Problem authoring particular digital channels in UK with Nova-T

[sidders]

Hopefully someone can help me with this.
I am using a Nova-T card to capture Digital Terrestrial here in the UK. No problems, except that when I author my own discs, streams from certain channels won't play on my standalone (Pioneer 444). The play perfectly well on my PC and on my PS2, but on my Pioneer, there is only sound, no picture. All the authoring programs accept the file as DVD standard (Maestro, Spruce, ulead), I've tried running it through PVAStrumento, ProjectX etc, but still no good.
BBC channels are fine, C4 is fine, but ITV and Five are not (there may be others). Do you think it is a problem with my standalone? Is there some kind of protection in htese streams? I going mad trying to solve it.
I've tried:
ProjectX
PVAStrumento
Transcoding with Rejig
Resaving with MPEGSChnitt
Resaving WOMBLE mpeg-vcr
pATCHING bitrate and other things with DVDPatcher
Used Maestro, TMPEGAuthour, Spruce, Ulead
I've used different capture programs (Nova-T, Showshifter) - still the same

The only thing left it to try reencoding which I'm sure will work but defeats the object of having an MPEG file without recompression. It must be my picky Pioneer, but there must be something I can do. It's a wierd problem and it'sdoing my head in.
It's something in the mpeg file that my Pioneer doesn't like (it usually plays anything)

HELP!!!!!!


Here is a log from a file that works:

***
*** PVAStrumento 2.1.0.9
*** running at 09-12-2004 21:36
***
Pre-Scanning input. Takes some time.
Stream info for
D:\Video\Sun2050 12 09 04.mpg

Found 1 video stream.
Found 1 MPEG audio stream.

VIDEO #1
Resolution 720 x 576 (full D1)
Aspect ratio is 16:9
Frame rate 25.00 fps
Nominal bitrate 15000000 bps
First PTS: 00:00:01.005

MPEG AUDIO #1
MPEG1, Layer 2
stereo, sampled at 48.0 kHz.
Bitrate 256 kbps
Each frame contains 24.0 ms audio (768 bytes)
First PTS: 00:00:00.742


<<Make PS>>
Input: D:\Video\Sun2050 12 09 04.mpg
Options
.. fixing startup delay.
.. fixing stream synch.
.. keeping track of audio offset accumulation.
.. strict checking of audio framing.
.. dropping GOPs longer than 980 KB
.. splitting on change of video format.
.. splitting on change of audio format.
.. splitting on number of audio tracks.
.. creating new GOP timecodes.

Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:00:00.863
Cutting audio.
Audio stream 1 now starts at 00:00:00.862
Video stream 1 now starts at 00:00:00.863
ALERT> 5 video frames missing at 00:00:00.863.
ALERT> Dropping GOP for sync.
Re-syncing.
Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:00:01.565
Cutting audio.
Audio stream 1 now starts at 00:00:01.558
Video stream 1 now starts at 00:00:01.565
New program stream : D:\Sun2050 12 09 04.mpg
Last fileset:
11381548 total bytes written
Video 1: 478 frames, 00:00:19.120
Audio 1: 797 frames, 00:00:19.128

Approx. sync at EOF:
MPEG Audio #1 : sync

Video statistics
================
GOP length (min/avg/max):
10 / 11 / 12 [frames]
292573 / 332330 / 379063 [Bytes]
GOP bitrate (min/avg/max):
5129 / 5563 / 6317 [kbps]


(Autosaving log to D:\Sun2050 12 09 04.mpg.txt)





Here is one that didn't work:

***
*** PVAStrumento 2.1.0.9
*** running at 09-12-2004 21:37
***
Pre-Scanning input. Takes some time.
Stream info for
D:\Video\Sun2052 12 09 04.mpg

Found 1 video stream.
Found 1 MPEG audio stream.

VIDEO #1
Resolution 704 x 576 (cropped D1)
Aspect ratio is 16:9
Frame rate 25.00 fps
Nominal bitrate 4000000 bps
First PTS: 00:00:01.281

MPEG AUDIO #1
MPEG1, Layer 2
stereo, sampled at 48.0 kHz.
Bitrate 192 kbps
Each frame contains 24.0 ms audio (576 bytes)
First PTS: 00:00:00.632


<<Make PS>>
Input: D:\Video\Sun2052 12 09 04.mpg
Options
.. fixing startup delay.
.. fixing stream synch.
.. keeping track of audio offset accumulation.
.. strict checking of audio framing.
.. dropping GOPs longer than 980 KB
.. splitting on change of video format.
.. splitting on change of audio format.
.. splitting on number of audio tracks.
.. creating new GOP timecodes.

Closing starting GOP.
Aiming for sync at 00:00:01.361
Cutting audio.
Audio stream 1 now starts at 00:00:01.352
Video stream 1 now starts at 00:00:01.361
New program stream : D:\Sun2052 12 09 04.mpg
Last fileset:
10048897 total bytes written
Video 1: 478 frames, 00:00:19.120
Audio 1: 797 frames, 00:00:19.128

Approx. sync at EOF:
MPEG Audio #1 : sync

Video statistics
================
GOP length (min/avg/max):
10 / 11 / 12 [frames]
263016 / 283449 / 312918 [Bytes]
GOP bitrate (min/avg/max):
4387 / 4746 / 5260 [kbps]



Any ideas????


cheers
Stuart

[Ishan]

I think it's a REAL bitrate related probleme, u're dvd player can't handle the high bitrate. The only solution is to reencode the stream.

There's some high quality mpeg2 encoder flotting around for free, like free enc (very very good using the kvcd matrix) and Qenc (i prefer free enc but this one is good too)

i'm caping a lot of mpeg2 streams on my DVB-c and most of those are poorly encoded, mostly out of the DVD standard, so i reencode every file :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

If the problem is bitrate associated, you could use DVDPatcher (http://mitglied.lycos.de/dvdpatcher/).

That said the bitrate would have to be extraordinarily high not to work in an DVD player. And as far as I know neither DVB-T or DVB-S transmissions in the UK exceed DVD bitrates.


Cheers

[sidders]

Tried DVD Patcher - still didn't work.
Can't understand why it is just those particular channels. Can't work out what is differnt about their stream.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by sidders
...Can't work out what is differnt about their stream. The streams may include an incorrect bit-rate header!

Have you tried loading the file into the new beta version of Gspot. It's now able to detect the actual bit-rate and the given bit-rate. Like this: -

http://img31.exs.cx/img31/1081/SMD_GSpot_Mpeg2_Bit-rate.gif

I've used DVDpatcher to correct the bit-rates of a few "short" Mpeg2 captures by entering "0" in the "Custom" bit-rate. Prior to Patching the "Entire File"


Cheers

[sidders]

Will try that tonight - thanks for taking the time to reply with this detail.

Does this program patch the header, or do I have to use DVDpatcher to do that?

Cheers

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by sidders
...Does this program patch the header, or do I have to use DVDpatcher to do that? You'll need to use DVDpatcher for this!

At the moment, use GSpot to analyse the files (header) information!


Cheers

[sidders]

Nope - still didn't work - tried patching the entire file with a 0 bitrate - still sound and no picture on my pioneer 444. Plays in others though.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by sidders
...still sound and no picture on my pioneer 444. Plays in others though. You mean they play in other stand-alone players!


Cheers

[sidders]

Yes - it is only my Pioneer 444, and only streams from these particulat channels (ITV, Five) It plays on cheap DVD player, PS2 and PC, but when it gets to these streams, will not play on 444

[SeeMoreDigital]

I see!

Maybe your Pioneer 444 doesn't like Mpeg2 streams with dodgy headers!

Have you had a look to see if the players firmware is up to date?


Cheers

[sidders]

I'm not really sure how to do that - I've updated fw on pc drives, but not on a standalone. Where would I look for info?

[sidders]

Still trying - tried DVD patcher again with different settings - no luck
Tried transcoding with Rejig - no luck

Wierd thing happened as well -authored a prog from Channel 4 (which usually works fine) and it did the same (froze, no sound) until I pressed fast forward, and then it came on!!!
Tried this with the ITV ones though - still doesn't work.

I'm currently having to play these on my Playstation 2 - only problem is it is quite noisy and doesn't output in RGB.

Can anyone in the know analyse a couple of streams from me to try and find out what is in these certain streams that my 444 doesn't like?

[sidders]

Mmm - found a difference in the stream. the ones that play fine have an Intra VLC format of 1. The ones that don't have an Intra VLC format of 0. Any way I can get around this problem?