Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

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jordanwalkert
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Joined: Tue Dec 06, 2022 2:47 am

Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by jordanwalkert » Tue Oct 31, 2023 8:15 pm

I have ripped dozens of standard Blu Rays as well as 4K UHD's successfully with no issues or errors. This is the first time I have run into this problem. This is a brand new disc directly from Arrow Video, can anyone explain what these errors mean and if it will affect audio or video performance/synching? The disc does fully rip and I have tested it on my Zidoo player. It seems to play all the way through for all 3 audio options, but it does have some flickering at the start of certain scenes. It concerns me that it was ripped with so many errors. I can provide any additional information necessary but has anyone else experienced this before that can explain it to a noob like me?

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Last edited by jordanwalkert on Wed Nov 08, 2023 3:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

dcoke22
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by dcoke22 » Wed Nov 01, 2023 8:58 pm

The MakeMKV FAQ as an entry about AV Sync Errors.

I don't have that disc, so I'm just speculating, but I wonder if that disc has some kind of mastering issue from the factory?

jordanwalkert
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by jordanwalkert » Thu Nov 02, 2023 3:51 am

dcoke22 wrote:
Wed Nov 01, 2023 8:58 pm
The MakeMKV FAQ as an entry about AV Sync Errors.

I don't have that disc, so I'm just speculating, but I wonder if that disc has some kind of mastering issue from the factory?
Hmm, so am I to understand that the kind of errors I’m getting on this disc is due to the disc itself then? I’ve seen those other kinds that are a MakeMKV bug, but this is the first time I’ve seen the errors with the time codes and ms numbers. That ripped file also flickers at the beginning and end of certain scenes so I believe it is not reading the Dolby Vision metadata correctly because of it. What can be done about this? The FAQ doesn’t really mention any solutions or ways of working around it?

quietvoid
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by quietvoid » Fri Nov 03, 2023 1:48 pm

The disc has authoring issues. It seems the timestamps in the m2ts are different for both tracks, but the underlying bitstreams have the same timestamps.
So when MakeMKV remuxes, it uses/copies the container TS which are wrong.

You can get broken timestamps by remuxing the m2ts with MKVToolNix as well.
A solution is to demux both videos, remux them into MKV separately and get MakeMKV to mux it back into a single track.

jordanwalkert
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by jordanwalkert » Fri Nov 03, 2023 5:17 pm

quietvoid wrote:
Fri Nov 03, 2023 1:48 pm
The disc has authoring issues. It seems the timestamps in the m2ts are different for both tracks, but the underlying bitstreams have the same timestamps.
So when MakeMKV remuxes, it uses/copies the container TS which are wrong.

You can get broken timestamps by remuxing the m2ts with MKVToolNix as well.
A solution is to demux both videos, remux them into MKV separately and get MakeMKV to mux it back into a single track.
This is very helpful, thank you for the explanation. Do you think this is something I should contact the distributor Arrow Video about, or will it only affect ripping in MakeMKV? Any chance MakeMKV will be able to successfully rip something like this in the future? The disc plays better in my Panasonic 4K player, but still occasionally flickers. Since this only has a MEL layer, I’d love to be able to have a lossless rip of this for my Zidoo player, but I’m not sure how I could achieve that. I imagine it isn’t my personal disc, but rather all copies were encoded and mastered this way. Very frustrating!
Last edited by jordanwalkert on Wed Nov 08, 2023 3:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

quietvoid
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by quietvoid » Fri Nov 03, 2023 6:24 pm

Since it plays fine in players I doubt Arrow would do anything about it.

MakeMKV is pretty strict with timestamps when merging Dolby Vision tracks into one, where it drops a lot data if the two videos don't match as they should.
It shouldn't be dropping anything when possible but not much that can be done other than by Mike.

It's not the first time this kind of issue has happened: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=30673
However here the videos are perfectly fine, it just seems to be the m2ts container having bad timestamps.

rkhollister
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by rkhollister » Fri Nov 03, 2023 9:14 pm

Just got my copy today - doing a backup and will try the profile 8 conversion (fixed the EL issues on Saving Private Ryan with my Zidoo. Will advise tomorrow how it went. Worst case is to discard the DV EL and just create an HDR10 version.

jordanwalkert
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by jordanwalkert » Fri Nov 03, 2023 9:23 pm

rkhollister wrote:
Fri Nov 03, 2023 9:14 pm
Just got my copy today - doing a backup and will try the profile 8 conversion (fixed the EL issues on Saving Private Ryan with my Zidoo. Will advise tomorrow how it went. Worst case is to discard the DV EL and just create an HDR10 version.
Let me know if you are able to get it working. I'm on a Mac so a lot of the tools required to fix these types of things usually aren't available to me but I'm also somewhat of a novice. This might be a title that I just use the disc for whenever I want to play. I really love to have as many titles on my Zidoo as possible but for example, Dolby Vision FEL titles I do resort to the actual disc so I don't lose any information. It's not the end of the world but if anyone has a workaround, I'd love to know about it. Thanks!

rkhollister
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by rkhollister » Fri Nov 03, 2023 9:44 pm

jordanwalkert wrote:
Fri Nov 03, 2023 9:23 pm
rkhollister wrote:
Fri Nov 03, 2023 9:14 pm
Just got my copy today - doing a backup and will try the profile 8 conversion (fixed the EL issues on Saving Private Ryan with my Zidoo. Will advise tomorrow how it went. Worst case is to discard the DV EL and just create an HDR10 version.
Let me know if you are able to get it working. I'm on a Mac so a lot of the tools required to fix these types of things usually aren't available to me but I'm also somewhat of a novice. This might be a title that I just use the disc for whenever I want to play. I really love to have as many titles on my Zidoo as possible but for example, Dolby Vision FEL titles I do resort to the actual disc so I don't lose any information. It's not the end of the world but if anyone has a workaround, I'd love to know about it. Thanks!
I also am on Mac - all of the tools are available for macOS, I did this for a couple other titles.

rkhollister
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by rkhollister » Fri Nov 03, 2023 11:18 pm

rkhollister wrote:
Fri Nov 03, 2023 9:44 pm

I also am on Mac - all of the tools are available for macOS, I did this for a couple other titles.
Oops - that was bullshit. DGDemux is windows only. Everything else is doable on a Mac. I have an old PC available and I must have used that for at least the demux part. As soon as the BDMV copies over to it, I'll get started on this.

Sorry for the false hope. Could have sworn I did Private Ryan sole on the Mac.

rkhollister
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by rkhollister » Sat Nov 04, 2023 2:47 am

OK - so the profile 8 version seems to play fine. I did check 8:40 where the first timecode error popped up and there was no flashing. If you could point out a specific scene or time where there were problems I will double check.

However when I remuxed everything, MKVToolNix dropped the forced subtitle track with the German to English during the funeral. Need to figure out what is happening there.

jordanwalkert
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by jordanwalkert » Sat Nov 04, 2023 6:41 am

rkhollister wrote:
Sat Nov 04, 2023 2:47 am
OK - so the profile 8 version seems to play fine. I did check 8:40 where the first timecode error popped up and there was no flashing. If you could point out a specific scene or time where there were problems I will double check.

However when I remuxed everything, MKVToolNix dropped the forced subtitle track with the German to English during the funeral. Need to figure out what is happening there.
Honestly any time a dark or bright scene changes after the 8:40ish mark, there is flickering. Which makes sense if the Dolby Vision tracks aren’t perfectly lined up.

I appreciate you at least looking into it and finding some answers. This is the first time I have experienced this so it was a learning experience. I initially tried to get some help over in the BluRay.com forums, and got laughed out of the room basically.
Last edited by jordanwalkert on Wed Nov 08, 2023 3:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

jordanwalkert
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by jordanwalkert » Sat Nov 04, 2023 8:00 pm

rkhollister wrote:
Sat Nov 04, 2023 2:47 am
OK - so the profile 8 version seems to play fine. I did check 8:40 where the first timecode error popped up and there was no flashing. If you could point out a specific scene or time where there were problems I will double check.

However when I remuxed everything, MKVToolNix dropped the forced subtitle track with the German to English during the funeral. Need to figure out what is happening there.
Would you mind sharing or linking to the process you took to make this work?

rkhollister
Posts: 87
Joined: Fri Feb 21, 2014 6:50 pm

Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by rkhollister » Sun Nov 05, 2023 10:35 pm

jordanwalkert wrote:
Sat Nov 04, 2023 8:00 pm
rkhollister wrote:
Sat Nov 04, 2023 2:47 am
OK - so the profile 8 version seems to play fine. I did check 8:40 where the first timecode error popped up and there was no flashing. If you could point out a specific scene or time where there were problems I will double check.

However when I remuxed everything, MKVToolNix dropped the forced subtitle track with the German to English during the funeral. Need to figure out what is happening there.
Would you mind sharing or linking to the process you took to make this work?
viewtopic.php?p=134490#p134490

Same procedure I used to fix the Saving Private Ryan flashing.

I hacked the subtitle problem by not adding just the forced sub track (much smaller than the other one) to MKVToolNIX when I remuxed everything back together.

saf001
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Re: Witness 4K Timecode Issues?

Post by saf001 » Thu Mar 21, 2024 2:53 pm

I understand this is an older thread but I recently purchased this disc and seeing the issue. The disc release date is March 19, 2024 so it lead me to believe it is a new release of the media. The backup worked fine. Making a makemkv file for Plex the timecode or sync issues run amuck.

Are the only solutions to either play the physical media or use following the demux series of steps to extract and merge? Physical media wouldn't be an issue but preference is for Plex as we often use the 'watch together' feature. Only reason why I asked is that I started trying the steps in the all quiet on the western front thread by backing up, then demuxing, but ran into issues with dovi_tool and remux.

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