Hrs 30

Each of these 4 I have rerun with exactly the same result. What seems to happen is that one of the HC encoding phases crashes part way through, giving a gap when the final disk is rebuilt at the end.

My PC was bought new a couple of months ago and has only been used for this process.

To create the files to use DVD Rebuilder on I have recorded a SP title on the hard disk of a Panasonic DVD Recorder, with a total length of 4 hrs 30 Mins.

Then I split this into 3 sections of approx 1h30 each, and downloaded each onto my PC using a DVD-RAM disk.

I then used Womble to create the starting files for Rebuilder. Each file is the same as the next size up but with the end chopped off.

As Womble works on the input files without modifying them, the original files are untouched.

What I don't understand is if there is a problem somewhere in the original recording then why doesn't it show up in the 4 Hr 30 file bearing in mind this is exactly the same as the 4 Hr 15 file except it has an additional 15 minutes.

If it is a problem with my PC then again why don't I get this problem every time.

I am totally baffled.

[rack04]

What encoder are you using? Is your system overclocked? Usually I think this error is attributed to a system being unstable.

[wmansir]

Dropped frames usually means there was some kind of encoder error. What caused the encoder to fail is the real question.

The first thing I would do is track down exactly where the dropped frames occurred. DVD-RB should give you the segment number and from there check the D2VAVS folder in the "working' directory. Find the segment(s) in question based on their file name and compare the .m2v (or .mpv) file to the .avs file. They should contain the same video, but probably the .m2v file stops short.

Play back the .avs file from the beginning in a media player. If AVISynth or DGDecode doesn't like your source it could trigger a crash. With an unusual source like yours, this is definitely possible.

Next, try manually encoding the file with your encoder. If/when it fails you may get an error message you don't see with DVD-RB.

[jdobbs]

Well for one thing you are going to start off with material that is already inferior. You used a Panasonic DVD Recorder to create the original source. Even when set to SP mode the original is well below DVD authoring standards. It also doesn't take advantage of VBR very well, so DVD-RB's "first pass" scan won't get a lot of benefit by examining the original VBR.

Dropped frames means there are fewer frames in the M2V file than DVD-RB detected in the original scan for that segment.

What are you using to "chop off" the info? MPEG can contain forward references -- if you chop off a frame that was referenced by something earlier it can cause all kinds of issues.

Also, are you working with extremely long chapter sizes?

[Barry_W]

Thanks for the responses.

First let me clarify what I am trying to do.

I record sport and TV series off TV.

I cannot see a better way of getting them to my PC than using a DVD Recorder at SP then going to the PC via a DVD.

What I am looking to do is to get a TV series or a sporting event on one DVD at the best possible quality.

I understand that using DVD Rebuilder will give me a much better result than just using LP or EP on the DVD Recorder.

I believe the chapters are created automatically at either 5 minute or 10 minute intervals by the DVD Recorder. However for the purposes of my experiments I have created 2 and the split being at the halfway mark.

At this stage I am trying to similate in very rough terms what I plan to do for real. This is import the file to Womble (which is the editor that gave the best results in my tests) then do my editing. This would mean chopping commercials out and links in sporting events. Then when all this has been done I would want to reduce the size so it fits on 4.7GB DVD.

Now as regards the frames referencing other frames issue my understanding is that Womble sorts this one out. Frankly if this is a problem then I don't see how I can do the editing I want to which rules out Rebuilder right at the start and if that was the case it would seem to be very silly.

I have looked at the output files and compared them to the input and found that at a certain point the audio continues but the video stops. This certain point is distinctly variable and can even be in a different segment depending on the length of the input file. This strongly implies there is nothing wrong with my data especially as the biggest file failes to produce any error messages . What I do notice is I get a Microsoft Error Message when something goes wrong and at this point the HC Encoder stops. When I click on the message the encoder restarts but when the file is being rebuilt I get the error message and the file is incomplete. When I rerun exactly the same thing happens. The error message comes up after the same amount of time and the video stops at the same point.

My biggest question is why does 4 Hrs 30 work and 4 Hrs 15 fail when the first 4 Hrs 15 of the 4 Hrs 30 file is exactly the same. If it was my data I would expect Rebuilder to hit the dodgy data and then fail.

[James35]

Have you tried a different encoder ? It looks like HC encoder cannot handle the data and throws a error .