Encoding to PAL-DVD target with FFmpeg

[Ikaragua]

Hi there,

I have been trying to encode a film with FFmpeg and the "pal-dvd" target, but during the encoding process lots of "buffer underflow" messages are prompted. I could easily ignored this phenomenon since the file plays back fine in MPC-HC, but the subsequent step, i.e. DVD authoring with dvdauthor, produces output that, if played back, sometimes freezes and no sound can be heard. I suspect above-mentioned phenomenon to be the cause. According to some research of mine, "buffer underflow" means in a nutshell that the single image of the film is too big in "file size", I think.

Is that the reason and how can this be dealt with?

Greetings, Ikaragua

[manolito]

Bitrate set too high?

Here is a sample command line taken from WinFF:
ffmpeg.exe -y -i "F:\Download\test.mp4" -f dvd -target pal-dvd -b:v 8000k -r 25 -vf scale=720:576 -ar 48000 -b:a 224k "I:\test.mpg"

I recommend to not go over 8000 kbps for video bitrate.


Cheers
manolito

[Ikaragua]

After testing some stuff, it seems that the target parameter was the source of the problem. In the end, I solved the problem the long way. Here's the command-line:
ffmpeg.exe -threads 4 -i sw.avi -f dvd -c:v mpeg2video -b:v 5000k -bt:v 4000k -r:v 25 -vf scale=720:576 -aspect:v 16:9 -c:a ac3 -b:a 224k -ar:a 48000 sw.mpg