Audio problem when ripping DVD

[davehughes]

Hi all, once again i've got stuck trying to complete a project.
I've done the edit and set the audio levels, rendered and exported to Procoder express for convertion....all goes well and the DVD is burnt.
When I play the DVD back the sound is *****, sounds nothing like during editing or playback prior to the burn. I can only descibe it as listening with foam earplugs in as there is no volume and what sounds like excessive white noise over the entire project.
Anyone got any ideas as it's driving me mental, i've tried to adjust the master volume sliders and re-rendered the project without any success.
cheers Dave Hughes.

[Fred Dwyer]

You have set the levels, to what? -6 db? When you play the DVD back, on what are you playing it, a set top player or your computer? Have you tried playing it on more than one player?

I know that doesn't provide a great deal of insight, but it is what comes to mind.

[davehughes]

Audio problem

Fred, I've tried -6, -12 and -18db's all produce the same result when played back on set top and computer.
Cheers Dave Hughes

[Fred Dwyer]

Well, it seems that you've proven that the DVD is bad, it's not the playback device. Apparently the sound track was good in Edius, so it seems that Procoder Express is likely the culprit. Lets eliminate it from the process to see what happens. If you're using Edius 4.x you can build a very nice DVD with multiple levels of menus if you like, just using Edius' own DVD encoding package. If an earlier level of Edius you can build a simple DVD from the timeline without ProCoder.

[Imagine Video]

David

You are exporting direct from the EDIUS timeline using PC express

NOW

Play the mpeg or m2p file in Windows media player
Is the sound OK?

What are you using to Author the DVD?

When exporting the time line what do you use as the preset in PC - E ?

Cath

[davehughes]

I'm using Edius 4.
I'm unsure about exporting to video using Edius only, i'm converting my original NTSC footage to PAL by the way so think Ill need to us Procoder.

Cath, opening the DVD files and there's no files in Audio_ts to view
What I've done so far is transfer my Audio from the VA trackl and pasted it onto a Audio track to see if this cures the problem.( I'm re-rendering the project and will export when completed )
I,ve checked the previous project master's that I've done and the settings all seem he same.

Will let you guys know if I've been successful :-) here's hoping

[Fred Dwyer]

Audio_ts should be empty, no problem there.

Have you tried playing the video_ts folder in your computer? Does it play properly?

Have you tried producing an NTSC DVD? Does it exhibit the same flaw?

These are simple tests, but they would help to narrow the range of possibilities.

[davehughes]

Fred, The video_ts file plays, I've not got an NTSC player to play the DVD on.
My other projects have converted fine.
The last steps I made have made no changes to the audio output and so I'm going to start again from scratch, keeping a copy of the rubbish for reference and hopfully the audio wll be OK when I recapture from source.
Thanks for your help, I'll let you know how I get on

[Fred Dwyer]

If the video_ts file plays OK, that is with good sound, then the problem must occur during the burning process. Have you tried burning a fresh copy of one of your previously succesful projects?

Also, it is my understanding that most PAL DVD players are multi-format and also capable of playing NTSC format DVD's. Are you sure that your player is PAL only?

[Fred Dwyer]

Dave:
A few additional thoughts that are bothering me. You haven't identified the authoring program you are using. From PCE you generated either a single Program Stream mpeg file or 2 elementary stream files, an m2v and a wav. Subsequently you had to plug either the Program stream, or the 2 elementary stream files into an authoring program to generate your Video_ts and Audio_ts folders and their contents. Which did you use, Program or Elementary streams? What authoring program did you use? What software did you use to burn the DVD? If using Elementary streams did you convert the .wav file to some other format?

[davehughes]

Fred, I'm converting my timeline from NTSC to PAL using Procoder express and then the DVD is burnt using Edius. I presume this is Mpeg?
I've re-burnt an old project and captured some new footage today and burnt a DVD from that as well and all played OK.
I didn't know that you could play NTSC on a PAL video, i'll give that a go to see if that can narrow the problem.
cheers Dave Hughes

[Fred Dwyer]

Dave:
I'm sorry, I just don't understand your workflow. I really don't think I can help. I am not familiar with using PCE to convert an NTSC timeline to a PAL timeline.

If I wanted to write a PAL DVD from an NTSC timeline: Under export I'd select the Procoder Express for Edius Wizard. I'd set up all the parameters including the checkbox for PAL, and I'd export the two elementary stream files. I'd then load those two files into DVD Lab, set up a menu and burn the PAL DVD.

Without knowing a great deal about PAL, I do seem to remember that the PAL DVD spec's allow a different format for the audio than does NTSC. You might check with someone more knowledgeable about what audio formats PAL is happy with. Maybe someone will see this and help out. Of course if the audio format is the same as your prior projects, that can't have anything to do with your problem.

Sorry I couldn't help more.

[GrassValley_BH]

NTSC DVD spec requires at least one track be PCM or AC3. Or in other words, one track on the DVD must be AC3, or one track on the DVD must be PCM.

PAL DVD spec does not have that requirement and it is perfectly legal to have an MPEG-1 Layer II audio stream as the sole audio stream.

[davehughes]

Thanks Guys for all your help. It sounds like I'm going to have to use the CD musicto 'sort of fix'the sound to the video and loose the audience reactions, a shame but at least i'll have a reasonable DVD.
What I've only just thought about is that the soundtrack has been corrupted at the recording of the footage stage, by wireless mikes or some other equipment.
It would appear that Edius works differently for PAL and NTSC.
Cheers Dave Hughes