I'm trying to convert an MKV file into a DVD with Nero Vision 5, part of Nero 8. The first attempt had the audio and video seriously out of sync. I googled the issue and saw a slew of suggestions, some of which I've tried with no success. I turned SmartEncoding off and the sync problem was still there. I tried renaming Nero's own codecs but the transcoding process wouldn't complete. I downloaded VirtualDub as one suggestion had you running your file through that ... but VirtualDub wouldn't recognize my MKV file. Does anyone have a suggestion or solution for this problem? I've run the same video file through other programs such as Avi2DVD and ConvertXToDVD with no syncing issues. Only Nero seems to have this issue.
MKV is just the file container, holding the various elements - video, audio (in various formats), subtitles, etc,etc. For some reason, most of the converters have problems when using the MKV as the source file directly. The usual solution is to use something like MKVExtract Gui http://www.videohelp.com/tools/MKVExtractGUI to examine and extract the individual streams. In some cases, the MKV video is plain old xvid or Divx, so you can use Virtualdub to review or edit. If the audio is ac/3 - it's usually DVD compliant and doesn't need to be re-encoded. It can be added to the DVD project, assuming the program has provision for that.
I've just gotten through testing a whole bunch of conversion programs, and that is not the case. My file is a 3.5 hr MKV file with one h.264 HD video stream and one AC3 audio stream. The file is slightly over 5gb. Avi2DVD, ConvertXToDVD, The FilmMachine, and TMPGEnc Xpress had no problems converting from the source file without any glitches. I had a problem with DVD Flick as the audio by the end of the converted file sounded as if it were in slow motion. With Nero, in addition to the syncing issues, on at least one occasion, the process hung at the end, even though the counter kept moving. I've given up on Nero, which is a shame because it has the nicest interface and I like the other features and convenience. My preference was to stick with Nero if I could make it work. But on this MKV file, it was no go. I ended up using the output from The FilmMachine for my DVD. I also liked the output from Avi2DVD, but it was much slower as it uses an earlier version of HCenc encoder, while The FilmMachine uses the latest and faster version. Output from ConvertXToDVD was also very good. At any rate, if you are willing to give up the bells and whistles (and convenience) of Nero, you can get very good output with other programs using MKV as the source file.
Glad to hear you got some decent results. My statement was perhaps a little too general. In browsing the DVD Flick and ConvertX forums over the last month or two, it seemed more likely that the source files giving problems were MKV. Perhaps it was because users didn't know what was in them, or multiple audio and/or subtitles causing issue. One of the problems mentioned quite often was audio out of synch. Why this should be I don't know.
