Using WinOnCD 3.8, I have sucessfully made a Photo Album and plays well in Pioneer 525. However, I have a problem when I add music to the album (new feature in 3.8 !!). The sound quality while playback is very poor and lot of 'cliks'.

Following are my experiments with this new feature;

1. Created .WAV file from a music track (from the music cd) in 44KHz 16 bit stereo. In winoncd, dragged it into album. Double click the music icon in the album and set the properties. (There is another problem with these settings. The result is the same for whatever option you choose !!). While burning, WinOnCd will encode the .WAV file to .mpa file first and then burn.

2. Same as step 1 above but with .WAV file as 22KHz and 16 bit Stereo. Problem still exist.

3. This time instaed of WinOnCD encode the audio, I encoded .WAV to .MPA using XING encoder for audio only on video cd settings. Still problem exist.

Please anyone who tried it sucessfully help me.

Thanks.

-- Lugi (Lugi@abc.net), December 27, 2000

Answers

I found the same problem with the Photo Album and with the MPEG Album feature. I had the same clicks and fast audio playing speed with my DV525 and DVL909. I couldn't find a way around it. :( Also, I found that on the photo album, I couldn't use my "next" button on my DVD player to get to subsequent menus in the photo album (the second level menus where the photo thumbnails are). Do you have this same problem?

Kevin

-- kevin (kevin@kevcat.com), December 27, 2000.

Hi Kevin ,

Thanks for your reply.

I do not have any problem with menu. I can go from main menu (Main title with list of albums) to secondary menu (with music as first thumbnail and photos as subsequent thumbnail) without any problem.

Also, when any photo is displayed, I can go back to second menu or main menu without any problem (I do this by pressing "Return" button on my 525's remote control).

My audio problem is not slow as you have mentioned but very vibrating (shewering) in nature with lot of clicks.

Also, I have observed when I press option 1 (music thumbnail) on my secondary menu, music starts with first picture and after time lapse (which works fine from the property setting) subsequent pictures will be shown. Since my music duration is bigger than duration for all pictures, last picture will wait till music completes. And then control comes automatically to secondary menu (I expected control comes to first picture again)

I have tried all the options on music property window, but the last picture waits till the music completes.

Where as when I press option 2 on secondary menu (which is picture thumbnail), all pictures are displayed with proper time lapse and repeats the whole cycle infinetely, just like screen savers. This behavier is different than when I press option 1 on secondary menu.

I guess, the base version of WinOnCD 3.8 needs some fixes and hopefully service packs will be released shortly.

Any comments ?

-- Lugi (Lugi@abc.net), December 27, 2000.

Dear VideoCD'rs, Reading this thread and comparing it with the information I received in the thread "(Remote) control of VCD-slideshow on TV" there are contradictory statements which I would like to be clearified. In one reaction it is said that WinOnCD3.8 allows the use of the next/previous button to advance to the next thumbmail screen, however in another it is said that it is not possible to use the next button for advance of the secundary menus. My question now is: is it a problem with Pioneer525, WinOnCD3.8 or is there no problem?

I would like to know because I consider upgrading to 3.8, but only if it does allow the proper use of the next button with thumnail screens.

A second question is whether the audio menu allows different wav's per slide. I would like to comment per slide.

Friendly greetings, Eppo R. Kooi.

-- Eppo R. Kooi (E.R.Kooi@XS4all.NL), December 27, 2000.

It appears the functionality to move between thumbnail menu screens is somewhat remote/player dependend, but it does work, I have tried it on a couple standalone players already, Pioneer DV302, Hitachi, panasonic, so this may just be an individual problem. Remember, VCD was really just a afterthought in many of these dvd players at the time of manufacture, so many don't have the functionality you might expect, but I would think the current gen and subsequent ones will be better. As for the skipping audio, some players can handle mpeg Layer 2 decoding and that is why they will play the music in the photo album, others cannot. Pioneer is bad for this. Also, one song only per album, but you can have dozens of albums.

Tygrus

-- Tygrus (tygrus2000@hotmail.com), December 27, 2000.

I have created a slideshow with winonCD 3.8 and it works pretty good on my Apex 600A. I can go from track to track using the >>| and |<< buttons. To do this you have to use the wizard and it creates the flow diagram structure for you or you can do it manually. The sound is fine also. The only problem I have is that it won't play on any DVD player but the apex. Pioneer players recognize it as VCD and then I hit play and it plays but nothing comes on the TV screen (and no sound). Also, at times it skips over a picture too quickly and then stays on the next one much longer than it should. BTW, to create the VCD I am selecting the "VCD extended" optins and then I use the wizard to create a "list" and then in each node I add the pictures and the wav file for that group of pictures. The only way to add more wav files to that group of pictures is to combine the wav files into one large wav file.

Thanks

-- shane (lemmy999@hotmail.com), December 28, 2000.

Interesting... Tygrus, you say it could be remote/player dependent? I actually use the DVL909 remote for my DVD525 (and vice-versa) because the DVL909 is a bit nicer and my DV525 is my main unit. Do you think I should try the DV525 remote? This doesn't make sense to me since the Next button on the DVL909 remote works fine for advancing through the pictures within the photo album. My problem is that I can't use the Next button (on the remote or on the player itself) to advance to the next thumbnail screen within an album. Any ideas?

Lugi, you don't have problem on your DV525? Weird.

Thanks, Kevin

-- kevin (kevin@kevcat.com), December 28, 2000.

Oh ! it is very interesting Shane !!

Please tell me how does background music plays ? each picture has its own music ? or can we have a single music for all of the pictures ?

The type of VCD you have created, is it different from so called "photo album" in WinOnCD 3.8 ? Do you have main menu & secondary menu with thumbnails as in "Photo Album" ?

I am very curious. Please let me know.

Thanks

-- Lugi (Lugi@abc.net), December 29, 2000.

Has anyone found a solution to the audio problem when playing a photo album created using Winoncd 3.8, on a pioneer 525? I too am suffering from the same audio problems. Thanks.

-- John K. Bartosz (jkb@quarles.com), March 08, 2001.

I would also be intrested in an answer to the sound problem, does anyone know how WinOnCD acutally re-encodes the files before burning ?

-- Steve (sgmlacey@hotmail.com), August 17, 2001.

Pioneer 525 Audio Problems with Photo CD with music created in WinOnCD 3.8 - Fix

OK, here is the fix for the WinOnCD 3.8 photo album sound problem with the Pioneer 525 DVD player. No guarantee this will work for you or that it is the only solution, but it solved the problem for me to my satisfaction. In order to get it to work, I gave up the Internet Explorer HTML slide show that runs on a PC. It is possible that one would not have to give this up, however, since I really did not need it, I did not care. If after reading this, someone follows my process, trying to keep the HTML show, and it works, let me know. I apologize to those of you who are PC experts. My instructions are a bit verbose and lengthy, the process really does not take that long once you know what to do. Basically we need to replace a few files on the burned CD, with re-encoded ones. Since we can't actually do this directly, here is my solution.

First, here is what you need. You can download it all on the Internet. I do not have time to point you to the sites, do a search and I am sure you will find it. The first program is shareware, so you need to either buy it, or figure out another way to use it to see if it works for you, since it is limited in the "try" version. If it works for you then buy the program, it is a great tool.

WinIso Version 5.3 (Shareware) VCDEasy Version 1.0.9 (Must be this latest version, which supports stills)(Free) TMPGEnc Version 2.5 (2.53.35.130) (Free) WinOnCD 3.8 (You already have this)

Now maybe some other programs out there will work, but this is what I used. VCDEasy uses CDRDAO version 1.15. If your writer won't work with it, then you can try CDRWIN or Nero, but I did not use these. All burning and BIN creation was done with VCDEasy. Actually I think I once created the BIN in step 3 below with CDRWIN.

Before I get started here is my system: NT 4.0 SP6.0a - 266 Pentium 2 - 320 something bytes of RAM and 50 gig of Hard drive space. I have a Plextor burner the PX-W1610A.

First, Get all the software, then either buy or figure out some other way to use the full capabilities of WinISO 5.3.

STEP 1 - Create your Photo CD/Load into CeQuadr Emulator

Create your Photo CD with WinOnCD as usual. When finished write it to an image file (.C2D). Now, WinISO is suppose to open these image files, but it does not open the Photo CD version, (if anyone can get it to open it, let me know, as we could save a step). After creating the image file on your Hard drive, load the CD drive Emulator that comes with WinOnCD 3.8 (alternately you could actually burn the CD, the erase it later, but that takes longer). Load your image file into the CD emulator. You should now have a drive letter on your PC, with the files of the actual Photo CD that WinOnCD created.

STEP 2 - Configure VCDEasy 1.0.9

Next, open VCDEasy 1.0.9, if you have not already configured it, use the settings icon on left, then click the VCDEasy tab at top, configure the software making sure the External Applications locations point to valid applications. I have "Enable CDRDAO Integration" checked as well as "Enable ASPI tools", checked (not sure it matters on ASPI tools). Make sure CD Image Options at bottom is set to Bin/Cue and nothing else is checked. Next click the (S)Vcd Player. I have no clue if all this has to be as I have it, but here is what I have. There are four sections on this screen, in the first, I have both options checked. "Default CDI Application" and "Use CDI configuration file". Second section, SVCD - Last option is checked, "Show the Update Scan . . ." Misc. Section, first option is checked. "The segment Folder . . ." Preferred TV is NTSC. Last section, Gaps unchecked, everything here is the way the program set it up. Next go to the last tab on Top, the CDRDAO tab. Configure your writer and reader. Reader is the CQUADR CD-ROM Emulator unless you actually burned the CD earlier, in that case point it to the correct place. Use the Generic-MMC driver for the Emulator. Make sure the "Force Execution" is checked. Later just ignore any errors. I also have buffer 64 and 4x selected for my writer options. "Force driver" is default.

STEP 3 - Create BIN Image file of your photo CD

Once this is all done, Click the tools icon on left. Next create a BIN CD image. Check "From CD reader". Check nothing else. I suggest creating a working directory here. I called my Convert and then called my BIN file I was creating CD1.bin. You will get a CD1.toc file also, but you don't need it. (I think CDRWIN will also do this job OK)

STEP 4 - Edit the BIN image file

Next open the newly created BIN file with WinISO. (This step may not be necessary, but when I just left the image file as it is, with the HTML stuff, etc., it would not reassemble). If it is possible to create the PhotoCD in WinOnCD 3.8 without the HTML stuff, then you would not even need WinISO. Any way, open the BIN file with WinISO, then right click on the HTML directory and delete it. Next delete all the files (not directories) in the root directory of the CD (the VCD player, Autorun, etc.) Next click the save button. Here is where WinISO is a little screwy. When you do this, it says 100% saved right away, but the little folders keep flying and sometimes the hourglass keeps spinning. Just CTRL-ALT-DEL and stop WinIso, which windows may say is not responding. It actually did the job, to test reopen the bin file. It will be smaller (in WinISO) and what you deleted will be gone.

STEP 5 - Disassemble the BIN Image file

Reopen VCD EASY, click tools, then the (S)VCD Build/Rip tab. Go down to VCDXRip. Here is where we now disassemble the image file we created and modified. Check "From CD Image file", input the location of the BIN file you modified, in my case CD1.bin, then input the name of the XML file you will now create. I called mine CD1 (XML extension is added) Put this file in the same directory as the source BIN file. Nothing else is checked. click RIP.

STEP 6 - Locate your mis-encoded MPG files

When the operation is done, your working directory, mine was called "convert", contains all the files from the image. All the DAT files have been converted to MPG files. Locate the MPG files that contain your slide shows with music on each album. They are usually toward the end and are much larger than all the others. If you double click on them Windows media player should open and play the song and show. If you created a PhotoCD with 4 albums, all with music, you will have 4 of these files. All the other MPG's are simply single picture stills or menus and are all around the same size or exactly the same size. These should be easy to pick out. Jot down the file names of the appropriate mpg's to use in Step 7

STEP 7 - Re-Encode the bad MPG files

Next open TMPGEnc, here is where we fix whatever the heck WinOnCD does to the file. From what I have read they use some proprietary format which is what screws up our beloved Pioneer 525, so your Pioneer is just fine, it is WinOnCD that is a mess. Anyway, open TMPGEnc. Under Stream Type (Lower Right) click "System (Video+Audio)". Next load the configuration file (Load button in lower right) named "VideoCD (NTSC) - MPEG1 352x240 CBR 1150kbps.mcf" In the video source field, navigate to the first MPG file that you need to convert (these are the ones you noted previously and jotted down). Once loaded all remaining fields (Audio Source and Output file name) should be filled in as well. I always change the output file name to something else in case something goes wrong during re-encoding. When you are ready, hit the "Start" button (upper Left) TMPGEnc now re-encodes the mpg. Depending on system and mpg size this can take a while. Re-encode using TMPGEnc all of the mpg's that have the audio and slide show in them (the ones you jotted down in Step 6)

STEP 8 - Replace Mis-Encoded files with Re-Encoded files in your working directory

Once this is finished it is time to replace the originals in your working directory with the newly encoded files. For instance, let's say you re-encoded the originals which were item0199.mpg and item0345.mpg. You newly encoded them and saved them as item0199f.mpg and item0345f.mpg. Delete the originals, and rename the newly encoded files to the same name as the originals.

STEP 9 - Rebuild/Reassemble the BIN Image file from the XML file

Now you are ready to rebuild the image file, with the corrected files using VCDEasy. Open VCDEasy, hit the tools icon on left. Go to the VCDxBuild section. Input your XML file created in step 5. Input the name of the new BIN file you will now create. I called mine CD2 (again the BIN extension is added). Be sure that only BIN/CUE is checked in this section. Click Execute. Get some coffee as this takes a while. During the build process you will get an error about some foreign data ( I cannot remember the exact wording). Just ignore it. VCDEasy actually says it is probably no problem, but just a sign of TMPGEnc (which we used, so this is normal) Any other warnings in VCDEasy should not be a concern as long as you get a VCDEasy Success box when the operation is over and a new BIN file. You can open the new bin file with WinIso to look at it (Don't edit it!)

STEP 10 - Burn the CD

You are now done. Just burn the resulting Bin/Cue file from Step 9 (I Used VCDEasy to do this) and enjoy your video CD in your Pioneer 525, complete with sound! You may be able to burn this with Nero or CDRWIN, but I did not try them.

Jeff Salomon jeff-n-ginny@usa.net

Disclaimer: This process worked for me, if it does not work for you don't email me hate letters. If I left out a step, I am sorry, you can nicely tell me about it and I will try to fix it.

-- Jeff Salomon (jeff-n-ginny@usa.net), April 05, 2002.