psantucc
6th March 2003, 03:31
Greetings All-
I suspect the solution to my problem is simple, but I have been unable as yet to find an answer in the many fine guides and forums available. After substantial research on my own, I am at last able to present a single technical question to this group, in the hope that a reader knows the answer. I recognize that I might be in the wrong forum, as no encoding per se takes place in my project - but I beg your tolerance, as I think the problem I face can be best answered by an expert encoder rather than expert author.
I am trying to back up Beauty and the Beast Special Edition , R1 NTSC. My goal is
a DVD5 with the special edition, all three soundtracks, both subtitles, and working chapter points, but no menus or extras. Since the elementary streams themselves are small enough to fit a DVD5 with room to spare, I want to avoid trascoding and the commensurate quality loss.
Using SmartRipper, I have been able to extract valid files for all of the streams in which I am interested and the chapter points. I can remux and reauthor them in IFOEdit and get a file set that plays properly in PowerDVD XP, including observation of chapter points.
The Problem is the reported length of the m2v file and any vobs made from it. The movie iteself is 91 minutes long, but WMP 6.4 and PowerDVD XP both report it as 72 minutes.
A preview operation in DVD2AVI on the m2v reports 95% FILM with both progressive and interlaced frames.
It doesn't take long to count the frames (131205, if memory serves) and do the
math; if the file is treated as 23.576 fps, it will show 91 minutes - if 29.97 fps, 72 minutes. Something in one of my steps is preventing players from understanding how to count the length, and I don't know how to find it.
PowerDVD XP is tolerant - though it reports a wrong time (as though the file were to be counted in 29.97 frames) it can continue to play and chapter operations succeed. My standalone player is not tolerant. Though a DVD made from this fileset will play, any calculation dependant operation (such as chapter search, scan, or even OSD of time elapsed) will cause the player to freeze.
So I got a tip over at DVDRHelp to try pulldown.exe and modify the the drop frame flag. This I have done, with the following result.
Using pulldown.exe set for drop_frame true or drop_frame false, windows media player is convinced that the resultant m2v is film, and shows accurate time code and permits scrubbing. PowerDVD has no difference in its treatment from before the pulldown operation; no total time count is shown, and the drag bar stops at about the point where the end would be if the stream really were true 29.97 NTSC.
Authoring a DVD in IFOEdit using the pulled down m2v yields the same result as not pulled down; neither PowerDVD nor my standalone treat the runtime properly, and the standalone chokes on that as a result.
Examining the IFO file of the re-authored DVD reveals that IFOEdit thought the file was the wrong run length on the PGC:
PGC (program chain):
[00000002] Number of Programs 22 [16]
[00000003] Number of Cells 22 [16]
[00000004] Playback time (BCD) 17978325 [011253d5]
Playback time (hh:mm:ss.frame) 01:12:53.15 / 30 fps
But editing the IFO to match the original playback time does not fix the playback problems. I tentatively conclude that the proper information is missing from the m2v, and IFOEdit authors based on that.
So the question now is: what do PowerDVD and IFOEdit want that isn't in my m2v? It isn't the drop frame flag, and I've tried restoring the rff flags with pulldown.exe at the same time (even though DVD2AVI's report of 95% film should indicate that they were there already). What the hell do I have to do to identify the m2v stream properly?
As a corrollary, doesn't the fact that the information was somehow lost indicate a flaw in SmartRipper's demux?
I suspect the solution to my problem is simple, but I have been unable as yet to find an answer in the many fine guides and forums available. After substantial research on my own, I am at last able to present a single technical question to this group, in the hope that a reader knows the answer. I recognize that I might be in the wrong forum, as no encoding per se takes place in my project - but I beg your tolerance, as I think the problem I face can be best answered by an expert encoder rather than expert author.
I am trying to back up Beauty and the Beast Special Edition , R1 NTSC. My goal is
a DVD5 with the special edition, all three soundtracks, both subtitles, and working chapter points, but no menus or extras. Since the elementary streams themselves are small enough to fit a DVD5 with room to spare, I want to avoid trascoding and the commensurate quality loss.
Using SmartRipper, I have been able to extract valid files for all of the streams in which I am interested and the chapter points. I can remux and reauthor them in IFOEdit and get a file set that plays properly in PowerDVD XP, including observation of chapter points.
The Problem is the reported length of the m2v file and any vobs made from it. The movie iteself is 91 minutes long, but WMP 6.4 and PowerDVD XP both report it as 72 minutes.
A preview operation in DVD2AVI on the m2v reports 95% FILM with both progressive and interlaced frames.
It doesn't take long to count the frames (131205, if memory serves) and do the
math; if the file is treated as 23.576 fps, it will show 91 minutes - if 29.97 fps, 72 minutes. Something in one of my steps is preventing players from understanding how to count the length, and I don't know how to find it.
PowerDVD XP is tolerant - though it reports a wrong time (as though the file were to be counted in 29.97 frames) it can continue to play and chapter operations succeed. My standalone player is not tolerant. Though a DVD made from this fileset will play, any calculation dependant operation (such as chapter search, scan, or even OSD of time elapsed) will cause the player to freeze.
So I got a tip over at DVDRHelp to try pulldown.exe and modify the the drop frame flag. This I have done, with the following result.
Using pulldown.exe set for drop_frame true or drop_frame false, windows media player is convinced that the resultant m2v is film, and shows accurate time code and permits scrubbing. PowerDVD has no difference in its treatment from before the pulldown operation; no total time count is shown, and the drag bar stops at about the point where the end would be if the stream really were true 29.97 NTSC.
Authoring a DVD in IFOEdit using the pulled down m2v yields the same result as not pulled down; neither PowerDVD nor my standalone treat the runtime properly, and the standalone chokes on that as a result.
Examining the IFO file of the re-authored DVD reveals that IFOEdit thought the file was the wrong run length on the PGC:
PGC (program chain):
[00000002] Number of Programs 22 [16]
[00000003] Number of Cells 22 [16]
[00000004] Playback time (BCD) 17978325 [011253d5]
Playback time (hh:mm:ss.frame) 01:12:53.15 / 30 fps
But editing the IFO to match the original playback time does not fix the playback problems. I tentatively conclude that the proper information is missing from the m2v, and IFOEdit authors based on that.
So the question now is: what do PowerDVD and IFOEdit want that isn't in my m2v? It isn't the drop frame flag, and I've tried restoring the rff flags with pulldown.exe at the same time (even though DVD2AVI's report of 95% film should indicate that they were there already). What the hell do I have to do to identify the m2v stream properly?
As a corrollary, doesn't the fact that the information was somehow lost indicate a flaw in SmartRipper's demux?