CD image smaller than bbmpeg_muxed_file0x

[Zoomie]

Twice now, I have come across a strange phenomenon (not successively I am afraid). The 'Encoded Video' file contains all of the video data and after muxing and cutting, and the last file bbmpeg_muxed_file0x is also the correct length. However, the CD image that corresponds to the last bbmpeg file is too short by a few minutes. This has happend for both 2 and 3 disk sets.

I tried loading the last bbmpeg file into VCDEasy, to make the image there, just to see what would happen - same deal in the exact same spot. Although, VCDEasy told me it was going to trim some 'bad packets' at the end. I suspect that this has something to do with it. My mpeg file is around 861MB and the image file is always made to be 800MB. I have remuxed and cut with no change to the image making process.

I thought that it might be a chapter thing, so I did a recovery, each time trying a different chapter selection method and even imaging software. All resulted in the same outcome. The only thing that I am doing against popular advice is ripping externally. However, I have always done this (~10 movies). Plus, of the two times that I have had this happen, the rippers have been different in each case, so unless the problem is native to both, I can't see that being the problem, but what do I know, I am new. I never had this happen with the previous version of DVD2SVCD, but 2 out of 3 with 1.1.3b1. That could easily be chance though.

TMPEGenc v2.5.10 (CBR mode)
DVD2SVCD v1.1.3b1 w/avisynth 2.51
bitrate tabs all set to 940
minute box set to be 10min longer than the film

Is there anything else that I can post that may help? My logs are a bit muddled after all my fussing around, but I could put up what I have.

[Zoomie]

OK - I have had some success troubleshooting this thing. The 'bad packets' error from VCDEasy was the ticket. I took the last bbmpeg_muxed_file of the set (the one with the bad packets) and ran it in 'Simple Multiplex' in the TMPGEnc mpeg tools. I put the new file in place of the old one in my DVD2SVCD project folder and recovered from the SVCD authoring stage. In addition to getting the whole movie file in the last image, all the chapters were correct as well.

So any idea what caused my bad packets in the original bbmpeg or would it have been corrupted even further back - say in the encoding?

Thanks.

[Zoomie]

Well, I hope that this isn't such a newbie thing that I am being ignored, but I thought that I would update my latest findings for the next chap down the line. A forum search yields very little about this.

I have done three more films since my last post, only this time the source was AVI rather than DVD/VOB. On the latest project the last image file was only about half the size of the last muxed mpeg file. The same TMPEG trick worked to repair the file and all is well.

I still don't know what causes this. Anyone know?

***edit - it would seem that this problem is not exclusive to the last file of a CD set. I just had a similar error with the first file of a 3 disk set. The only difference this time was addition of an "access violation error". A forum search did turn up some information about this, but not really in the context I am describing. In any case, once I repaired the first file, I burned the imaged without a problem. Weird . . .***