Hello all,

I was going to post yesterday, a question regarding a problem I've been having playing a file on my FOXSAT HDR.

I had a .VOB file from a DVD, which I would then convert to .TS using AV2HDR (what a brilliant program that is!).
It would play absolutely fine on the PC - no problems at all.

However, when copied to the FOXSAT HDR, I would have problems with the sound, whereby there would be "stuttering", or a "beat" to the sound - it isn't really too noticeable with speech, but as soon as there was any background music, it became quite difficult to hear anything useful!
What was very odd though, was the problem only started to happen at about 11 minutes into the programme - I had 3 episodes of a TV series, and the 1st one did it all the way through - but the 2nd 2 didn't start until almost exactly 11 minutes in. Very odd!

Anyway - I was going to ask if anyone had similar problems - but the forum made me wait to join... which gave me time to investigate the problem myself - and I think I've found the solution!


So - for anyone else with the same problem:

It all appears to be caused by the audio bitrate. I had converted some other DVD's a few weeks ago, and they worked fine - I had a look at their audio settings, and their bitrate was 384bits.
However, the new DVD's I'd converted were only 224bits.

SO - I set to work with SUPER to try and change the audio bitrate - which I think it can do - but it was going to take HOURS to do the conversion.
A bit more fiddling, and I found that I could open the .VOB in AVIDEMUX, tell it to copy the video, set the audio to AC3, went into Configure for the audio and set it to the correct bitrate (384).
Changed the output format to MPEG-TS, and save the video. It took about 20 seconds to run through a 40-minute programme, of about 1.5GB. MUCH better!

So - with my new .TS file from AVIDEMUX, now with the correct bit rate, I ran it through AV2HDR again, and this time, it has worked beautifully!

Hoorah!

I hope this helps someone else!

Glad you got a result. Can I suggest you try this alternative next time.
I've always found tsMuxeR GUI to be the best tool when converting DVD VOB's to TS streams. DVD video is usually contained in a series of VOB's which need to be joined first.
tsMuxeR GUI does a brilliant job of both joining the VOBS and remuxing them to a TS or M2TS format. AV2HDR can remux VOB's directly but my implementation is not the best and I wouldn't recommend it. (That could be the cause of your audio problem).
Just use tsMuxers 'add' button to import the first VOB in the series, then use the 'join' button to import the rest.
Select the video and audio track you wish to keep and select an output format of TS or M2TS (AV2HDR can import either). Browse for an output file name then hit the 'Start muxing' button. That's it, conversion is extremely fast.

Thanks for the reply, and the information - I will certainly give your suggestion a try - anything to make life easier!

And once again - thank you for a brilliant program - I continue to get strangely pleased whenever I've copied something to the FOXSAT, and it actually works!

I'm eager to try the FTP functions of your latest version - but need to get a network connection to my box first.


Thanks again!

It would be weird if the box couldn't cope with 224kbps (or any other valid bitrate) because there's no "correct" Dolby Digital/AC3 bitrate; broadcasters, DVD authoring facilities, etc are free to use whichever setting they want (even 128kbps is possible, though it doesn't sound very good) - they are all allowed (up to 448kbps for DVD, up to 640kbps elsewhere).

It could be a previously unknown HDR bug you've found, or it could be some AV2HDR or muxing issue.

Anyway, it is helpful of you to post it anyway, so thank you. Figuring out the codec compatibilities with AV2HDR can be a bit of a pain. A direct connection from a PC, a TV that reads a decent selection of formats from a USB stick, or a dedicated media streamer type device, are all far less hassle if you want to do this regularly.

Cheers,
David.