Slideshow: Chapter 2:Marker position in movie not at GOP boundary - What's this???

My slideshow (one of many) has not been converted to a track. I decided to replace some of the images with their tiff/psd's instead of using jpg's. Upon trying to rebuild I get this error:

(slideshow title),Chapter 2:Marker position in movie not at GOP boundary

I'm totally confused. I can't see why this would affect a slideshow.
The slideshow has music in the background & is set to 'Fit to Audio'.
I've rebuilt this project many times before but all of a sudden. It won't rebuild, I get this error warning instead!

Can someone enlighten me & offer me some advice please.

BTW I did notice a day ago that after separating one of the slideshows into 2, that the last slide in part 1 said about 5 seconds whereas all other slides were about 16 seconds. I wondered how this could be. I ended up replacing that image today. But that was a different slideshow to the one that's getting the error message. That slideshow was about 7 slideshows earlier. And the error message appears at the beginning of compiling so there's actually no compiling or recompiling/rebuilding happening.

My guess is chapter 2 refers to the 2nd image in the slideshow. So how to overcome this. I tried deleting that image .. no difference. Will lengthening or shortening the sound used help?

Luckily I have a previous version of the project which is 2 weeks older & still have most but not all the same content. I added more slideshows & music & changed some audio from pcm to ac3 for the later project version. And as mentioned also split a couple of slideshows into 2. So I'm thinking I'll go back to this version & re-add the extras. On my computer it takes about half an hour to open the project on my G4 733 ... yes around 2,000 slides, 41 slideshows, many hrs of music, etc. But unless someone has any ideas, I guess I'll have to go back & start from that point. At least not all is lost! But it will take some time, presently taking snapshots of the arrangement & additions to the newer version.

I have a suspicion not too many people who frequent this forum have ever done very large slideshow projects. And probably not encountered or heard of this type of error for a slideshow.

Yes, Kemosabe, I have made tons of slideshows, but never experienced that problem.
I mean: It's easy to undertstand what it means, but I can't imagine why such a thing is happening.
Basically, MPEG-2 frames in DVD-Video are grouped in sequences of several frames (15 usually for NTSC, but they could be shorter). Those sequences of frames are called GOPs (Group of Pictures). A chapter marker can only be in the first frame (I frame) of a GOP.

BUT... A slideshow is only converted to MPEG-2 afterwards... and thus DVD Studio has all the freedom to place I frames where it needs them to be. This error could be easier to understand if you had converted the slideshow to track and added chapter markers, but you didn't... so, no clue unfortunately

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

Adolfo Rozenfeld Wrote: BUT... A slideshow is only converted to MPEG-2 afterwards...
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So may I ask at what bit-rate does the slideshow converts to? And does tiff or psd or jpg make any difference in that regard? And does a higher resolution image make a difference. eg: an image at 1,000 pixels wide compared to one that's 3,000 pixels wide? Will this resolution still be accessible when viewing through on the dvd such as if someone wants to enlargen the picture on their TV?

I didn't realise slideshows were converted to mpeg-2 anyway. I thought they were a different kettle of fish so to speak.

Helo, Kemosabe.

> So may I ask at what bit-rate does the slideshow
> converts to?

We'll never know for sure. But it is VERY low and that's fine. The temporal or interframe nature of MPEG compression, based on updating what changes over time, has it really easy with still images, since they stay, well, stll.

After assigning all the pictures and sound, you can have an aprox. idea of the bit rate: select the slideshow in outline view and DVD Studio Pro will inform you more or less the total Megabytes it uses. You then divide it by 8 (to speak Megabits) and then divide it by the total amount of seconds to get the Mbps. But I don't think this is really accuarate.



And does tiff or psd or jpg make any
> difference in that regard?

The rule for MPEG-2, and other heavily compressed formats, is: the better the source, the better the result. I completely avoid JPEGs if possible. The compression artifacts in the original may or may not be evident for us, depending on the case, but they are completely there for the encoder. Compressing compression is like dreams of reason: it produces monsters. This is also one of the reasons why video formats with relatively high compression like DV and HDV (yes, even though its' MPEG-2) compress so bad.

And does a higher
> resolution image make a difference. eg: an image
> at 1,000 pixels wide compared to one that's 3,000
> pixels wide?

Well, no, as a general rule. If the 1000 pixels image is produced from the 3000 pixels image, they will be similar. If they were produced by a scanner or camera with one third the resolution, the difference will be evident because there is less visual information in the source. This from a numerical point of view. The more subjective part is that a 6 Megapixel pro digital SLR will produce much nicer images than a consumer digital camera. There's much more than pixel count to image quality.


Will this resolution still be
> accessible when viewing through on the dvd such as
> if someone wants to enlargen the picture on their
> TV?

Nope. Just PAL or NTSC size, depending on your country. You can add pictures at larger sizes in a DVD-ROM folder, but they will only work on 1) computers, mainly and 2) a few DVD players which have picture viewing capabilities (as a complement to their main DVD player functionality, not as part of a standard), as long as you adjust to their conventions and have clear that nobody will look for them unless you tell them somehow. Anyway, the DVD output on those particular DVD players is still NTSC or PAL, so it's hard to see any advantages.

Hope this helps.

Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com