Chapters start early?

Eigentor wrote on 8/1/2009, 8:20 AM

This is my first DVD, I've only been at this for about 8 months so I don't understand a lot of the terminology. I have 1 .mpg that I made in Studio using .mpgs that I uploaded from my Sony 8 via Hauppauge WinTV. The DVD has about 10 buttons, one plays the entire .mpg, the others only play chapters of it. So to create the chapters, I used the I/O to delineate the start and stop of the chapter. All that works fine, except that some of my chapters insist on starting a couple (3-4) frames early. I've checked the in and out markers and they appear to be set correcly. Is there some sort of resolution issue? And I do zoom in to where I can move 1 frame at a time. Also if any one can tell me how to zoom to 1 frame resolution without hitting the friggen button 12 times, I'd appreciate that also. I'm using Platinum 9

Comments

OhMyGosh wrote on 8/2/2009, 8:33 AM

Hi Eigentor,
Having a hard time understanding exactly what you are doing. Is this a project you made in VMSP 9, and then imported to DVDA? If so, you may want to post on their board as well. I'm not sure which 'friggen' button you are hitting, but an easy way to view your project one frame at a time is to click and drag the three vertical bars on the timeline scroll bar and drag them towards the other three. That will allow you to make sure that you have your markers exactly where you want them. Let us know if that helps. Cin

Eigentor wrote on 8/2/2009, 12:06 PM

Sorry, like i mentioned I really am a novice and don't understand a lot of the terminology. The button I was talking about is the + or - button to zoom in or out. I fould that when I go to the timeline I always have to hit + about 10 times to get to where I can scroll 1 frame at a time. I found what you mentioned also but I'm not sure that's a lot easier though I can quickly get to 1 frame, it tends to be very wide. Probably easier though than hitting the + 10 times. It would be nice if there was as simple Ctrl sequence to take me to 1 frame.
I made a .mpg2 in Sony Vegas Movie Studio 9 (Platinum Pro Pack) and am using it as a source (import) for my DVD which I make in the DVD architect. I will try that forum as well. Thanks for your help on the zoom in thing.

Tim L wrote on 8/2/2009, 12:20 PM

I think that chapters on a DVD can only start on i-frames within the MPEG-2 file. These are the "whole" frames that occur about every 1/2 second in the MPEG-2 long-gop format. So when you have a marker that is not on an i-frame, the DVD will shift it left to the nearest i-frame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-frame

In Vegas Pro, there is an option in the MainConcept encoder that lets you tick a box that says "Render I-frames at markers ". When the MPEG file is created the rendering program assures that the cadence of i-frames is adjusted so that you get an i-frame right on your marker. I don't know if VMS has this same capability, but if it does I'd look around at the render options when you render to MPEG-2.

By the way, in Vegas/VMS you can step one frame at a time no matter what your zoom level is by pressing ALT-LeftArrow or ALT-RightArrow. Not exactly what you asked for, but useful all the same.

Tim L

Eigentor wrote on 8/2/2009, 12:34 PM

Thanks, that would explain what I'm seeing. Now (assuming I have the Iframe option), do I do that when I render the mpg in VMS or in DVD Architect? Thanks for the tip on zooming. When I do as OMG suggested, 1 frame takes up my entire timeline, which is hard to manage (scroll) on.

Tim L wrote on 8/2/2009, 2:42 PM

It will be wherever you render to MPEG2.

Some people render an AVI from VMS then have DVDArch Studio do the AVI to MPEG2 render. Some people render MPEG2 directly from VMS -- but I think you don't have any bitrate control that way.

Again, I'm not sure if the MainConcept MPEG2 encoder for VMS provides this option, but that's where you need to look. You might have to click a "custom" setting somewhere to find it.