I am hoping that somebody can help me here.

I have recently starting using Linux and I have found Q DVD Author to be an excellent program. However whenever I author a DVD the sound and the video are out of sync by a few seconds, this is not just out, but unwatchable.

I hope that somebody out there can help me,

Kev

PS the OS i'm using is Ubuntu 8.10

Don't have QDVDAuthor do reauthoring of video files. Create MPeG PS (DVD files) using a tool like Avidemux or ffmpeg, then have QDVDauthor just build the DVD and sling it all together.

Did you give it the right information for your setup / source files?

PAL - 25 fps
NTSC - 30 fps (29.97 or 30000/1001)

as opposed to NTSC TV at 60fps (interlaced, bottom field first) (60000/1001)

or NTSC Blueray at 24fps. And variants that are interlaced top field first.

and other options like old webcams at 1 fps to 5 fps, old adult training videos at 15 fps, yada yada yada. fps being frames per seconds (number of pictures over time). interlaced being updating only half the image at a time. Like two combs meshed together.

Sometimes interlaced footage is interpreted as progressive which makes the video play in halftime while maintaining the original audio that only lasts half as long. Sometimes 30fps gets interpreted as 25fps (ffmpeg default) and audio runs slightly fast to video. Or vice versa and vice versa.


I tend to render my videos in DVD format before authoring to a DVD. That way the authoring tool doesn't have to make assumptions and has less of a chance to make the wrong assumption. Or at least it makes the same wrong assumption for everything. Which makes it easier to identify what that assumption was in the first place.

$ ffmpeg -i source.format -sameq -target ntsc-dvd -y dvd_title_chapter.mpeg

HTH

Thanks for the quick replies folks.

arckane: thanks for that tip, I was importing AVI files and cutting them into chapters using QDVDauthor so I will try it that way.

Shadow 7: I have all the settings for NTSC and PAL correct, it is not that the sound plays at a different rate, it just plays about 2 seconds after the video for the whole film. I will try to convert the files before authoring.