WARNING to any professional users of DVD Arc!!

Lyris wrote on 1/13/2009, 1:24 AM

Hey everyone,

Just thought I would sound the alarm here. In the past I have used Sony DVD Architect to author a commercial DVD title from a small studio.

I used an outside MPEG-2 encoder and the Sony Vegas AC3 encoder, and brought the files into DVD Architect. After this, the files were sent to a professional DVD replication facility and were turned into "Real" silver, pressed DVDs, just like you'd buy in a store.

Just before the release date, we discovered that at one point in the film, playback would freeze up on select older DVD players. On other affected players, playback would freeze momentarily and skip past the affected area. To ensure customers weren't frustrated, we re-encoded and re-authored the disc with more thorough testing, and paid to have it replicated again.

This solved the freezing issue on these previously affected players, but then we got reports that the second, redone version was stuttering and behaving erratically on some NEW Toshiba DVD (and HD DVD) players - in other words, compatibility was actually worse than before! Utterly baffled but at least grateful that most players were capable of a successful playthrough, and the budget already spent on the first repressing, we had no choice but to continue.

In the mean time, we have changed the MPEG-2 encoder, which we thought would solve the problem. It did not. Just yesterday, we traced the problem back to DVD Architect. That's right: we created a test disc in DVD Architect Pro 5 and a friend's copy of DVD Studio Pro on the Mac, using the *EXACT SAME* source files to build each disc, without re-rendering in both cases. The DVD Architect authored discs stuttered and froze; the DVD Studio Pro ones played through flawlessly.

So, what changed? Why did the redone version - which was encoded at a modest bit rate of around 7.5mbps, by the way - play WORSE than the old one?

Here's what changed. Sony upgraded DVD Architect Pro to version 5. By the looks of it, they have introduced some sort of multiplexing/disc building bug in the process.

To say that I'm disgusted is putting it lightly. Yes, bugs happen, and although I'm sure Sony have no legal responsibility whatsoever in this (the terms and conditions will surely set that out), we're now out of pocket for repressing *AND* buying a new authoring program. At the same time, I'm not too surprised that DVD Architect is the culprit... after all, Sony Creative Software seems to have been releasing an awful lot of botched Vegas updates lately.

Let me just re-iterate here: these results are from real, pressed discs AND recordable DVD-Rs. The media type is NOT the problem. There is something screwy with the way DVD Architect is building discs.

I love, love, love Sony Vegas and up until lately I loved DVD Architect's clean interface and easy subtitling capabilities too. But I'm afraid that this has been the final straw, and I can no longer trust the program and let it put my reputation as a DVD author on the line. I'm very disappointed and would love to have some sort of official acknowledgment from Sony, but who am I kidding.

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Comments

Lyris wrote on 1/27/2009, 1:44 PM

I'm sending all the info and discs off to Sony tomorrow, so it will be good to hear what's going on.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/27/2009, 6:31 PM

don't forget the confirmation! The extra $0.50 is worth it!

Lyris wrote on 1/28/2009, 10:07 AM

Pioneer Elite BDP-LX91 Blu-ray Disc player also halts playback on affected discs. In the worst cases, playback halts after about 15 seconds. If anyone has access to one of these players too, it'd be worth using to test.

LongTallTexan wrote on 1/28/2009, 5:27 PM

Well sorry to bust any bubbles but I have authored and duplicated about lets see 10,000 DVDs on various projects which are heavily distributed worldwide and have had no reported problems all using DVDA5. I use Discmakers who are not the biggest but certainly a respected replicator. Every project was tested thuroughly before final replication and I was asked to supply mastering fles or ISO on two seperate DVDs, never DVDR which is an extract and replicate process which is far from professional anyway. Every project I have mastered and replicated through DVDA since it's inception have been authored using its internal encoders and not a single issue. I think your problem arose out of the use of outside encoder. Im not saying that the problem lies with your encoder but could have certainly not jived with the DVDA way of thinking. That interaction between DVDA nd the other encoder may be a problem on either end but you certainly cant blame it on DVDA considering the variables.

1 Outside Encoder
2. Extract and replicate as oposed to suplying mastering files.

I would try to use DVDA s full capabilities and let it do all of the work instead of outsourcing to a non profesional encoder. Just my thoughts as I have not had this problem with numorous projects replicated with the current DVDA5

Sory for the problems, I know it can be a pain in the neck and I certainly hope it all works out in the end.

L.T.

Lyris wrote on 1/28/2009, 7:06 PM

>> "I would try to use DVDA s full capabilities and let it do all of the work instead of outsourcing to a non profesional encoder."

LT: Cinema Craft SP2 is a million miles away from a "non professional" encoder. It is widely recognized as the best in the industry. By comparison, the more basic internal MainConcept encoder used by Vegas and DVD Architect would be "non professional". We did consider using the internal encoder, but the quality is not good enough for our standards.

But you may be right, the problem may relate to using an outside encoder. Despite all of the visible encoder settings matching with DVD Architect's requirements for import, there could be something under the surface causing problems. Regardless, the files rendered by both encoders are compliant, so the problem is still with DVD Architect.

May I ask: did you create "24p" DVD with DVD Architect Pro 5 or were these 29.970fps based discs? I have a hunch that the problem may relate to this.

LongTallTexan wrote on 1/28/2009, 7:29 PM

Well I have done both. Def more 29.9 but some 24p as well. I am not famillar with that encoder. But you got my point. Sometimes software doesn't play well together. I certainly would not imply that it was an error on your part. I have always run into issues trying to mix programs like that. I don't think DVDs is the best out there but it works well for me when I work stay within the program is encoding. My clients and labels I work with like the outcome is Sony, Rhyno and others. I'm sure there are aspects that could be better but it is profesionally proficient. If that makes sense. I am mostly concerned with when you make blanket statements about DVDs being not profesional or being the cause of these issues without being certain people belive it. This may in turn may not be the case. I want folks to know DVDs and vegas are my bread and butter and to me and mine they make some fine toast.

L.T.

Good luck

Lyris wrote on 1/29/2009, 8:25 AM

LT: the same assets (made with two encoders) were imported into two programs, one disc is totally reliable, the other is not. Same media, same burners, same burning program, same drive, same players. I take your point that it may well be the combination of outside encoders + DVD Architect that's causing the problem, but the problem would seem to still lie with DVD Architect...

To test further, I'm going to make a disc tonight using DVD Architect 5 Pro and render internally using the built in encoder. I'll get back to you with the results.

Lyris wrote on 1/29/2009, 9:12 AM

Hey LT, you're right: the problem seems to be exclusive to bringing in files from an outside encoding application.

This at least means that it will be affecting less people; still, importing M2V video is still a feature of DVD Architect and the program does perform checks on the GOP Structure to make sure that it's DVD compliant, so I hope this still gets fixed.

ScorpioProd wrote on 1/29/2009, 12:21 PM

When you guys say the problem is using DVDA with an external encoder, are you counting the encoder in Vegas as external or not? (As opposed to the encoder in DVDA.)

Thanks.

Lyris wrote on 1/29/2009, 1:05 PM

No, I wasn't counting the Vegas encoder as external. I considered that as part of the whole package :)
If you're rendering MPEG-2 in Vegas, or dragging an AVI file into DVD Architect for it to render to MPEG-2 itself, it looks like you're safe.

LongTallTexan wrote on 1/29/2009, 1:40 PM

Well I thought that might be the case. At least you pinpointed the problem. Im sure that doesn't go far enough to fix your headaches but at least now we know. Good luck with your project.

L.T.