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-   -   Re-Authoring my AC3 Sound only? (http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/author/13443-authoring-ac3-sound.html)

Zyphon 04-15-2005 06:28 PM

Re-Authoring my AC3 Sound only?
 
Hi Guys,

I recently bought a DVD from the States as it's not available here in the U.K. Although it is NTSC which my SAP accepts and Region Free for some reason I get no sound but perfect picture.

I played the DVD's on my PC with PowerDVD and both Sound and Vision works perfectly.

I used DGIndex and pressed F5 to preview the DVD. It reported the Audio as LPCM.

I was wondering if I could just re-encode the LPCM to AC3 and then re-author my DVD without losing my menu's and stuff like that. Could I do this in DVD-RB or maybe PCGEdit?

I hope someone can help me with this problem I don't fancy the prospect of having to re-author the whole lot and make new menus.

Btw I read over at D9 that DGIndex at present can't deal with LPCM audio has this been fixed yet? If not how would I extract the LPCM so that I can convert to Ac3 with AC3Machine?

Thanks in advance.

Boulder 04-16-2005 02:03 AM

What kind of a standalone doesn't output linear PCM? Check the settings before doing anything else.

Zyphon 04-16-2005 02:40 AM

Hi Boulder,

My SAP does output LPCM but for some strange reason which is puzzles me beyond belief is; there are 3 DVD's in the boxset and the 3rd DVD plays fine in my SAPboth Audio & Visials.

Could it be possible that there are mastering errors? As I have never had probs with LPCM before and like I said the 3rd DVD plays fine and that is LPCM also.

If I did have to back these up and convert the audio to AC3, is it possible via DVD-Lab to import DVD Menu's and Chapters?

Zyphon 04-16-2005 03:13 AM

Out of interest guys could I just redo the Audio with DVD-ReMake?

I was thinking of Registering for this software to get full version if it could help me out with this problem.

Boulder 04-16-2005 03:41 AM

I'd try DVD Shrink first since it's free :wink:

Zyphon 04-16-2005 03:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boulder
I'd try DVD Shrink first since it's free :wink:

Thanks Boulder, will DVD Shrink allow me to use my own made seperate AC3 Audio file?

Boulder 04-16-2005 04:14 AM

I dunno, probably not. I just thought you might want to try reauthoring before doing any conversions.

Zyphon 04-16-2005 04:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boulder
I dunno, probably not. I just thought you might want to try reauthoring before doing any conversions.

Hi Boulder,

Yeah just tried, you can't enter seperate AC3 audio in Shrink. I could try Re-Authoring and see how that goes. :)

Thanks for the info though. :)

Prodater64 04-16-2005 05:55 AM

Re: Re-Authoring my AC3 Sound only
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Zyphon
Btw I read over at D9 that DGIndex at present can't deal with LPCM audio has this been fixed yet? If not how would I extract the LPCM so that I can convert to Ac3 with AC3Machine?
Thanks in advance.

You can use BeSweet vob input (I don't know if ac3 machine supports it).

Also you can read:

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/Help/index.htm

also (search for "You have to navigate to the place where you compiled the VTS 2" without ") in:

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/tu.../multivts.html

If you can import a vts without have any other previous VMG or menu (I don't know it) maybe you can change audio straight from into DVD Lab Pro. Remember that you need to import all IFO files to keep compilation equal to original one and also keep original connections.
I didn't this never and maybe it won't work, so, you must to try it.

Zyphon 04-16-2005 01:47 PM

Thanks for the info Pro, I shall give it a try and see how I go. :)

Dialhot 04-18-2005 06:33 AM

I don't know if you manage to do what you wanted or changed you mind but if you managed to convert your PCM into AC3, then you can replace the new vob in the old DVD menus using vobblanker.

DL subtitlecreator and look at the pdf guides that are delivered with it to see how this can be done (here the purpose is to replace a subtitle stream, but that is the same idea).

http://sourceforge.net/projects/subtitlecreator/

Zyphon 04-19-2005 05:53 AM

Thanks for the info Phil. :)

I have been away so I haven't had a chance to do anything yet and I am not going to be back home until next week, but I shall try also what you suggested Phil and see if this can solve my problem.

Thanks as always guys for the many various suggestions, hopefully I can cure my problems. :)

Zyphon 04-24-2005 09:13 AM

Hi Guys,

I'd just thought I would add to this post some results.

I took this DVD to a friends house and he has a cheap £25 SAP and all the DVD's played fine, then I tested it on his son's X-Box again all the DVD's play fine.

This makes me even more puzzled as to why only 1 DVD in the set plays O.K on my SAP. Maybe it's time I got a new one mine is about 4 years old now so I guess it's about time I replaced it.

Zyphon 06-02-2005 06:02 PM

Hi Guys,

Sorry to bump up this old topic but i'd thought I would let you know a discovery I recently made about my audio problems with these particular DVD's.

I recently bought a new SAP which had more features and was more up to date. However the audio was still silent which puzzled me. It turns out that there was no problem with my old SAP but a problem with my TV.

My 2 and a half year old daughter must have messed about with my TV's sound setup and shut off the sound on one of the speakers and these particular DVD's must be mono and so the speaker that was playing the audio was silent. :D

Mystery solved, still at leat now my daughter can have my old SAP in her room. :)

incredible 06-03-2005 02:43 AM

Quote:

I recently bought a new SAP which had more features and was more up to date.
A good choice ....

I clearly remember that your Pioneer(?) SAP was one of these with that known problem to playback AC3 streams properly made by liba52 codec (ffmpeg.exe/ac3enc.dll/Mencoder). So your new SAP should not have this problem - you should check that.

If I had to compress a big movie till to its limits to fit on one DVD-R 4.3GB, I often did reencode the two 5.1AC3 tracks using besweet to 256kbit each. Well at least the gain where a few bits more for the video. And as I do playback these Backups only on mine SAP so that will be no problem :)
(yes these AC3 do got less volume)

Zyphon 06-03-2005 05:48 AM

Thanks for the info Inc, really appreciate it.

Yes for sure, my new SAP should have no problems with liba52 codec (ffmpeg.exe/ac3enc.dll/Mencoder). I will do a sample test using Packshot and see if the audio plays fine without the lock that it used to have.

Also I should hopefully have no probs with AC3 audio that BeSweet produces. :)

Thanks again inc for that info about gaining extra Video quality by re-encoding the ac3. I shall try that for my backups also. :)

Zyphon 06-05-2005 12:14 PM

Hi Inc,

I just thought id let you know that I did a quick test using your PackShot tool and I ripped a 2 minute trailer from one of my DVD's and selected 5.1 ac3 audio (for reason though PackShot produced an mp2 file which I had to rename to .ac3).

I authored it in DVD-Lab and it works perfect in my new SAP both audio and video plays fine so you were right no more problems from ac3 derived from BeSweet. :D

incredible 06-05-2005 12:15 PM

Good to know that, ... so now you can save even more bits for the video part of your streams :)

rds_correia 06-05-2005 12:31 PM

Hi guys,
I'm sorry to bump in on the conversation, but I happen to do some tests last week transcoding 384Kbit ac3-5.1 tracks to 224Kbit ac3-5.1.
Even on my soundcard speakers it sure looked like the 224K files were waaaay lower in volume when compared to the original 384K files.
So I thought DSPGuru still hadn't managed to fix his ac3enc.dll problem.
He didn't, right?
So I don't understand how packshot took care of this issue for Zyphon.
Otherwise if this issue has already been fixed by DSPGuru, howcome I had these low volume transcodes?
Anything I'm missing on BeSweet cmd line?
Cheers mates

Prodater64 06-05-2005 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rds_correia
Hi guys,
I'm sorry to bump in on the conversation, but I happen to do some tests last week transcoding 384Kbit ac3-5.1 tracks to 224Kbit ac3-5.1.
Even on my soundcard speakers it sure looked like the 224K files were waaaay lower in volume when compared to the original 384K files.
So I thought DSPGuru still hadn't managed to fix his ac3enc.dll problem.
He didn't, right?
So I don't understand how packshot took care of this issue for Zyphon.
Otherwise if this issue has already been fixed by DSPGuru, howcome I had these low volume transcodes?
Anything I'm missing on BeSweet cmd line?
Cheers mates

I don't remember exactly now, but you have several options with differents dlls. Pregain, postgain and booster are some of options.
It was a discussion here also (look for ac3 and free encoders), where Incredible did participate a lot, and I give some guides I remember.
As I know you probably have mencoder, you can try with Smart-K Audio SoundStretch (SKAS).

rds_correia 06-05-2005 02:09 PM

Hi Pro :),
I missed those threads so I'll search them asap.
But if you're using pregain/hybridgain/etc... then that means that ac3enc.dll is still buggy, right?
As for mencoder, I haven't used it in a while and I'm affraid I won't use it anymore:
1st-because now we have HC.
2nd-because of this http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/
The way those guys at ffmpeg put it, it's not a question if ffmpeg lives or dies.
It's a question of when it will die :sad:.
As a consequence of such a press release, I am also very much worried about other free encoders/players out there.
I mean MP Classic and HC will also suffer from this law, right?
Anyway, thanks for helping.
Cheers

Dialhot 06-05-2005 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rds_correia
I missed those threads so I'll search them asap.

Find one of them here :
http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=78

rds_correia 06-05-2005 03:00 PM

@Phil
That's not a link for a thread.
I suppose you're telling me that at least one of them is under "General Miscelaneous Audio" forum?
Cheers

Dialhot 06-05-2005 03:33 PM

Excuse me, wrong copy/paste.
http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15016

(yes, it is in general audio forum)

rds_correia 06-05-2005 03:38 PM

I was already reading that thread :)
I just finished the unlocked portion of it and I see that you were trying Postgain with very good results.
But you asked for other guys to test it and then the thread stops.
It seems like noone else tried it.
You wouldn't happen to have that FULL commandline you were testing at that time, would you Phil?
Cheers

PS: I think I'll keep on posting about this at that II/unlocked thread.

Zyphon 06-05-2005 04:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by incredible
Good to know that, ... so now you can save even more bits for the video part of your streams :)

Yes that is a bonus. :D

rds_correia 06-05-2005 04:21 PM

@Zyphon,
Hold on Michael.
Are you sure about that?
Packshot hasn't been updated for a long while.
That means it still uses FFmpeg's ac3enc.dll that comes bundled with BeSweet.
I know I've never raised this issue before but even when Andrej was heavily developping Packshot, I noticed how original ac3-5.1 transcodes to ac3-5.1 got very low on volume.
And from the looks of it, DSPGuru knows about it for a very long while and he hasn't done anything about it.
Even the guys at FFmpeg know about it and they've never done anything to fix it.
Just look at BeSweet forum @ D9.
It's all there.
Bottom line: are you pretty sure the volume on your ac3-5.1 to ac3-5.1 trancodes is ok? I mean pretty damn sure :lol: ?
Cheers

Zyphon 06-06-2005 02:31 AM

@rds_correia

Hi Rui,

For this test I only used PackShot because I wanted I had issues with it on my old SAP, I know it hasn't been updated in ages but I just wanted to see if the audio produced from PackShot would work on my SAP as my old SAP froze.

This test was quick and was only done using a trailer from one of my DVD's. I left the bitrate @ 256 for this test and the volume was o.k at this bitrate. I haven't had time as of yet to do tests with a lower bitrate.

I don't normally use PackShot, I just wanted to test if my new SAP can accept ac3 derived from BeSweet and it did work. :D

Dialhot 06-06-2005 02:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zyphon
I don't normally use PackShot, I just wanted to test if my new SAP can accept ac3 derived from BeSweet and it did work. :D

I'm not sure your trailer was 5.1. 256 is not a very common bitrate for that. More probably 2.0.

And there is NO volume problem in 2.0 with ac3enc.dll.

Zyphon 06-06-2005 02:50 AM

@rds_correia

Hi Rui,

I responded to your post on the other BeSweet ac3 thread in the link below. :)

http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=118000#118000


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