Vision 4 - Audio not N-Sync for TV Series...

Hello,

I've been using Nero Vison for years to make movies with my .mpg's and .avi with complete success. I would say I follow your guide exactly (except for creating chapters automatically, that used to make my movies pause a second every minute of playback on my DVD player).

Here's my problem: Anytime I try to encode TV series rips (like My Name is Early, The Office, or Lost), after the 1st or 2nd commerical change, the audio lags after the video. This problem gets progressively worse each commericial change (commercial is removed, just the change). It appears the video speeds up for a second and the audio never catches up.

This sometimes happens on a Sopranos episode, but never movies. I have the latest codecs installed and my firware is up-to-date. My computer has got plenty of power (Pentium IV - 3ghz, with 1Gb RAM and 500GB's RAID HD's).

It's important to note that it does not do this all the time. Sometimes one episode will play with no errors, while the next will. (4 episodes per disk).

If I encode the disc twice, I get the same problem, just in different spots or to different levels of severity.

Please Help! I've got an entire season of Lost left to see and I can't stand the voices not matching the mouths!

Details:
------------
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe MB
P4 - 3 ghz (OC'd 3.9ghz)
1Gb RAM
500GB HD space (RAID, 32mb buffer total)
eVGA Geforce 5700 Ultra - 256DDR2
------------
Nero Vision v.4.0.0.1
XP Service Pack 2
Divx 6
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Vision Options:
-Smart Encoding Enabled
-High Quality 2 Pass
-Automatic Audio Option
-Custom Bit Rates (to fit 4 episodes per disk, approx 3200kbps)
-No Automatic Chapters (but will try this again)
-Forward/Back Jump disabled

 

This thread isn't about Nero problems, but it may help you understand what might be going on. NeroVision 4 has been having some conversion problems.

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/129217

 

It's almost certainly not NV's fault. The reason I say this is that I likely have some of the same source .avi files that you do and I have the exact same problem when I burn the .avi files to a disc for play in my Philips DVP642 standalone. The lag always comes after commercials (not all commercials but many), which is why it rarely happens with Sopranos and other shows which air w/o ads. These discrepancies often don't show up when I play the .avi files in Media Player or Nero but they are part of the .avi as a result of the way it was encoded. All NV is doing is passing along the faulty audio when it makes the dvd. I suppose you need to follow the instructions in Saltgrass's thread to fix the audio (even if you don't hear the audio problems on your computer).

 

this is definitely NV's fault. Hence why most of us who transcode a lot of avi's to dvd have stopped using nero and switched to convertxtodvd or some other transcoding software. You're right that the avi creates the audio lag, it's just NV has no way to account for it whereas other programs do. My advice: Save yourself the headache many of us have gone through had don't depend on nero for avi transcoding until a proper update fixes this.

 

Thank you all for your suggestions. I went ahead and used the 1st "fix" from the link at the top to correct the audio in my files. I'll report on NV's ability to transcode these new files.

Ulimately, I was looking for a good suggestion for another program to use for this function. I'll give Convertxtodvd a try.

I'll report back to which works best for me.

**One last question: Now that I've "fixed" my old files using VirtualDub to re-save them with an uncompressed (or non-VBR)audio track, should I use these new files with Convertxtodvd, or my originals. If not, why not?

 

I've never tried this "virtual dub fix" so i can't comment. As far as convertxtodvd goes, you can just go ahead and use your original avi files...this program can account for an audio lags in the avi. But...convertxtodvd isn't free so there's the rub!

 

Another thread just indicated if you use 2 pass transcoding, it might help the sync problems--anyone want to try and let us know how it goes?

 

That's what I've been doing, no results. Really, none of the settings on VR seem to fix this problem.

I'm about to test the "fixed" .Avi's on VR and on convertxtodvd. Will report soon.

 

I use DIKO to create KDVDs from .avi files. Works great most of the time, and it's free. http://www.vmesquita.com/forum/index.php?page=2

 

i've always selected that "high quality 2-pass transcoding" option when i covert avis...didn't fix the problem for me, unfortunately.

 

Ok, here are my results using the "fix" from the link at the beginning of this thread:

With NV:
---------------
1) It did fix some of the files, but others were not only not-fixed, but made worse. I assume that those files had particular encoding issues beyond the standard VBR error.

2) With Convertxtodvd, these fixed files played correctly, every one.

-------------------------
So, with those results, I scraped NV in favor of Convertxtodvd. I also decided to try Convertxtodvd on the untouched (un-VirtualDubbed) original files I had the audio lag with.

Guess what.... It worked like a champ.

I've used NV for years now, but I think I'll never use it again. Convertxtodvd not only fixed the Audio lag issues, but in many ways, I prefered it's rendering of the files. Colors seem sharper, compression and framerates seem better. I dunno, maybe I'm just happy to watch Lost with the voices matching the mouths. Regardless of "quality" issues, with Convertxtodvd I don't have to do anything to the files prior to encoding. That's worth it to me.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

 

Thanks so much for the information. This dang audio lag was DRIVING ME CRAZY FOR THREE DAYS.

I'm a regular dl'dr of .avi files and I've got dozens of them to convert. The thought of having to manage and "fix" every one of them was more than I could stand.

Thanks again for the suggestion of convertxtodvd I'll give it a try.

 

i just wish convertxtodvd also did vcd and svcd as an all-in-one software bundle like nero can do. I can't drop nero all together...i'll be constantly examining every damn update until they fix this stupid problem.

 

Yeah, I was once also about to get rid of Nero in favor of ConvertXtoDVD, until I discovered the resulting DVDs, although with the audio perfectly in sync, didn't play so well on some standalones, my PS2 included. Stuttering and skipping issues made them unwatchable for me. And what's worse, or at least more strange, was that even though I could convert using ConvertXtoDVD with audio in sync all files that Nero converted with audio out of sync, I got out of sync DVDs from some files I once converted with Nero with the audio in perfect sync.
So I don't think one is necessarily better than the other, they just have different tastes in which audio sync to screw up...

 

I've also noticed the skipping and freezing issue with convertxtodvd, I thought it was just bad disks or some other problem. Is there anything I can do to minimize that problem, because I can't go back to Nero, at least for my Lost episodes...

 

i have noticed the skipping with my ps2. Also, when I've made a project and had convertxtodvd burn it to a cd (by setting the output size to 700MB) I've seen aspect ratio problems. But, I think both of these is the fault of the dvd player being used since I don't see the same problems on each device...just one different problem per device (figures!). In other words...the ps2 shows the right aspect ratio but skips and the stand alone doesn't skip but screws up the aspect ratio. Fortunately, i have another dvd player that plays everything perfectly.

I think you can chalk these errors up to pickiness of the dvd players themselves, so no way to fix the errors. But try changing the media...it's worth a shot.

 

I have a similar problem with avi files from tv episodes such as Lost and 24. The audil lags. They seem to be avi files using the xvid codec. I didn't create them so I don't know what was used but this problem comes up alot, even just playing with Windows Media player on a computer. Looking for an easy way to fix and re-sunch the audio, but from the mixed results I'm not sure if ConvertXtoDVD is going to help. I would like to be able to burn the avi's to regular playable dvd's, with no audio lag. Or even to rework the avi files to new ones that dont have the errors. Are both things possible with ConvertXtoDVD?

 

Mark87654 I also have the same issues with tv shows. A movie avi I converted recently is perfect, however. The movie used the XViD codec, so I still don't think that's the issue. I'm starting to suspect maybe it's files which are encoded using a different type of audio, although one file with AC3 audio didn't work, another with AC3 audio did. Go figure.

One friend suggested I try WinAVI for those files that are uncooperative in ConvertXtoDVD. Anyone tried that program and have good results?

 

I went ahead and tried vso ConvertXtoDVD. So far I am very impressed. The first 4 episodes I made into a dvd, and the audio sync problem was fixed on the burned dvd, even toward the ends of the episodes where it always is worst. Plus it was real easy to use and make a dvd with menu for the episodes automatically. I'm sure from the posts there'll be some problem files come up eventually but so far this software is amazing. Watching the stuff at the computer was getting old, and the audio problem was maddening, so this solved both problems at once.

 

The only problem I had with Convertxtodvd was the occasional "stuttering" and eventual "freezing" of the video. In every instance, I reencoded the disc with the same files only to have the problem disappear.

That can only lead me to believe that the issue has to do with either the R/W discs I've been using for ages or something happening during the encoding that put errors into the finished products.

Either way, once I started to use the highest quality encoding option, I never saw the problem again. So, I'm very pleased with Convertxtodvd, I hope Nero can take some lessons from that software's capabilities.