DVD authoring help

[jlinkon]

I have been using Pinnacle Studio 8 program for DVD authoring, but often have problems where the audio and video do not synch. I have wasted many discs trying to author certain projects. There has got to be better software out there or am I doing something wrong? Any help is much appreciated.

[U2Lynne]

You might want to do a search in this forum, Technobabble, and perhaps the Tapers forum because there have been several threads where video authoring, and the various programs, have been discussed.

[saltman]

Sony DVD Architect 4.0 is very popular here for the PCs. There is a lot of threads as u2Lynne commented.

[jlinkon]

Thanks. I should have done my homework before posting...

[retired]

If u are just addind a menu & chaptering...not actually synching an external audio source...easy tutorial for TMPGEnc
http://www.thetradersden.org/forums/showthread.php?t=27843

...i agree with saltman though, Architect is the way to go, good luck :thumbsup

[jlinkon]

Thanks again. I just downloaded my trial copy of DVD Architect to play with. Hoping that this will help!

[jlinkon]

DVD Architect seemed easy enough to navigate and I quickly authored a DVD with menus, chapters, etc. After starting to render I get the following error message:

"Warning: An error occurred while writing a file. The reason for the error could not be determined."

I've retried several times and every time receive this message....WTF? Any help with this?

[saltman]

That's very weird. I've made close to a hundred DVDs with various versions of Architect and I have never seen that error before. I'll look it up.

[STLBlues]

I would guess it's not rendering because you're using a trial version. I doubt the makers of Architect want you to create a DVD without paying them. Although, I would also assume that the error message would tell you that. :hmm:

[jlinkon]

This is a puzzler. After a few more tries....the error seems to happen at different times during rendering process. I thought that maybe it had something to do with the fact that this is a trial version, but after checking, the trial version is supposed to have full capabilities. It would be difficult to evaluate the program, if the trial version did not allow you to complete the process....

The only warning that I had before starting the burn process was that some of the text on my menu was out of the useable space and that the video and audio would be compressed.

My machine is fairly modern. P4 processor (3GHz); 1G RAM; Windows XP. It has handled many similar tasks with other software...

I think I'll uninstall and then reinstall the software and see if that helps anything. :hmm:

Much thanks for your comments.

[Silver Stallion DVDs]

When you click on the "make DVD" button, what's listed in the description queue? If there is something that is going to really screw up the authoring process, it's usually listed there. For that matter, if it's a show stopper, it won't even let you continue from that point.

Since you've tried multiple authoring programs and you still aren't getting anywhere, I'm wondering if maybe the problem isn't in the pre-authoring phase.

If you want some serious analysis, I recommend you start from the beginning and tell us the original source, how you captured and encoded it, etc., etc.

Randy

[jlinkon]

Since the program was stopping at different points, I just kept trying until eventually it made it all the way through and created a DVD...The DVD came out perfectly as authored. The problem that I was having with Pinnacle Studio 8 was that the aud/vid would get out of synch. So this seems to be a better program. I did not write down the Architect warning messages, but none were serious enough to not let me continue. I've got 29 more days of the trial period to figure it out..

The video file that I am working with is from VHS master > JVC HR-VP628U > Composite out > Hauppauge Win TV PVR2 (MPEG2 12.0 MBit/sec). This is the file that has been difficult to author, but I finally got it.

[Silver Stallion DVDs]

Since the program was stopping at different points, I just kept trying until eventually it made it all the way through and created a DVD...The DVD came out perfectly as authored. The problem that I was having with Pinnacle Studio 8 was that the aud/vid would get out of synch. So this seems to be a better program. I did not write down the Architect warning messages, but none were serious enough to not let me continue. I've got 29 more days of the trial period to figure it out.

The video file that I am working with is from VHS master > JVC HR-VP628U > Composite out > Hauppauge Win TV PVR2 (MPEG2 12.0 MBit/sec). This is the file that has been difficult to author, but I finally got it.
I don't think the synching problem is because of the program you used to capture the video/audio streams - it's almost certainly with the Hauppauge Win TV PVR2. I'm not saying that's a bad capture device - only that the capture interface is almost always the source of this kind of problem.

I use a Canopus ADVC 110 (and previously the ADVC 100) and after literally 1,000+ hours of capturing video - I have never had a single problem with synching (unless the original video source was out of synch).

Having to try so many times to get the project to finish properly sounds very peculiar - I've never had a problem like that. But at least you got it.