Layer Break issue on master DVD-9

[Joe Kauffman]

Sorry, I meant that they CAN’T create the master.

[Jon Geddes]

Set layer break to manual in the build settings, and it will prompt you to select the layer break point when building the image. If you have chapters placed throughout the timeline, it will give you the choice of several chapters at which it can place the layer break. If too much data is on layer 0, then try to set the layer break as early as possible. If I were you though, I would watch ALL of the video before sending it off to be replicated. Every time we make a project over 2 hours it has issues (CS2 and CS3). Usually before the layer break it will skip back to the middle of the previous chapter, however the timecode does not change, nor does the chapter number, so then all the chapters get messed up, and then later on after the layer break, it skips forward an entire chapter. This was reproducible on multiple systems and different versions of encore with different projects that went over 2 hours. The ONLY solutions was to split the project in to two separate timelines (the first linking directly to the second, so it looks just like a layer break). I’m a little curious as to why more people haven’t complained about this bug, as it is an inconvenience every time for us.

So, just make sure before you run off several thousand copies that it doesn’t have this problem.

Jon Geddes
Motion Graphics Designer
http://www.precomposed.com

[Joe Kauffman]

Thanks for the info John. It’s nice to know (but not nice to hear) that others have had similar issues with long projects. I ended up using GEAR, IFOedit & IMGburn to manually set the layer break & burn my NTSC project & have sent it off to the replication company. Now if I could just get the PAL version to export from Encore I’d be all set!

[Joe Kauffman]

I just got an email back from the replication company and it’s not looking good. Do you think I need to change the transcode settings in Encore from automatic to something else to make the project smaller?

” Right now your DDP for Layer 0 is stating that there is a total of 2215472 (sectors) * 2048 (bytes per sector) which gives us a total of 4537286656 total bytes of user data.

According to the DVD specification the total number of bytes you can have for both layer 0 and 1 is 2084960 * 2048 which gives us a total of 4269998080 bytes.

This leaves us with a surplus of 267288576 bytes of user data.

The DDP data stream length for layer one is 1948944 *2048 = 3991437312 total bytes.

So, the number of bytes available on Layer 1 is 4269998080 – 3991437312 = 278560768 user data bytes left over.

This means if you were able to have authoring select a layer 0 transition point say 270MB earlier then all of his data would fit on both layers.

You can also try playing around with the track pitch and LV for Layer 0 to fit this data, but I’m not recommending that. ”

[Jon Geddes]

I’ve never had an issue like that with any of my projects that I’ve sent off to replication. Its possible that you don’t have a chapter point in the “sweet spot” where it needs to place the layer break on your extremely full image. My recommendation to avoid all the headaches is to re-encode your video at a slightly lower bitrate, allowing more buffer room on the disc.

Jon Geddes
Motion Graphics Designer
http://www.precomposed.com

[Joe Kauffman]

Jon,

From what I can gather, that’s pretty much the issue, and I’m 90% done re-encoding the video now. I could probably play around with the existing size & find a “sweet spot” layer break, but at this point I think you’re spot on with the idea of having a bit more buffer room. I used the bitrate calculator & adjusted my encode settings (ended up being 6.5) so that I will be getting a bit more room.

Thanks for the reply.