Sync Difference PC vs Set-top Player

[DVD Maniac]

Using the methods recommended in this forum, I have been able to capture, filter, encode and author a VHS source to a DVD titleset. When I playnack this Title on my PC DVD Player, the audio is perfectly in sync with the video all the way through. Now I have burnt to a DVD+R and the audio is now out of sync (leading by about 50ms) this is very annoying.

Has anyone ever come across this problem before? Any fixes?

Process used -

1. VHS captured to AVI using VirtualDubsync +Huff codec on an ATI All in Wonder 9800
2. Filtered using the Flaxen VHS filter with VirtualDub
3. Encoded to MPEG-2 using TMPEG
4. Authored with DVD-Lab basic (demultiplex mode)

[jggimi]

Moved to DVD Burning forum (since in the process you used, you report that everything seemed OK to that point).

[Dimmer]

Just some ideas:
1. First thing to try would be playing the same disc on another standalone. Maybe the media is incompatible with your player. Check out www.videohelp.com to find out more about media compatibility.
2. Try different media, for example +RW.
3. Is the audio sync stays the same during the movie or slowly increases? This might indicate different problems. Ensure that you encode the audio with sampling rate 48kHz.
4. Change the audio format, best of all to PCM, and see if it makes difference.

By the way, 50ms is a really small difference, less than 2 frames, I bet most people wouldn't even notice it.

[DVD Maniac]

Thanks for the suggestions.

With regards media, I am using good quality Ritek's which I have never had problems with before on my player with DVD backups so I don't think is a likely cause. There is also no noticeable sync drift - seems constant.

Now the audio format sounds promising. I have very little knowledge of what difference this makes as I am new to the whole capturing thing - I have previously just been using DVD sources which typically have AC3 2ch / 6ch formats.

When I capture with VirtualDub I am using PCM Stereo 48Khz but when I get my encoded mpg file from TMPEG, DVD-Lab is seeing an MPEG-1 2 ch stream. Is PCM the best option for Analogue sources? How can I retain this format through my capturing / filtering / encoding steps?

[Dimmer]

You still should try different media and player, because it's the most common source of the problems. Again, you won't lose anything if you try an RW.

PCM is not exactly the best format because it allows maximum two channels, and the file size is huge (bitrate of stereo PCM is 1536kbps). However, it's the most simple and reliable format. Also, it's the only loseless audio format, but it doesn't matter in your case.

I'm pretty sure that you encode audio to MP2 along with the video in TMPGEnc. Instead, either encode the video only, or add the source .wav file to the project and use it in place of the MP2 audio.

[ZedtheStrange]

Has anyone ever come across this problem before? Any fixes?

Yes, Yes.

Exactly the same, In synch on PC, out of Synch on stand alone player.

Like you I spent hours studying forums and FAQ's an tried everything yet nothing works. However there is a simple cause that should be in the FAQ's but its not (well it never used to be).

Are you placing any menu's or still picture at the start? I found in my case by removing this that the synch problem has dissappeared.

[MysticE]

You may to try another encoder. I always seemed to have problems with TMPGenc. I now use MainConcept and am most pleased with the results, reliability and speed.

[DVD Maniac]

Like you I spent hours studying forums and FAQ's an tried everything yet nothing works. However there is a simple cause that should be in the FAQ's but its not (well it never used to be).

Yes Zed, you would think so but the more I do this VHS to DVD conversion stuff I am forming the opinion that there are no simple answers to the problems experienced as there are so many potential route causes.

My latest attempt had a slight sync difference on PC (after authoring) and bigger on set-top. The good news was that the sync difference was consistent so I was able to correct the problem with a delayed audio stream using DVD-Lab.

BTW- Am I the only one in the forum trying to figure out a reliable, consistent and simple way of figuring out what delay to use? Its very difficult to do this manually and bit rate viewers and the like don't seem to help either. It seems to be a case of trial and error - very tedious and time consuming. The best method I could come up with was to trim down my .m2v file to a smal clip (say 5 minutes), create a set of delayed audio streams (say -500ms, -250ms, +250ms, +500ms etc) and mux these together with the video clip using a suitable authoring tool. Then play the clip using the various audio streams and hopefully narrow down what delay to use.

VHS to DVD conversion - what fun :devil: