dvr.ms goes progressively out of sync?

[juclarie]

hi everyone! just a quickie. i have several brilliant recordings in the dvr.ms format (ofcourse!). everytime i try to convert them to mpg the audio goes slowly out of sync. (the original file plays perfectly in WMP 11). gross! need help. apologies if this has been mentioned before. point me in then right direction and i'll go look. please........ no techno jargon.

[HtV]

You might want to try videoredo, you can try it for 2 weeks I think.
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/VideoReDo

It's the best program for problems like that.

[juclarie]

Hi HtV,

well, tried tried tmpg express 4 (which has dvr.ms support) and the latest ulead video studio 11 (beautiful on HD) but BOTH outsync the audio timewise as the file progresses. woh is me! it's not a gbpvr problem but i don't know exactly what it is... lordy, WPM11 forever???? i think not! there must be an answer. cheers for your reply. will look up videoredo. but have i bad vibes tho... you know, tried a lot of these video convert proggies... well worth avoiding

[bgowland]

Where are you in the world? (Always worth puting at least your country in the Location of your profile).

I record all DVB-T programmes to dvr-ms then use the gbpvr auto-convert option to convert to mpeg-2 for better viewing on my MVP.

I have sync. issues with some UK Freeview channels but not all. Do you see this on all channels or just specific ones?

Cheers,
Brian

[juclarie]

well, i'm in freeview land (sic). an interesting point about some channels. never really thought about it but all the same, how come WMP11 plays all through in sync - but the moment you convert it the sync is progressively lost. hmmmm. the program i've been desparately trying to save came off channel 4. it's 1 hour 48 mins (long film) but by the time you get to the end after comversion the sound is about 2 secs ahead of the video. not good.

where's the gbpvr autoconvert - is that the same as transcode in the video menu?

[bgowland]

well, i'm in freeview land (sic). an interesting point about some channels. never really thought about it but all the same, how come WMP11 plays all through in sync - but the moment you convert it the sync is progressively lost.

Playing and converting dvr-ms files use two different processes. When you play a dvr-ms file, the AV streams in the dvr-ms file are simply processed using suitable MPEG AV decoders the outputs of which being sent to the audio device and a video window. Converting to mpeg2 takes the AV streams from the dvr-ms file and passes them to an MPEG2 Multiplexer, the single (multiplexed) output of which is fed to a 'file writer' to produce the mpeg2 file. The output streams from the dvr-ms file (being fed into the mpeg2 mux) contain no timing information and it is the responsibility of the mpeg2 mux to provide embedded timing to the PS being written to the file. It's my belief this is where sync. problems are introduced during the conversion process.

the program i've been desparately trying to save came off channel 4. it's 1 hour 48 mins (long film) but by the time you get to the end after comversion the sound is about 2 secs ahead of the video. not good.

I have analogue and dvb-t capture cards and Channel4 is handled by my analogue cards at the moment so I don't know if it's one of the problematic channels. I do know that Film4 is consistently troublesome and I believe it's due to the higher bitrate Film4 uses for broadcast I'm pretty certain it's a case of the mpeg2 mux having problems with higher bitrates - I can't see there is any other part of the conversion process which could introduce timing problems.

where's the gbpvr autoconvert - is that the same as transcode in the video menu?

Go to the 'Processing' tab in the Config app. There's a box to set conversion of dvr-ms to mpeg2 and you can set the start time to ASAP to make it convert after the recording finishes. You need the Cyberlink MPEG muxer to do this.

One question - have you tried playing the dvr-ms file using GB-PVR? Does it lose sync?

Cheers,
Brian

[juclarie]

hello, and thanks for taking the time to reply. i've found the convert tool in the config da di da so thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

well, the good news is that i have a friend with canopus procoder. in went the file. out it came perfectly as a vob all ready for divx-ing.

the bad news is that i can't afford to buy it - it's somewhere around 400 QUID :mad:

still, that's what friends are for eh?

i'm currently using two dvb "cards" - one pci, the other usb. sometimes they compliment eash other - sometimes gbpvr gets stroppy and won't record nowt. when i was in the london area we picked up bbc hd... wow! now we've moved to the south coast it ain't there anymore

when i get time i will give the convert tool a run but, for the mo, all seems fixed.

again, thank you for your time!