DVDMaestro truncates imported m2v

[SupaCoopa]

Hello everyone.

I have this problem in some of the newest movies I try to re-author, mainly CGI-animated movies from a certain studio.

In short, I demux with DVD2DVDR as usual and get m2v and ac3 files. I then import those files in DVDMaestro, but it truncates the video file at different points for each movie. Sometimes at 30 minutes, sometimes at 50, sometimes at 10. Audio always gets imported OK.

Strange thing is, the demuxed m2v appears to be of correct duration when played in PowerDVD, or imported in Premiere, DVD-Lab or some other tools. But I like DVDMaestro best and can't figure out what's wrong with it and why it doesn't like certain video streams.

I have re-authored a lot of my DVDs (just because I like to have my own designed menus and remove unwanted warnings etc) in DVDMaestro with no issues at all, but I can't get past that wall with some of the latest DVDs.

Anyone has any tip? Cheers to all

[mpucoder]

This happens so often we need a FAQ for it - ALL authoring programs I know of (including my own) will stop when they encounter a sequence_end header in the video. It is a marker for the end of the encode.
The problem starts with demuxing more than one sequence, these usually become seperate VobIDs.
The solution is to either demux by VobID or remove the headers. Demuxing by VobID has its own problems with audio and the seamless joint, so it's not the best choice.

Use ReStream to remove the headers (lower left checkbox).

[SupaCoopa]

Thank you really very much for such a swift answer!

I always use Restream prior to importing to Maestro, to reset timestamps and set broken-link flags to zero (whatever the latter might be) but as of today I had never quite figured out what the "Remove Seq End Codes" checkbox (and also the other one next to it, to be frank) is supposed to do...

Thanks again, will try that and see what goes.

[mpucoder]

There shouldn't be any broken links in a DVD - in theory. However, if there are you should leave the flag set, it affects playback. What the flag means is that an edit has removed a frame required by another P or B frame for proper decoding. With the flag set the decoder knows not to decode the broken frame, but to fix it somehow (interpolation or duplication). Without the flag you will probably see one frame of ugliness. If you haven't seen that yet, then you are resetting the flags for no reason.
As I said, though, proper DVDs don't have this flag set anywhere as all the editing takes place before encoding, or at least with an mpeg editor that leaves no broken gop's. The usual use of the flag is in switching mpeg streams live, as in digital broadcasting, where there is no time to fix things.

"The other one next to it" being "Cut destination at sequence" is a way to truncate the output. If you knew, for example, that all you wanted was the first sequence, then check the box and set the number to 1.

[SupaCoopa]

Worked like a charm!

Thanks for the great tip and for the explanation of those "mysterious" Restream options too