Weird Problem, 1 Episode, 2 VOBS, each w/ diff framerates

[OscarWabbit]

hi,

this is my frst post, so hello everyone, and i hope i have started this thread in the right forum...

i have been video encoding/ripping for about 7 months now, so im still newbie-ish (have ripped over 500 dvds, all PAL though, of my 1000+ dvd collection, both on windows and my mac using XVID) but i have had some real problems encoding NTSC region1 Lost Series 1.

notably, episode 3.

i am encoding with Keopis XVID encoder, 2 pass mode.

i have dvddecrypted the disk successfully and have the 4 episodes (from disk 1 of 6) in my VIDEO_TS folder.

now, episode 3 is made up of two VOB files, and after trying dvdx and aoadvdripper, im not getting satisfactory results.

and now i think i know why.

i have both a windows machine and a mac machine, so i loaded the VIDEO_TS folder onto my mac, where i could use ffmpegx to analyse the vobs, and what ive found is this.

the first vob (of 2) for episode 3 is in 29.97 fps, whereas the 2nd VOB is 23.97.

so my problem is this, which framerate in a windows ripper do i select?

ive tried 23.97 and dvdx complains that the VOB is in 29.97 (which is correct for the first VOB), so ive tried to encode at 29.97, and found audio sync problems. to make matters worse, if i select the "synchronise audio/video" option in dvdx, the encoding fails on the 2nd pass with an error saying it cant find the audio stream.

with aoadvd ripper, i get stuttters in the audio at the beginning of the avi, but the rest of the file is ok, except its 20MB oversize.

im now trying to rip this episode on my mac using handbrake as that has never given me problems and you dont have to specify a framerate, handbrake works it out for itself.

handbrake is currently running as i write this post, so i dont know yet if it will work or not.

but the main question is this, how do you encode, on windows, an episode/movie which has different framerates in different VOBS which make up that episode/movie?

this has stumped me.

would very much appreciate advice.

cheers

Oscarwabbit

[benbryant]

I don't use Mac so I have no idea how to run the programs for Mac. For windows, you can use DGPulldown to apply 3:2 pulldown to your file from 23.97 to 29.97 fps. This program takes a progressive MPEG-2 video elementary stream, and applies pulldown flags to change it to a higher legal MPEG2 output frame rate. It also allows changing/correction of timecodes.

First make sure your files have the same resolution (Ex: 720x480 NTSC), demux the video and audio streams with TMPGEnc, run DGPulldown on the video MPEG-2 stream to flag it up to 29.97 fps, and then Mux the audio and video into a program stream with TMPGEnc, or author a DVD using any DVD author program. DGPulldown is free and TMPGEnc comes with free trial

http://neuron2.net/dgpulldown/dgpulldown103.zip

http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tp.html

Regards

[OscarWabbit]

hi ben,

what you say sounds very interesting (although complicated )...

what i noted in particular from your post is the pulldown stuff which ive never heard of.

in ffmpegx (the mac tool which will show you the parameters of a vob file - i dont know of an equivalent tool in windows, do you???), for the first vob it shows this:

mpeg-2, 720x480, 9800 kbps, 29.97 fps

for the 2nd vob, of the same episode it shows this:

mpeg-2, 720x480, 9800 kbps, 23.976 fps w/3:2



now, firstly, if i didnt have a mac with ffmpegx on it, so i could analye the vob parameters and was just using windows only, i would never have known that the 2 vobs that make up this episode have different parameters, so how i can i spot this in future, if im using my windows machiine?

also, does the 2nd VOB where it says 23.976 fps w/3:2 - is that some sort of pull down thingy, as you mention?

also, is there a windows ripper (im dreading youre going to say gordian knot which i find incredibly complicated), that can see the difference in vob configurations for a single episode/movie and make the necessary adjustments for this on-the-fly? (i think my MAC handbrake ripper will do this, but i wont know for another couple of hours until its finished).

you see, in mac handbrake, you dont need to specify anywhere the fps of the input file, whereas all the rippers ive tried on windows ask you to specify the input IFO file fps (which i now know can be different between the individual vobs that make up that movie clip).

how can i spot this problem on windows, pretending i dont have a mac with ffmpegx which alllows me to see these differences.

it was only when i loaded the 2 VOBS into my mac ffmpegx that i could see there was a difference.

i spent the whole day yesterday trying different options in both dvdx and aoa dvd ripper on windows, but had no idea that the two vobs for this episode were different.

how can i spot this kind of trickery??? just on windows.

isnt there a windows ripper that will just do this pulldown stuff for me and handle various diffferent formats amongst VOB files that make up a video clip or do i have to do what youve suggested above?

how will i even know this is the problem unless i transfer the VOBS to my mac for analysis.

if i was just on windows i would still after a day of constant trying not know what the real problem is.

any ideas on better rippers for windows that can work out the fps per vob file for itself and make the necessary changes automatically?

thanks muchly for your help.

[OscarWabbit]

well, handbrake on the mac has just ripped episode 3 of lost series 1, using the vobs i got from dvddecrypter, 2pass XVID, with exactly the same size i asked for (350MB) and no audio problems.

so it works fine on the mac, but i still cant rip this episode successfully on windows.

so windows help and advice to my questions above would be gratefully received.

thanks

[benbryant]

I'm sorry for misunderstanding your question. I thought that you wanted to convert PAL DVD to NTSC. There are many different windows based free tools to convert DVD to XviD. You can use AviSynth and VirtualDubMod (my favorite), MeGui, FairUse Wizard, StaxRip, AutoGK, MediaCoder,...I can't tell which one is better. The quality can be achieved by changing the encode settings. Please try them yourself to find the perfect one for you

I never recommend to change the framerate since that's the main source of playback problem and audio out of sync

Regards

[OscarWabbit]

hi ben

I'm sorry for misunderstanding your question. I thought that you wanted to convert PAL DVD to NTSC. There are many different windows based free tools to convert DVD to XviD. You can use AviSynth and VirtualDubMod (my favorite), MeGui, FairUse Wizard, StaxRip, AutoGK, MediaCoder,...I can't tell which one is better. The quality can be achieved by changing the encode settings. Please try them yourself to find the perfect one for you

its interesting that the rippers you mentioned are not ones im using - ive been using dvdx and aoa dvd ripper. i'll have a look at some of those you mention above.

I never recommend to change the framerate since that's the main source of playback problem and audio out of sync

but what happens when the framerate changes between vobs that make up one movie clip? what do you do then? like ive said, it seems that each Lost series 1 episode is made up of 2 VOBs, the first at 29.97 and the 2nd VOB at 23.97 w/ 3:2 (whatever that means).

its this i dont understand, and more importantly, cant successfully rip on windows.

as you have to select a framerate in both the ripper and keopi's XVID codec, if i select 29.97 which is what the first vob is always in, but then the 2nd VOB is 23.97, so is this why im getting so many failures.

3rd day so far trying to get this to work on windows and failing miserably.

is it something to do with the setting "Detect 24Hz progressive" that i need to use? or what about "Force 24Hz", and do i need to select "Sync video/audio" when a movie clip has 2 vobs with different frame rates?

you see my problem?

cheers

[OscarWabbit]

PROBLEM SOLVED - WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO

and the solution was..... drum roll... AutoGK, which has ripped so far 3 more of these strangely encoded Lost series 1 episodes perfectly, no sound sync problems, and perfect 350MB 2-pass XVID files, at perfect quality, as required.

im chuffed.

think i'll be using autogk a lot more from now on.

i might even be brave and try to learn gordian knot at some point, the autoGK product has been the only ripper to successfully rip these episodes correctly.

posting this for information as it might help others experiencing similar problems.

[benbryant]

Glad that you got the problem solved. See, AutoGK is one of the programs that I listed for you. You can try them all and go for the one that works best for you. Please try GK, you'll benefit yourself more by tweak with settings.Thank you for posting the feedback. It will definitely helpful for members in the future

Regards

[OscarWabbit]

thanks ben

ive tried (unsuccessfully) 1 click dvd ripper, dvdx, and 1st dvd ripper, oh and super dvd ripper too, and they all had problems encoding these Lost series 1 episodes... program crashes, audo sync problems, amongst various other error messages and unsatisfactory .avi files (most of them oversized).

the thing i noticed with autoGK is that it doesnt ask you anywhere to SPECIFY the input stream fps, it works it all out for itself by analying each VOB that makes up the movie clip.

i think this is the essential difference and advantage of autoGK, its much more intelligent than the others, it can work out the correct parameters by itself.

i notice autoGK is very similar to MAC handbrake which also doesnt ask you for framerates and stuff like that, it works it out by itself and just produces the best quality avi it can with it own analysis and your specification of filesize.

so i'll be sticking with autoGK and perhaps i'll have another go at learning the full version gordian knot, when the time is right.

GO AUTOGK, what an excellent program... and yes, i only tried it because you mentioned it and also it gets a lot of good press at the doom9 forums, ive noticed.

thanks for your help mate.

regards

oscarwabbit.

[R3MF]

i have exactly the same problem

PROBLEM SOLVED - WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO

and the solution was..... drum roll... AutoGK, which has ripped so far 3 more of these strangely encoded Lost series 1 episodes perfectly, no sound sync problems, and perfect 350MB 2-pass XVID files, at perfect quality, as required.

im chuffed.

think i'll be using autogk a lot more from now on.

i might even be brave and try to learn gordian knot at some point, the autoGK product has been the only ripper to successfully rip these episodes correctly.

posting this for information as it might help others experiencing similar problems.

the first 12 episodes converted fine using:
smartripper
staxrip (xvid+avi)

however, there have been various problems with the rest of the series:
first of all, staxrip refused to read the chapters i was trying to extract due to being unable to read two files.
so i used DVDdecrypter to put the whole lot on the harddrive.
having achieved this i then used staxrip as per usual to start encoding but the resulting avi kept being messing up via audio-sync problems.
their is a 5 second pause while the audio plays but the screen is black, and from then on the audio is about 5 seconds ahead of the video.

so i searched online and found this thread, and thus tried to encode the DVDdecrypted vob files using AutoGK and got the same result!

so i tried re-extracting the disk contents using RipIt4Me, which was successful........... except that i continued to have the same audio/video sync problem when i re-encoded the files as xvid/avi's.

this happened whether i used staxrip or AutoGK..............?

so the question is; what settings did you use in AutoGK to get good properly sync'ed xvid/avi files?

kind regards

[edit] i also tried using staxrip to just encode the first of the two vob files, to see if it was just the confusion of two different FPS speeds that was messing stuff up - one vob file = one FPS speed = possibly a none confused encoding app.

however this was not to be. the same sync problem occurred when just encoding the first vob file. [/edit]

[R3MF]

any help would be appreciated.

these vob files also confuse AVS video converter v4.3.