Audio sync still unsolved?

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Hi all,

I've scoured this forum for answers to the unsynced audio problem with home made VCD's. It seems not to be solved. It shouldn't be that difficult. The right settings in the respective softwares should do the trick. I have used a Media 100 to digitise my 50 minute program at 300kb per frame, a very good quality. I then used M.pack 3.5.1e to create the Toast ready MPEG-1 stream. Once I used 48000 audio and once 44.1. Each time the resulting VCD burned with Toast 4.0 had broken up sound which was actually ahead of the video. This on a Pioneer 525 DVD player. When played on a more expensive Pioneer the audio was complete but slow and behind the video. The media is a Fujifilm 74 min. CD-R. Once you select Video CD ready in M.pack you have no control over video data rate. Except for the fact that the video pulses between a good frame and lesser quality frames through-out, it plays fine and in sync on the PowerMac G$/450.

Anyone out there actually solved this problem? Thanks for any help.

Kurt

-- Kurt Waddington (Kwaddington@hypertech.yk.ca), October 07, 2000

Answers

im probably reading your post wrong but at what bitrate are you encdoing at? Is the 300 the bitrate you mean, if thats the case it is too high, it should be 1150 (or 115 if you want)

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), October 08, 2000.

No, the 300kb was the rate at which I digitised the original footage. At this point there is no problem. M.Pack seems to encode wrong. The rate at which it encodes once you've selected Toast ready is 1150 and unalterable. M.Pack seems to be a crappy piece of software anyway. I have a drive with 12 gig free and when I try to encode the same movie in MPEG-2 it returns the error that there isn't enough space 399k needed. I've cleared many gig since then and the same error message comes up.

-- Kurt Waddington (Kwaddington@hypertech.yk.ca), October 09, 2000.

I have had the same trouble using M.Pack. I was not able to get the sound to play properly on DVD players, but it played ok on pc & mac. I finally had to get a different encoder (I'm using Heuris Power Professional 2 now). The audio is fine now, and plays great on my Pioneer dv525.

-- Eric (e_arthur@yahoo.com), October 10, 2000.

Did you try defragmenting your hard drive? probably not the problem in this case but it can cause that problem.

-- Al (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), October 12, 2000.

it definitely sounds like either the software or the disks you are using. I have the Pioneer 525 and the only time I have sync problems is when I use too high of a bit rate or if I use a cheaper disks such as the ones that say audio only. The Pioneer will play higher bit rate vcd's to a certain extent without any noticeable problems. I just had to play with mine to find it's limits but you say you are using vcd compliant mpeg files. I tried cheaper media once and had the same problem.

-- Al (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), October 12, 2000.


I'm using Flask to create MPGs and I'm finding that I only get the sync problem on playback via certain applications. Unfortunately these are the same applications (or perhaps just the codecs) used to play from VCD. Take the following example:

MPG created under Flask. Double click on the file (on hard drive) in Win Explorer brings up Media Player... MPG plays fine and no audio sync problem whatsoever at any point through the file. Double click on .VOB file brings up a *different* version of media player which I then use to open my MPG file and suddenly audio is out of sync as it appears on my VCDs.

I've installed the XING encoder and found that it also presents the sync problem, but still the version of Media Player that I can access from the Start menu plays the entire file fine.

I've looked at different solutions to this problem, but none have been what I'd call satifactory. Changing the frame rate from 25 to 23.9xx didn't do a damn thing apart from crash my PC two minutes into the MPG creation process and demuxing and then remuxing in TMPEG (and/or XING) produced a poorer quality output, rather like copying from tape to tape to tape - the image, already inferior to the original, became several degrees worse in the remuxed version.

I know Flask is supposed to have this problem with audio sync, yet I've read that many others have never encountered this problem with the product. Judging by what I've read in these forums, other products are giving similar results.

Quite frankly, I'd appreciate any advice anyone would care to offer about why an MPG that plays fine from the hard drive via one product should have a consistently repeatable problem with audio sync in another. It can't be a media problem in this case - these are files that haven't burned to CD yet. Is it a coincidence that the applications that play video via the TV out port on my PC are also the ones that present this problem, i.e. is there a specific codec that might be causing the problem, rather than incorrect encoding of the file or faulty media?

-- Eric (~~~~~~~@hotmail.com), January 19, 2001.


Firewall on my PC censored the email address. Humblest apologies. Please use this one.

-- Eric (furryxy@hotmail.com), January 19, 2001.

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