Chapter marker problems

Hoosier wrote on 11/28/2004, 6:38 AM

Using VMS4 I've run into problems with markers shifting very slightly from VMS to DVDA. The markers were placed in the timeline, the movie rendered to mpg, and imported into DVDA. Once in DVDA some of the markers were shifted less than a frame. I've tried using the trimmer to add markers to the avi (including saving markers to file) before adding the event to the timeline in VMS but for some reason the markers don't transfer from the trimmer window to the timeline. I'm not certain that adding markers after rendering is correct due to the nature of mpg.

Any suggestions on when or what application to use for placing markers?

Comments

ScottW wrote on 11/28/2004, 10:18 AM

Placing the marks is not the problem. A chapter point must be placed at the beginning of a GOP in the MPEG-2 stream, it cannot be located within a GOP, as a result, your actual mark placement can be +/- 1/2 second in the final DVD.

There is some high end authoring/encoding software that will let you create frame accurate chapter marks (by forcing a GOP to start at the specific point needed), but you're usually talking many tens of thousands of dollars for it.

--Scott

Hoosier wrote on 11/28/2004, 10:56 AM

I was afraid of that. The biggest annoyance is the unintentional frames that flash before the intended marking point. Looks like repositioning the marker a few frames later will take care of that. Thanks Scott.

ronatsony wrote on 11/29/2004, 11:31 AM

i know this has nothing to do with MS or DVDa, but here is a thread i found while looking for something else.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=370257&highlight=womble

it's not worth it to me to fiddle with other programs, ---i'll just place the marker a bit later and hope it will work. but someone may need more precise positioning---

ron

Hoosier wrote on 11/29/2004, 3:44 PM

Thanks Ron. I'm with you, I'll move the markers until it works. Someone on another thread made a great analogy when it comes to markers and GOPs: Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a grease pencil then cut it with an axe.