Howto: Mpeg2 Video + PCM Audio?

tvdias wrote on 7/27/2002, 8:38 AM
When I render a project with a 48 KHz PCM audio file using the Main Concept MPEG2 renderer and choose the DVD NTSC template, I get MPEG 2 video as expected, but the PCM audio gets converted to MPEG 1 audio. This is not a legal audio stream for DVD in the U.S. Only PCM and Dolby Digital are supported by most U.S. players. I can not seem to select PCM as an option when using this codec.

Does anyone have any hints as to what I am doing incorrectly here? Or is this a problem with the Main Concept codec implementation in VV 3?

Vern Dias

Comments

vonhosen wrote on 7/27/2002, 1:43 PM
When you have built your project (Video & Audio) exactly as you want it in VV3

You have to do two seperate renders.
1) For the MPEG-2 DVD NTSC template & Uncheck the include audio on audio tab to give you an elementary (.m2v) video file.
2) For the PCM audio choose render to .wav file & make sure that the settings are 16bit 48Khz stereo file. (This render will take a much shorter time than the first)

Then take both files to your DVD authoring program & link them there.

(What's your authoring program ?
A lot of them will take the multiplexed MPEG-2 DVD compliant stream, demultiplex them & then convert your MPEG-1 layer II audio to PCM anyway.)
tvdias wrote on 7/28/2002, 8:14 AM
Thanks for the help. Will rendering Video and Audio Seperately lead to sync problems?

Ulead DVD Movie Factory is my current choice.

I have tried DVDIt and MyDVD but they both seem to be really tempermental and touchy about Mpeg file formats.

Vern
vonhosen wrote on 7/28/2002, 1:18 PM
Provided you have done them both from VV3 timeline in same project you shouldn't have sync problems provided there were none evident in VV3 project.

I don't use Movie Factory so don't know much about it. (Check your help files about file formats supported for input & output.)
DVDit will accept seperate streams provided they are DVD compliant (.m2v video & .wav audio) OR it will take seperate streams of your .m2v video & MPEG audio (or muxed MPEG video & audio) before converting. If you have LE or SE versions it will convert the MPEG audio to PCM. If you have PE it will convert MPEG to PCM (or MPEG or PCM to AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio.)

When you view your project in DVDit if you have VBR encoded your MPEG then there may appear sync problems but these will not transpire on the DVD. This is because DVDit looks at the bitrate on first frames in video & anticipates that this will be the same throughout the whole video & consequently can get out of sync in preview but as I say it wont transpire in the DVD.

If you are loading MPEG audio into DVDit with an .mp2 file extension change the extension to .mpa before loading into theme.
dsanders wrote on 7/28/2002, 7:58 PM
Like Vonhosen said, you need to do two renders. Sonic Foundry is aware of this "feature". But its pretty simple to get around. I think Sonic Foundry has said a future release will allow you to create the two files at once.