DVDA 5 Cant Render Untranscoded - Buffer Underflow

BenjaminG wrote on 12/23/2008, 4:35 AM
Hi Guys,

I installed DVD A 5 Pro tonight and have been importing some .avc video clips and .ac3 pro audio clips to create a trial Blu-ray, but importantly so there is no transcoding process.

However, doing this results in me not being able to create a Blu-ray disc. I get the following error every time:

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An error occurred while preparing compilation:

File name: STREAM/0000.M2TS
Status: TSWrapper.dll::CTSWrapper::ProcThreadMain::Video buffer underflows. -

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The AVC clip is fully compliant @ 16 mbps CBR and the AC3 @ 448 kbps.
I am using Vista 64 bit, with only Vegas Pro 8, DVD A 5 and CS4 Premium programs installed.

I have been able to successfully create a disc by re-encoding the video, but I dont want to have to do that.

If anyone can help, I would be *extremely* grateful. Just spent a heap of money getting this new system, so its pretty upsetting to not be able to get what I need from it.

Merry Christmas and thanks in advance
Ben

Comments

srode wrote on 12/24/2008, 6:38 AM
Seems we are having the same problem - but perhaps different file source - mine were rendered in Vegas - were yours? See my post on the problem here:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=22&MessageID=630992
BenjaminG wrote on 12/24/2008, 12:28 PM
yes, they were created in Vegas. Thats my preferred workflow.
srode wrote on 12/26/2008, 6:19 PM
I was able to render completely when I forced DVDA 5.0 to re-render everything - it takes along time though. This was a 15 minute test clip with some protitler and cross fades. Haven't created a disc yet to see if it will read in my BD Player - but am guessing it should. Working on rerendering my last disc as AVC to see if it will burn on my BD-RE and be readable in the player. Will let you know what I find
srode wrote on 12/28/2008, 4:42 PM
Well, I tried it and the fact that Vegas wouldn't let me increase bit rate above 20,000,000 reduced the quality too much. If the camera is still the video was pretty good - panning shots / following subjects in motion created too many problems. For now I guess I'll stick with the Mpeg2 format for videos to bluray - I can't imagine that 1440 x 1080 will bring as good an image as Mpeg 2 for finished bluray discs but may try that later.
Emulgator wrote on 12/29/2008, 3:54 AM
I am stuck at the same point
where unwanted transcoding makes may source MPEG2 look blocky
where it wasn't on import.

If somebody from Sony is listening, please tell us the exact specs
for Blu-ray compatible MPEG2 and AVC streams.

We need to know the following video stream encoding parameters
to avoid transcoding:
Under which circumstances will DVD-A 5.0a decide to transcode ?

Especially regarding VBV size,
GOP structure, expected, optimal and max.GOP size,
number of B-pics in sequence, motion search depth,
is AVC HP@4.2 as well supported or only 4.1 ?
srode wrote on 1/3/2009, 5:06 PM
I got mine to render and look great in a bluray burned from DVDA - This was a 17 minute video with protitler, color & contrast adjustments and a lightrays FX in one event. The player is a panasonic BD35 with what ever firmware it was shipped with - The image I burned to the disc was a simple video / audio compilation only - not a menu driven Bluray - thats the next step to try for me. Glad I'm using BDREs - this would be an expensive learning event if I was using BDRs. Here's what I did in 8.1 to get it to work (assume it will work in 8.0c too, haven't tried it though).

1 Vegas File Properties - Choose 32 bit color and progressive scan , 1920 x 1080 ( the original footage )

2. Vegas Render to AVC and picked the 1440x1080 template - click on custom and choose custom resolution of 1920x1080, progressive scan, choose 17Mbps as the bit rate (a little higher than my camera Sony SR11 which is 16Mbps I believe). Interestingly I had it some odd frames showing up at first - 2 frames after every 8 or 9 frames of good images - the odd frames looked like colored screen doors. I went into the project and found they started at the point where I had an event starting right after another one without a cross fade (some editting to work on an audio section so I had cut an event in a few pieces to dub take out unwanted audio section). I overlapped with a cross fade of 0.100 which wasn't noticable in the finished render - and it got rid of the screen door frames.

3. In DVDA - I chose AVC and Bluray disc under project settings along with 1920 x 1080. When rendering at 18Mbps which is the default setting (under optimize disc)- a little higher than the file I made in Vegas - DVDA doesn't seem to want to go down in bitrate from the origional, only up - at least for me that's what works best. Also choose 29.7xx interlaced as the output format.

I don't understand why Vegas won't render in AVC using 8 bit pixel format for me - perhaps because the camera uses 10 bit (according to what I have read anyway) and won't go lower than the original in the AVC format. I also don't understand why I can only do this in progressive scan from Vegas as the AVCHD format (AVC + AC3 5.1) only uses interlaced at that 29.9xx frame rate - but it works so I guess I don't need to understand.

I would be great if the 1920 x 1080 AVCHD template in 8.0c (or add one in 8.1) worked - but I can't seem to get it to complete a render so for now I'm using this recipe.

I may try higher bit rates (20 in Vegas and a bit hgher in DVDA)next to see if there is a noticable quality difference - DVDA says I can go up to 28 but the high profile for AVCHD is supposed to be 24 - guess it will be trial and error to see how high I can go and if it's worth it.

I gave up on eliminating transcoding - I'm feeling lucky to get it to complete something in AVC to Bluray at this point.