Audio on DVD stops working

Hi Folks,

I already posted a message about this a while back but never got a fix for the problem.

I'm hoping another shot at it might find an answer.....

For the last few months I've been happily using iDVD to burn .avi movies to dvd. Everything worked perfectly until yesterday. I burned off a disc and when I played it in the DVD player the audio cut out after about 5 minutes into the movie. I checked the .avi file it came from and it plays with sound all the way through.

Thinking it might be the brand of disk I bought some more expensive ones, selected a different .avi movie and burned that. Again the same thing happens - about 5 or 10 minutes in the audio cuts out on the DVD even though the original .avi is fine.

I tried both the disks in my macbook and the audio is cutting out in the same place, so I know it's not my dvd player.

Has anyone encountered this problem before? Any ideas on soloutions?

I'm using Magic iDVD to burn the disks.

My specs are:
Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook4,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 3 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 800 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB41.00C1.B00
SMC Version: 1.31f0
Serial Number: WQ808H7F0P1
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled


Many thanks,
Michael.

Have you tried transcoding the avis through another program before using them in iDVD? I'm wondering if the transcoder of iDVD is breaking on the audio in the avi? You could try mpegstreamclip or ffmpegx and output a mpeg2 video and either ac3 or pcm audio and import that into idvd and see what happens...

OR try another dvd authoring package. I'd say give moviegate a try, or attempt to use a windows authoring package through darwine (there aren't many dvd authoring packages available for OSX that I've found - iDVD, moviegate, Toast 10, DVD Studio Pro)

Let us know what you find out.

Thanks Nethfel.

I will certainly try out some of the suggestions you made.

1. Transcoding - how long does it take to 'convert' an .avi to another format?
2. Another DVD authoring package is worth a go. Haven't heard of Moviegate but Toast seems to be popular. Which would you recommend to try first?
3....."or attempt to use a windows authoring package through darwine..." I don't know how I'd go about doing this, but I'll put it at the bottom of the list if the others don't work.

I was hoping it might be a case of just downloading an update for iDVD, or else uninstalling and reinstalling it. After all, it was working perfectly fine up until a week ago, and it's only the audio that is disappearing after 5 to 10 minutes.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted....
Many thanks,
Michael.

Another thing to think about is your media - there are a lot of crap DVDs out on the market. You may want to get another brands DVDs. Usually I special order my dvds so I really can't comment on which store brand yields the most consistent results. The other thing you can try is to slow down your burn speed. If you're set to burn at max, try setting it to 1x or 2x and see what happens. This would be your cheapest, and quickest thing to test, and if it fixes the problem (different media, slower burns) then you're good to go and ignore everything else .

Unless you're re-burning a dvd with an avi you've burned before -it is possible that whatever avi you've obtained this time uses a different codec that it is causing a problem for iDVD in terms of working right when being transcoded.

to your questions:

1) How long it takes depends on the transcoder, the cpu of your machine, the amount of cores of your cpus (depending on the software, not all software will use multicore nicely), the amount of ram you have, the settings of the transcoder, the length of the video. I've had some take near no time at all (like 10ish minutes for an hour length video) and I've had some that took days (HD transcode with extremely high settings in Compressor (a transcoder that comes with Final Cut Studio) that I was just testing to see what it would do). There are a lot of variables, so it's rather difficult to say how long it will take for you to do the transcode. If you don't want iDVD to do any transcoding, convert your file to an mpeg2 stream and an audio file that is either AC3 or PCM audio. Depending on the length of your video you may need to tweak the settings to make sure it fits on a DVD. I'd use VBR (Variable Bit Rate) instead of CBR (Constant Bit Rate).

2) Toast is expensive, but works. it's authoring is rather limited in terms of how much you can do - it's more meant for the home user to build a simple menu and they have "cutesie" templates. I'm not terribly fond of it, but it works (I do own a license to toast, but I don't usually use the authoring portion for DVDs) - I should also note, I'm not terribly fond of iDVD either. Moviegate is an interesting program. It's a little awkward to use at first, but it creates much more customizable DVDs then Toast or iDVD - the menus won't be flashy like iDVDs unless you create the video menus and import them, but I like the control over transcoding it offers and the (to me) easier customization of menus. Personally, I use DVDStudio Pro - but it's a package that comes with Final Cut Studio - you may be able to find an older version on ebay that is just DVDStudio prior to their combining it into FCS.

3) That's fine - it's really not something I'd recommend for the feint of heart There are more authoring programs available for Windows then for OSX (including free ones). Some of these work well under Darwine (wine for OSX) - it's really more of a last thing to try if you can't get other things to work better for you.

You can look at this thread that I stumbled across:

.avi movie loses sound in iDVD ... [Archive] - The macosxhints Forums

Once you read the thread, if you're interested in seeing what the search results were that were referenced in the thread, click here:

MacUpdate Search

unfortunately, the link they had in the thread must have been from before some changes in macupdates php search engine.

that talks about a codec addition to quicktime. If you don't have perian, get it and install it. of course I'm surprised that it did work for a few minutes then stopped

Hi Nethfel,

I've set about trying to sort this dvd burning problem with some of the solutions you offered.

I had thought the problem had resolved when I downloaded a movie .avi the other day and burned it with iDVD. The movie worked fine. Yesterday I downloaded another movie and burned it and yet again almost precisely 10 mins in the audio stops working.

I can't waste discs and time on a hit and miss basis so have decided to try and solve the problem.

1. Discs - I have tried a couple of different brands and now am using the brand I orginally burned all my dvds on trouble free ( Verbatim).

2. I don't want to slow down the burn speed as they already take at least 1 hour 30 mins minimum. Kids will not wait much longer for a movie!

3. Downloaded Moviegate trial version. You're right about it being awkward to use at first. I tried looking for a guide to using it in the help menu with the package - it only brings up the dvd burning guide for 'Finder'. Looked online but can't locate a step by step explanation.

4. Here's where I'm stuck -
I open Moviegate
Select 'Video' in the top tabs
Select the movie in 'Video Source'
Audio says 'Included in video source!"
Bit rate i leave at default
Language code I skip as I don't know what that is....
Destination - I thought this would be the blank DVD but it won't let me select this - comes back 'Destination Folder not valid. Please select a folder which doesn't have any special characters'
When I create a test folder to send it to the 'Start' or 'Burn' buttons at bottom right remain greyed out.

How do I proceed to burn a dvd here?

I do believe you have to complete the menu button at the top before it will allow you to burn the dvd (as the menu button at the top opens a control pane that allows you to tell moviegate how to link to your movie for playback)

I don't have iDVD in front of me at the moment (or moviegate for that matter), but I could swear there was a way in one or both of those that you could create a .img of the DVD - then you can mount it on your computer and open OSX's DVD player and test it without burning to a DVD.

If it works, then you can either use disk utilities or the free program Burn to burn the image to a physical DVD.

I'd suggest using mpeg streamclip like someone mentioned before. But export the video in mp4 format as well as audio, which for audio would be m4a, which a good bitrate would be 128 kb/s. make your codec h.264 as well. And video bitrate 2500 kb/s with your current frame rate. Perhaps converting the audio you used in your avi video to m4a will make it so idvd can burn it properly. m4a has always worked for me.

Hi Shaunr,

I'm afraid you're speaking another language to an old fogey like me....! But I will try what you suggested. Thank you for your help - it's much appreciated.

From what I can make out you're saying I should download Mpeg streamclip and use it to convert the .avi files to mp4 format? I should also convert the audio to 'm4a'? After that you just lose me with bitrate and codec and frame rate etc....

Apologies for being a bit thick here.

So when I convert the .avi to an mp4 I just burn that to dvd- right? I'll give it a shot and see if it works. I imagine it will take a while to convert an .avi to mp4 so it's adding time onto the whole process of getting the thing onto DVD, but if it works as a short term solution then I'll be happy.

Still being driven nuts by the nagging question of why the audio on any .avi I put onto dvd using iDVD cuts out around the 8 to 10 minute mark in.... I'm sure there's a reason why and if I could solve that mystery it would mean I don't have to run other authoring progams or processes. Why 8 to 10 minutes in - why does it work at all????

Is it worth posting an inquiry with Apple?

\Thanks,
Michael.

Success! Of a kind....

Converted the .avi to mp4 with streamclip and burned a dvd from the conversion. Plays the audio all the way through! Only problem is the movie and audio track are out of sync.

GGGGAAAHHHHH!!

Went back and checked the mp4 conversion and it's out of sync with itself. Is there an easy way to synce the audio with the video track on an mp4 file?

So close!!

Thanks for all the help,
Michael.

please tell me more about the problems. does the audio start when you start playing the new video? how much is it out of sync? Did you use H.264 codec or compression. I made a little guide. it should help.


Edit: I just found something that should work even better, and you don't have to fiddle with a bunch of settings. try this: DivX Doctor II - AVI to MOV Convertor There's a download for the software

Hi Shaunr,
I downloaded the Divx Doctor program, made a quicktime.mov from the .avi and am burning this as I write. Will let you know how I got on.

Incidentally, the little image of the streamclip settings box and overlaid text was mighty impressive. You really know your stuff....

Michael.

Thanks. hope everything works out ok.

If I were you, I'd stop burning discs until you've tested:

1) The files you're burning especially after conversion to another format to make sure the audio is in sync on the converted file - if it's not, you're just wasting DVDs.

2) At this point, with the amount of trouble you're having, I'd be making .img files rather then burning discs and testing the .img files by mounting them (double click one) and playing via OSX dvd player.

Hello Guys,

Well, I converted the .avi to a .mov file ( using Divxx Doctor ) as suggested by Shaunr, then burned a DVD from it. The movie works fine!! Thank you for your help in all this....I really mean that. Despite the extra time involved in having to convert the .avi to another format at least I can now make discs which work.

I have to confess I'm still eaten up with curiosity as to why iDVD worked fine burning .avi files but suddenly developed a quirk of losing the audio at almost exactly the same spot each time.

I've been on to the apple forum and a helpful guy there suggested I first make a disk image of the .avi file and view that. This I did and the audio was cutting out at precisely the same point.

According to him this means there is no problem with the brand of disc or the burn speed. The next step he suggests is to try deleting my iDvD preferences and restoring them to default ( didn't know I had any iDVD preferences.....).

I'll keep this thread informed of where this goes.....

Glad it worked. but i don't see how your preferences would have anything to do with the problem, or fixing it. It seems some of the audio track may have been sort of corrupt. maybe you can tell me what the audio format of the original file was.

Just to close off this thread with some sort of results.

The chap at the Apple site suggested I open Disk Utility and Verify my hard drive to check if it's some kind of error occurring in my filesystem. I felt we were going down a rabbit hole here and sure enough that does seem to be the case. The 'Verify' couldn't run because of an error with the disk volume...( wha??). Now there are a couple of people advising that I reinstall OSX after backing up my hard drive. They've given me articles to read with step by step instructions....

I'm not a computer guy and so this is all too much for me. I only wanted to fix a problem with the audio on a few .avis. The above suggestion, while helpful and gratefully received, seems like using a cannon to swat a fly. I think I'm going to leave this and if other problems start to happen with my machine I'll address the issue then.

My fix for overcoming the lost audio came from a combination of here and the Apple site so if anyone is reading this in order to sort out the same problem here are the two solutions that worked for me:

1. convert the .avi to a .mov file using a free program called Divxx Doctor. Burn the resulting .mov file as normal.

2. Bit more labourious this one - make a disk image of the .avi using iDVD, then burn the resulting .img using Disk Utility. At least on this you can check the disk image to ensure the audio is working right the way through.

Many thanks and best of luck.....