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willab · Nov 1, 2003, 01:29 PM

I bought ADS Instant DVD and imported about two hours of video. I do not remember the bit rate, but it is only 3.2 gigabytes. I tried to take it into Capty DVD, but it says that it is too big, this is with PCM audio. It fits with Mpeg audio, but I read that mpeg audio is less compatible, and it is reencoding the whole video with this option. Any ideas as to why this is happening and how to fix it would be greatly appreciated.

vmpaul · Nov 1, 2003, 09:18 PM

Well, I don't know of any apps that will tell you bitrate (maybe someone else knows), but since you have 2 pieces of information you could reverse engineer it, sort of.

You have the length and the file size, correct? Use a bitrate calculator (ffmpegx for example) and plug in those numbers to determine the video bitrate.

Congrats on the ADS. I just got mine this weekend. So far the quality has impressed me. I'm going to be playing with it all this week.

willab · Nov 1, 2003, 10:19 PM

I do not think that I need to know the bitrate, just why it will not work and what I can do about it. I hate mine, It only had 7 days to return and I did not have time to play with it then or I would have returned it.

vmpaul · Nov 2, 2003, 12:54 PM

From the ADS manual "PCM is essentially uncompressed audio recorded at 1.5 Mb/sec." There's your problem right there. Uncompressed audio is pushing your overall file size. It's too big for your DVD disk.

As far as I know, you have two options:

1) re-record your video with a lower bitrate (to reduce size) and keep your your audio as PCM

2) keep your video as is and use a compressed audio format such as AC3

I think the compatibility issue is problem for everyone. You just have to test your DVD's on as many players as you can. I usually try them out on friend's and relatives players whenever I can. So far, I've only had one player out of 7 that have failed to play a disk. It was an early model player. Compatibility problems can involve media, +R, -R, burning software issues, and player age, all sorts of things. It reminds me of that window when burning CD's use to be a gamble. It took a while before you had almost 100% compatibility. It'll only get better.

As far as being unhappy with the ADS, sorry to hear that. I'm coming from using an EyeTV device. It worked great (software & hardware) but it only does MPEG-1. So far, I'm really impressed with the conversion quality of the ADS box.

The only question I have so far is - If I record at 720x480 size, how come when I open the file in QT it says the file size is 640x480? When I import it into DVDSP it says the correct size - 720x480. I don't get it.

willab · Nov 2, 2003, 02:19 PM

Originally posted by vmpaul:
From the ADS manual "PCM is essentially uncompressed audio recorded at 1.5 Mb/sec." There's your problem right there. Uncompressed audio is pushing your overall file size. It's too big for your DVD disk.

As far as I know, you have two options:

1) re-record your video with a lower bitrate (to reduce size) and keep your your audio as PCM

2) keep your video as is and use a compressed audio format such as AC3

I think the compatibility issue is problem for everyone. You just have to test your DVD's on as many players as you can. I usually try them out on friend's and relatives players whenever I can. So far, I've only had one player out of 7 that have failed to play a disk. It was an early model player. Compatibility problems can involve media, +R, -R, burning software issues, and player age, all sorts of things. It reminds me of that window when burning CD's use to be a gamble. It took a while before you had almost 100% compatibility. It'll only get better.

As far as being unhappy with the ADS, sorry to hear that. I'm coming from using an EyeTV device. It worked great (software & hardware) but it only does MPEG-1. So far, I'm really impressed with the conversion quality of the ADS box.

The only question I have so far is - If I record at 720x480 size, how come when I open the file in QT it says the file size is 640x480? When I import it into DVDSP it says the correct size - 720x480. I don't get it.

When you burn yours with mpg audio does it require you to reencode? The purpose of this box for me is to eliminate that stage. It takes as long with this as it does in iDVD.

vmpaul · Nov 2, 2003, 07:56 PM

Originally posted by willab:
When you burn yours with mpg audio does it require you to reencode? The purpose of this box for me is to eliminate that stage. It takes as long with this as it does in iDVD.

Don't know yet. Like I said, I just got it this weekend. I'll report back tomorrow.

vmpaul · Nov 5, 2003, 09:42 PM

willab, I'm not sure if it's re-encoding the audio or not. After looking through the manual a bit more it does say it only records in mpeg-2 audio. So, my initial response to your question didn't really address the situation.

Again, the only thing I can think is that your audio file (whether mpeg-2 or PCM) is causing your total file size to to be too large to burn. The only solution is to re-encode the video at a lower bitrate. Sorry, if that's something you already know.

I ended up sending my ADS box back because I was getting stuttering and artifacts because of the quality of my original analog source. This was after I called Tech Support. They suggested I get a DV capture box which I did and the quality isn't nearly as good as with my original ADS box. I'm sorry I sent it back now.
I'm going to start another thread to see if I can get some general comments about it.

tr · Nov 6, 2003, 02:49 AM

vmpaul, you were having artifact problems? did the artifacts look like pixelization/little squares? i've gotten some artifacts like that sometimes if i turn the cable box channels while it is capturing, or if i scan through a video tape while it is capturing. i could see if your tape quality is poor, then there may be some signal loss, which would probably cause this artifacting.

i should state that the artifacts i've seen were visible in the preview window. i don't know if the actual video was captured that way. (once i saw the artifacting, i would stop the source, and restart capture) the only remedy i've found is to not mess with the video source while capturing.

tr

vmpaul · Nov 6, 2003, 01:34 PM

Not necessarily artifact problems. I didn't explain it correctly. I was seeing artifacts in the preview window but the actual capture would stutter and skip frames. Sometimes it would even kill the application.

After speaking to Tech Support they mentioned that this happens with old analog material that has frame drop-offs. That's where I saw the problems. I converted a commercial VHS tape I had and it came out perfect. Unfortunately, some of what I want to capture is older material.

Anyways, as I explained in the other thread I started, they suggested I go straight to DV capture. I ended up buying the ADS Pyro A/V Link. I bought it and the captures I have so far have been really disappointing. Not even close to the ADS MPEG-2 converter. Those were excellent by the way. I can't imagine them being any better. I thought I was correcting the drop-off frame problem by going to the DV box.

So now I'm not sure what to do. From my other research I've read the frame drop-off can be solved by using a Time Base Corrector (more money) between the analog source and the converter box. I wish I knew that before I sent the ADS MPEG-2 box back.

Again, I'm wondering if my DV captures are disappointing because of my setup in iMovie or FCP. Maybe they can be improved upon.

Any ideas? You were certainly correct about the ADS MPEG-2 box quality. It was excellent.

willab · Nov 6, 2003, 08:59 PM

I exported the files to DVD SP (a friend's copy that he let me borrow) and then it muxed the files and I took them into Toast and when I went to burn I got this message:

The drive reported an error:
Sense Key = MEDIUM ERROR
Sense Code = 0x0C
WRITE ERROR

Any ideas as to what I should do?

vmpaul · Nov 7, 2003, 12:00 AM

That sounds like a regular burning error. Either the media or the burner.

I don't know the exact error message but it looks familiar to the errors we used to get all the time in the early days of CD burning. I wouldn't assume it's your files right off the bat.

willab · Nov 7, 2003, 12:07 AM

Originally posted by vmpaul:
That sounds like a regular burning error. Either the media or the burner.

I don't know the exact error message but it looks familiar to the errors we used to get all the time in the early days of CD burning. I wouldn't assume it's your files right off the bat.

I did not really think that this was neccessarily a file problem, but I know the media is good (multiple Apple discs) which leaves the burner. Do I need Apple Care to call about a hardware problem within one year?