Ripping Simpsons Season 3 shortens the video duration! HELP!

[DanielSB]

I'm totally baffled by this. I've been using SmartRipper for a very long time, because it's so easy to use and has been working flawlessly for quite some time. Recently I bought the first three seasons of the Simpsons on DVD and now I'd like to rip them to small RealMedia files and store them on my iPod so they're always with me :)

My usual procedure is,
1) Rip with SmartRipper and demux to separate .m2v and .ac3 files
2) Use AZID to decode to AC3
3) Use VirtualDubMod to process the video to a processed and losslessly compressed format and mux in the AZIDized WAV file.
4) Convert to RealMedia using RealProducer

Okay, so I did all this and tried a couple of different things, checking out the new XviD 1.0RC4, trying different lossless codecs, and when I wanted to mux in the WAV file, I noticed that the lengths didn't match at all. The video says 19m39s while the AC3 file says 23m03s which is also what SmartRipper says. The frame rate is NTSC 29.97, and SmartRipper agrees with this too. If I go in to the frame rate settings in VirtualDubMud, the "Change so video and audio durations match" fps is 25.539, so it doesn't seem to be due to the ripper thinking that a FILM DVD is NTSC.

Anyways, I thought, maybe it's the demuxing I'm doing. So I ripped the whole VOB without using stream processing, and chose the audio track I wanted when opening the ripped .vob in VirtualDubMod. I get a whole lot of warnings that, "MPEG: Anachronistic or discontinuous timestamp found in audio stream 29 at byte position [number], from [number] to [number]. This may indicate an improper join." AZID didn't complain and the audio sounds fine when I write the AVI file, so I'm not sure this has any significance.

Okay, so I still have the problem, I figure I'll try another ripper. I download DVD Decrypter and vStrip, and I've been ripping with them all day. Same problems, including the audio warnings in VirtualDubMod. I've tried ripping the entire stream (six episodes) and still the video and audio durations don't match. If I try to do the "Change so audio and video durations match" trick in VirtualDubMod, the audio is still out of sync and gets worse over time. What can it be? Has anybody experienced something like this? I've ripped about 15 movies over the years, and I don't recall having a problem like this before.

Help would be greatly appreciated :)

Thanks in advance,
Daniel

[DanielSB]

You know what, I just realized something. It's the first time I've NOT used DVD2AVI and VFAPI to frameserve into VirtualDub (I used to use Nandub). I just tried with DVD2AVI and it works like a charm. I'd still like to hear though if anyone knows why this is a happening, as I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work fine.

[DanielSB]

Actually it DOESN'T work like a charm with DVD2AVI anyway. It does something weird with the interlacing (it says "Progressive" when ripping, but this IS interlaced) so that I can't deinterlace in VDM without frames geting blended. If I load the vob directly into VDM I can deinterlace perfectly without any blended frames, but then ofcourse the duration gets screwed up. Using "Force FILM" in DVD2AVI creates a pretty decent inverse telecine, but I suspect it's just decimating although a few frames get blended which doesn't look nice :/ Also, when saving my project file in DVD2AVI the status window flickers between FILM and NTSC and it says 67% FILM when finished. What does it mean by that?

[DanielSB]

Looking in to AVISynth, Decomb and GreedyHMA to fix this. Seems like I'll get best results letting VDM do the deinterlacing and IVTC - Decomb really doesn't have a very good deinterlace filter, and both Decomb and GreedyHMA have terrible IVTC algorithms :/ So I'm going with VDM and a blended frame here and there ;) Cheers.

[DanielSB]

Still no go, I just can't get the darn thing to keep the duration, no matter what the hell I do. If someone has a clue, PLEASE reply. Thanks.

[Bogalvator]

First off, sounds like you need to head over to the DVD2AVI forum and read the 3 stickies in it:
http://forum.doom9.org/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=5

Using the new DVD2AVI/MPEG2DEC3 combo from http://neuron2.net/fixd2v/decodefix.html should fix your duration prob - I think some versions of DVD2AVI were incompatible with some versions MPEG2DEC or MPEG2DEC3 etc.

Also, make sure you uncheck the Force Film option if you want to IVTC in AviSynth with Decomb etc (The IVTC algorithm in Decomb is NOT terrible by the way, it's one of the best). You'll understand why it doesn't look perfect when you learn what the 67% FILM means when you read those other threads.