Invalid data was encountered when processing an MPEG file.

davevrba wrote on 6/24/2003, 12:17 AM
I get this error message while DVD-A 1.0c is preparing.

Warning: An error occurred while writing a file.
Invalid data was encountered when processing an MPEG file.

The mpg file was created via Vegas Video 4.0c using the default MainConcept mpeg2 DVD NTSC template.

No special menus added either. This is a single movie DVD.

About 40% of the 2.91GB file gets processed then the progress bar zipps ahead to 100% very quickly followed by the error message.

Is there something about the MainConcept encoder that is not supported by DVD-A?

On a different DVD compilation, I encountered a problem playing in a set top DVD player at a point in the video, but it played OK in PowerDVD. There seem to be a lot of variations between players and authoring tools. Is there some combination that just works in everything?

Comments

davevrba wrote on 6/24/2003, 11:47 AM
An additional note: This problem did not show up after changing the 'video type' in the MainConcept MPEG-2 encoder to 'MPEG2' instead of 'DVD'. What is really the difference between the two?
doncarp wrote on 7/4/2003, 4:27 PM
I received this same error message. I recompiled the same MPG file with DVA and received the error message a second time.
Then I went back to VV and rendered the project to MPG a second time. Went back to DVA, used the newly rendered file and it worked.

My conclusion is that the first render I did in VV was faulty.
videobear wrote on 7/13/2003, 9:02 PM
I dunno. I've done three renders of the MPEG file in VV, and get the same error with each one. I'm using VBR, 6.5/4.2/192K, separate AC3 audio file, NTSC DVDA template otherwise. It's a big file; the total DVD with menus and all is about 4.5GB. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Regards,
Doug Graham
C4 wrote on 8/18/2003, 9:36 PM
I'm getting the same error... I'm not sure why either. All I know is that I can't get DVDA to prepare a DVD no mater if the source is in AVI or MPG2. I get the same error no matter what...

Please fix this...
farss wrote on 12/10/2003, 1:47 AM
OK...

i know it's been a long time since anyone looked at this and I see no comment by the guys in Madison. I've just had this happen for the first time. Really wierd thing is not only did I get the error message but DVDA deleted the directory I had created to hold the DVD image.

Only odd thing is this DVD is silent, no audio to mux in. I'm going to try creating dumy ac3 file and see if that help. The though of rerendering the mpeg file doesn't thrill me. At least when no knows for sure even after six months why this is happenng.
farss wrote on 12/10/2003, 2:43 AM
Well I managed to fix this problem, go back into VV, add an empty audio track, render to ac3.
Go back to DVDA project and add audio to video object, optimize. Well surprise surprise! My DVD is now 137% of capcity! Why, because DVDA has now created two instances of the video object even though it's only in the project once. So delete the video object, go back to Optimize and it's still there, at least it'll fit on a DVD now, pity no one will be able to play it.

So close DVDA and remember to creat directory to DVD image. But hang on, the directory that had dissappeared has reappered, now that's spooky. So restart DVDA and open project. Add video back in and reinsert scene selection, redo all my work and start prepare. Everything runs fine now.

Clearly there's some pretty sloppy code inside DVDA. That's excusable when it was a Rev A and the wolf was at the door. It's now many months and several revisions later and the code base is still clunky. I'm a software developer and I now from bitter experience that you'll never fix code written under pressure by just a patch here and there. The entire code base needs to either be rewritten or every line of code indpendently evaluated by an offsite team. Good practice is to use a team in at least another city.

This is not the only issue with the core DVDA code that has never been addressed. That's the reason why I have no interest in the 'Missing Features".
With such an unreliable code base adding more fatures will further expose these issues, the whole application is going to become even more unreliable.

Now before someone jumps up and down and wants to know why I'm rambling on when I now know how to make it work and it shouldn't be an issue anymore. Firstly quite obviously the code became totally lost, it took about 3 times longer than when it did work and spent ages 'Building audio object' when none existed nor was required. That it recovered at all was probably due to a catch all bit of code at best, at worst it was just plain good luck. Secondly code is meant to be written and tested to work, not made to work. This is a pretty damn obvious test scenario that any QA team would have included, either they seriously fell down on the job or they just didn't exist in the first place.