10 replies to this topic

[jtbell]

I'm trying to use the VOB files from DVDs produced by my Panasonic DMR-E85H recorder, to create new DVD's in Toast 7. Ultimately I want to use VOB's from more than one DVD, so I don't want to do a simple copy of the entire VIDEO_TS folder, but rather use the individual VOB files.

Although the audio is synchronized with the video on the original DVD's, it is significantly out of sync on the DVD's produced by Toast. It's very noticeable when watching someone talking.

I import the VOB's by copying the VIDEO_TS folder to the desktop, then dragging titles from the media browser into the data window, rather than by dragging the VOB files directly from the desktop into the data window. It doesn't make any difference whether I select PCM or Dolby Digital for the audio format, under the Encoding tab after selecting Custom Encoding. It doesn't make any difference if I select Never for the Reencoding option. Toast always goes through a multiplexing stage before burning, which I suspect is the root of the problem.

[tsantee]

Do you mean that you drag the titles from the Media Browser to the Video window, not the Data window?

Toast must do multiplexing in order to create new VOBs for the video DVD. I do the same as you with DVDs from my Pioneer standalone recorder and have not experienced an audio-sync issue. I select the titles in the Media Browser and drag them to the Video window. The MPEG files are then extracted by Toast and written to the Roxio Converted Items folder.

Try choosing Save as Disc Image from the Toast File menu. Then mount the disc image to play it with DVD Player. Is the audio in sync? If it is then try different media to burn your DVD.

[jtbell]

tsantee, on Oct 1 2006, 06:28 AM, said:

Do you mean that you drag the titles from the Media Browser to the Video window, not the Data window?

Yes, I should have said "Video window".

I tried creating a disc image as you suggested, but it had the same audio sync problem when I played it back.

Going further, I exported the video to a DV file using Toast, and played it back in QuickTime Player. The audio is out of sync there, too. In fact, it's even worse than before!

Next, I exported the video to another DV file using DVDxDV. This one plays back OK in QuickTime Player, which doesn't surprise me. I've used DVDxDV before to rip video from DVDs made by my Panasonic recorder, for importing into iMovie and then in turn into iDVD.

But this export/import procedure via DV is very time-consuming, and the picture quality decreases with the re-encoding to MPEG-2. I was hoping that I could eliminate both of these problems by using the original VOB's directly in Toast.

There must be something different about Panasonic vs. Pioneer recorders, because you don't have any problems like this.

[tsantee]

jtbell, on Oct 1 2006, 09:18 AM, said:

There must be something different about Panasonic vs. Pioneer recorders, because you don't have any problems like this.

I'm puzzled by the audio sync problem you're having. I think this is something that needs freshburn's attention.

[freshburn]

I've used Panasonic, Pioneer, Sony and other set-top recorders, and I never have had audio sync problem.  Most likely the problem is with the VOB itself.  It could have dropped frames that cause the audio to be off.

Make sure you are using DVD in the Media Browser and not Movies.

Which mode was this DVD recorded in on your Panasonic, VR or Video?  What type of Media is it on?

Are you using Toast 7.1?

[jtbell]

freshburn, on Oct 1 2006, 12:35 PM, said:

Make sure you are using DVD in the Media Browser and not Movies.

Check.

Quote

Which mode was this DVD recorded in on your Panasonic, VR or Video?  What type of Media is it on?

VR mode? I don't see any reference to that in my manual. Is it what my manual calls Flexible Recording (FR) mode, where the unit adjusts the bit rate so the recording (with a specified duration) fits exactly onto the disc?

Anyway, I'm not using that. These are fixed-rate SP mode recordings, with high-speed dubbing enabled. They're on DVD-R media. So far I've tried recordings made on two different brands, Sony and Taiyo Yuden, with similar results.

Quote

Are you using Toast 7.1?

Yes, in fact I installed it on Saturday. I started with my old Toast 6.1.1, but it gave me the audio sync problem and I was hoping that 7.1 would fix it.

These are recordings of two different half-hour syndicated TV shows (reruns). With the commercials edited out, I ended up with six episodes per disc on the Panasonic, one episode per VOB. But they weren't broadcast (and recorded) in their original sequence, so I want to create new sets of discs that have the episodes in the original sequence for each show.

The recordings originated as digital TV broadcasts recorded on a HD DVR. I dubbed them to the Panasonic via S-Video, setting the DVR to produce 480i output. On the Panasonic, I edited out the commercials by setting chapter marks in the original titles, then selecting the non-commercial parts into playlists, and finally burning the playlists to DVD.

I've tried two different discs, containing two different shows, on the two different brands of DVD-R mentioned above, recorded several months apart. I get similar results for both.

And now I've encountered another problem! I've created disc images in Toast, after dragging the titles from the media browser into the Video window. Then I mount the disc images and play them in DVD Player. It turns out that with most of the titles (on both discs), the video plays back in a jerky stop-motion fashion, but with the audio playing normally. Of course I can't judge the audio sync in this case. On each of the two disc images, one title plays normally as far as the video is concerned, but with the audio out of sync by maybe 1/2 second. The other titles have the stop-motion effect. The good title is the last (sixth) one on one disc or image, and the third title on the other, so it's not related to position on the disc.

When I play the original discs from the Panasonic, or a VIDEO_TS folder dragged from them onto the desktop, they play back normally, with proper audio sync. As I mentioned before, when I export the VOBs to DV files, the audio is OK. I made a disc out of some of them using iMovie and iDVD, and it plays back properly. The biggest drawback is the slow export to DV and re-encoding in iDVD. The picture quality takes a hit, but I can live with it if I have to. I put four episodes on this disc instead of six, so iDVD didn't have to compress them as much.

As for hardware, I'm using a 1.25MHz single-processor G4, running OS X 10.3.9. It has 2 GB RAM, three internal HD's, and its original Pioneer DVR-105 DVD-RW drive.

[tsantee]

VR mode is only available when recording to DVD-RW or DVD-RAM. It isn't the same as FR mode. Typically VR mode is only used when you know you will only play the DVD on the Panasonic recorder.

When I know I'm going to be transferring the video to the computer I record in VR mode on my Pioneer. I know I'll be erasing the disc so I'm going to use DVD-RW media any way. Also, the discs don't have to be finalized. A downside is that the Apple/Matshita Superdrives in my Macs won't mount a VR-mode disc. I need to use my Firewire LaCie drive.

I don't know if using VR mode would help in your case. I doubt it. You seem to be doing everything right. I'm bewildered that the mounted disc images aren't playing properly. That removes media or burner from the equation.

When you choose Save as Disc Image does Toast start with multiplexing or does it start with encoding? It should be the former. In that case Toast does nothing to either the video or audio streams other than separate them from the extracted MPEG file and put them together again in the VOBs.

When you drag the title from the Media Browser to the Video window Toast extracts the MPEG video from the DVD and writes it to the Roxio Converted Items folder. You can play the MPEG in that folder using VLC Media Player. Does it play okay?

Do you have MPEG Streamclip and Apple's QuickTime MPEG2 Playback Component? It might help us in this troubleshooting.

[freshburn]

You say you edited the video.  My guess is that is the problem.  MPEG and Dolby Audio do not edit will.  MPEG is passed on GOP and is not frame accurate like DV files.

My guess is the edited file has time sync issues, and when burning with Toast, this becomes obvious.  You could try MPEG Streamclip like Tsantee suggest.

[jtbell]

I downloaded MPEG Streamclip and bought the QuickTime MPEG2 Playback Component. Based on some earlier postings here, I opened a bad VOB, fixed the timecode breaks, and exported it to MPEG. Then I imported the MPEG into Toast (drag and drop into the Video window), told Toast to never re-encode, and made a disc image. The video plays back smoothly and the audio is in sync!  

The only downside so far is that the old chapter marks, where I removed the commercials, have disappeared. It looks like Toast automatically inserted chapter marks every five minutes. Or maybe DVD Player skips ahead to the next 5-minute mark if there are no chapter marks. Either way, it's no great loss.

Thanks for putting me on the right track!

[tsantee]

Great! I'm glad you've worked out a solution.

Toast places the chapter markers every 5 minutes when multiplexing an MPEG file that has no existing chapter markers. They wouldn't have survived the fixing of the time code breaks.

[jtbell]

As a follow-on to my earlier problem, I'd like to report on another problem that came up and how I resolved it.

With some of those VOBs from my DVD recorder, even after I fixed the timecode breaks in MPEG Streamclip, Toast quit multiplexing almost immediately, then started to encode (even though I have encoding set to "never"), then crashed with a Mac OS error.

I thought there might be something flaky about the soundtrack, even though the original DVD sounded OK both in DVD player and in MPEG Streamclip. So I extracted the audio stream using "Demux to M2V and AC3" in MPEG Streamclip, but the AC3 file played back fine in iTunes. Next I thought, maybe if I put the M2V and AC3 files back together... so I opened the M2V file in MPEG Streamclip (which apparently finds the AC3 file automatically), converted it to an MPEG file, and that one worked!

So now my workflow is as follows:

In MPEG Streamclip,
1. Open the VOB file.
2. Edit --> Fix Timecode Breaks
3. File --> Demux to M2V and AC3
4. Open the M2V file that I just created
5. File --> Convert to MPEG

In Toast, drag and drop the MPEG file into the Video window.