Encore says file is not mpeg - Media Encoder says it is! Help please.

Question

Hi,
This is all about the "file is not a valid mpeg" error.
I'm using Encore 5 to author a DVD, with elements produced in Premiere 4, After Effects 4 and Soundbooth 5.
Video has gone through Media Encoder 4 and audio through Media Encoder 5.
Video is m2v and audio is ac3. There are not other formats.
Check Project gives no errors on anything.
When it comes to authoring the DVD, 4.67 gb have been used leaving 24MB free disc space.
The first few times I tried to author the DVD, after initially reporting no errors, it then wouldn't burn a disc because it said one of the timelines used audio files of different formats. It didn't, but I put them through Media Encoder again anyway, which seemd to solve that problem, but who knows.
(In the DVD Transcode Status, in the Project window, most ac3 files say Don't Transcode, but the three smallest - less than 1MB - say Transcoded [then Automatic in DVD Transcoding Settings]. Don't know why it does that or if that has anything to do with the authoring problem.)
Anyway, now, every time I click Build, it works for a while but then gives "file is not a valid mpeg" error and stops. Doesn't say which file. ALL the files are mpegII.
It will take me days to re-render all the files. Is there any way to find out which is the problem file - it doesn't do anything useful like tell you - or any reason why it isn't recognizing an m2v file which I can do something about, please?
This is driving me crazy. Any advice will be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Steve

Answer 1

I have never mixed different Bit-Rate materials, on the same Timeline, and especially as I usually do one Timeline for each Video Asset (edited to be a "scene," or Chapter). I cannot tell you.
What happens if you create one Timeline for one Asset, and then another for the remaining one?
Does that change anything?
I had been thinking that you had an MPEG that was out of the DVD-spec., but that usually results in Encore needing to Transcode again, to bring the file into spec.
Good luck, and I wish that I knew more about mixing Assets with differing Bit-Rates.
Hunt