Weird playback problem

psb wrote on 2/21/2007, 12:42 PM
Hi everybody,

Got a weird problem to solve. I have rendered the .avi movie (NTSC DV 720X480) using Vegas 6 (5 minutes long). Checked the rendered movie in Vegas and Windows Media Player and the movie plays fine.

The movie has a little audio intro (maybe 30 seconds) then the actual film footage starts. This info is VERY important so pay attention to what happens next.

I create the DVD project in DVD Architect 3 where my .avi film is the only thing out there. Using the default "Menu 1" I drag my .avi film to it which automatically creates the link. I click on the "Preview" and the "Menu 1" is displayed correctly with the .avi link highlighted. Perfect. I activate the link and the movie starts playing without a glitch. No problemo! So I "Make the DVD". The process of rendering, preparying, and burning is smooth and without any problems.

Getting the finished DVD and trying to play it in my standalone DVD player in my living room. Upon inserting the DVD disc into the player the DVD player shows the "Menu 1" screen with the highlighted link for my ".avi movie". I'm pushing the ENTER button on my remote and..................................... the WEIRD thing happens!!!! The picture of the "Menu 1" stays on the TV screen but the audio from my ".avi movie" starts playing. When the audio intro meets with the actual film footage in the movie the DVD player stops, (at this point the TV screen becomes black), waits for 10 seconds, and then continues playing the movie from the place where the actual film footage was recorded without any problems all the way to the end and no synchronization problems between audio and video.

Someone said that I should try to render the movie as an mpg file instead of .avi. But I have done many Vegas/DVDA projects in the past and have never encountered such problem. What could be wrong?

As an experiemnt I have made another DVD with the same .avi file but this time using Pinnacle Studio 9 and everything works great.

By the way, I have used several DVD discs to see if maybe it is the media problem, but every one of them shows the same playback problem. So, it is not an issue of a bad DVD media disc.


Any suggestions?

Many thanks,

Paul

Comments

newhope wrote on 2/21/2007, 6:31 PM
Just to be perfectly clear you are importing an AVI with 30seconds of audio only before the vision starts?
I assume that means that there is actually 30 seconds of black video rendered with audio which changes to vision and audio in the one avi file?

I'd suggest you do render the MPEG2 in Vegas as it sounds as if Vegas is assuming the opening is an audio only section rather than (black) video and audo and is creating two separate files as part of the render.

If you render a complete MPEG in Vegas then all DVDA should do is output that file as the VOB and the menu link should work as you want it to.

Can't explain why it is happening but I prefer rendering out of Vegas as you have more control over the data rate and other parameters of your subsequent MPEG file from Vegas.

Regards
New Hope Media
psb wrote on 2/21/2007, 8:12 PM
Hey New Hope Media,

Thanks for the response. You have understood the the whole scenario perfectly (30 sec audio before the vision starts).

Yep, I have rendered the file as mpeg2 in Vegas and even though I have done that the DVDA is doing the same thing (probably treating the audio intro as a separate file).

So, I have tried a different thing. I have started the video right at the beginning with audio but this time I have incorporated a huge video fade in (there is a video loop at the beginning so there is no problem stretching it for 30 sec more backwards). I guess it is possible to do the same thing with video envelope by setting it to inf and then at the right place making a huge fade in.

The result: everything works great. The DVD player immediately jumps to the video file from the Menu screen and plays the whole video without a glitch.

Conclusion: I guess you need to have a video material present at the beginning of the file for a DVD player to play it correctly. It's weird why DVDA is doing this (not allowing to have a 30 sec audio intro before actual vision starts even though the actual file was pre-rendered as .avi or mpeg2 in Vegas 6). I thought that Vegas can render a perfectly black bacground without any video footage and this would be treated (after rendering) as a part of the whole video track (enire film featuring 30 sec of black intro background)

This is really unusual and if somebody would come up with any explanation for this phenomena then please respond to this post.

Thank you New Hope Media for your help. I do appreciate it.

Paul

MPM wrote on 2/24/2007, 10:10 AM
DVD players play mpg2 video...

The way it's set up in the vob files that contain your content, there's a video stream, & optionally audio to go along with it. To play your audio only intro, the way you've done it is probably the easiest, though instead of a long fade my habit is to just split the section of vid on the timeline, mute it, then use a short fade at the begining of the un-muted vid. Using generated black should also work, but I've had problems here and there with Vegas & DVDA showing that correctly for the right amount of time.

Alternatives off the top of my head would be a transition menu with whatever background, or a transition video before your title... However either one would only accomplish the same thing for your purposes I think.

But at any rate as you've discovered along with your cure, just how DVDs work,