FFdshow is no subject now ;)

But the provided ffmpeg.exe there, means the recent one:
http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ff....2006.04.19.7z should have been compiled with the patch included as it was applied to the ffmpeg CVS already one Week or more ago ;)

sure! sorry ^_^

@Inc

Thanks, now I got it. :)

Cheers,

Inc's ffmpeg build works great.
 

@ALL

I do confirm that Inc's ffmpeg build works a treat!!! I just tried it out with a WAV PCM 2.0 which was treated with DVDAudio from Wavegenix Deluxe Mastering Suite. The transcoding was performed without issues and I did listen that volume of audiostream transcoded doesn't lower after all.

Well done, Inc.

I will test new Celtic Druid's build in order to see if the patch was applied.

Cheers,

Thats not a patch applied by me. Its a patch from a member of the ffmpeg-developers community.
I only did .... compile the sources.

Is the volume out of celticdruids build different?

@Inc

From my ears, the audios output for both builds (your and from Celtic Druid) seems the same (with regard the volume).

See ya,

Someone with good ears(mine are not!!) listen this please. :D

WAV audio:
http://rapidshare.de/files/18584346/...GINAL.wav.html

AC3 SOFTENCODE[448 kbps]:
http://rapidshare.de/files/18585005/...CODE_.ac3.html

AC3 BESWEET 1.5B31[448 kbps]:
http://rapidshare.de/files/18585442/....5B31.ac3.html

AC3 FFMPEG CELTIC DRUID 19-APRIL-2006[448 kbps]:
http://rapidshare.de/files/18585857/...DRUID.ac3.html

if you can download it and rate, please post your opinion :D

There have been already a tests made related to Softencode vs. FFmpeg/besweet and tmpegEncs AC3. Do look here in the forum.
http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15987

AC3 from ffmpeg (was) too low but freqs where excellent. Same like Softencode ... and better than TmpgEnc which CUTs at approx. 15Khz
http://www.edv-tipp.de/dvd/047_dvd_sound06.htm
http://www.edv-tipp.de/dvd/047_dvd_sound08.htm

Its german, so u have to use an online translator

@sparkster

No surprise that SFSE have provide the 'better' result: SFSE let you normalize volume audio using DRC and you did this. For my ears, ffmpeg by Celtic Druid returned a ac3 audio file with 'same' volume level as original. Besweet returned a ac3 audio file with a lower volume.

A better test should be you get the wave audiostream and into it apply some sort of normalization (the suite that I've mentioned does this using a one-click button :D ) and with this already normalized wave audiostream you should do the trancoding to ac3 format. Or so you should do apply the same normalization values with ffmpeg / besweet as used with SFSE.

My R$ 0,02 ... ;)

See ya,

@incredible
thanks for the links! That 15khz cut-off is simply surprising as Dialhot said! 8O

@danpos
thank you :D

:lol:

I normalized it in Soundforge 8:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/i.../2006/04/2.png

I used these(wav->ac3) setting for FFMPEG:
And these(wav->ac3) on besweet:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/i.../2006/04/3.png

I did convert ac3 -> wav using these settings on besweet:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/error.gif

Result for BESWEET 1.5B31:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/error.gif

Result for FFMPEG 19-APRIL-2006 CELTIC DRUID:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/i.../2006/04/4.png

the files (transcoded from the normalized wav):

http://rapidshare.de/files/18621551/...LIZED.wav.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/18621245/...SWEET.ac3.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/18621265/...DRUID.ac3.html

@sparkster

Well done! :D

See ya,

Forget about besweet/belight in this state now. It uses a very old ac3enc.dll which was build from old ffmpeg sources where the volume-bug-fix still wasnt applied. I did send a PM to DspGuru at doom9 that he should recompile the ac3enc.dll.

DRC is no normalization, but a function which affects the dynamic range compression. DRC is smart where normalizing parses the whole file for the max value. SO for a comparison switch DRC in SFSE off.

My tests:

A comparison between the orig PCM Waveform vs. SoftEncode and FFmpeg:

First the freqs of the PCM waveform:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/i.../2006/04/1.gif

Second the freqs of the Softencode output:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/i.../2006/04/2.gif

Third the freqs of the FFmpeg output:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/i.../2006/04/3.gif

Now lets overlay the output-graph of all three:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/i.../2006/04/4.gif



Also very interesting the phase stablity of both re-le channels.

pcm:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/i.../2006/04/5.gif

Softencode:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/i.../2006/04/6.gif

ffmpeg:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/i.../2006/04/7.gif

remark: the thicker/uneasier the purple-blue line gets the more incorrect is the phase.


Now we know that the ac3 encoder engine of ffmpeg is a very good qaulity engine, but someone who reported issues with the more anxient releases of this core on his SAP should test the output of the recent ffmpeg verrsion - IIRC Zyphon had a SAP which was very sensible.

@incredible
pretty amazing :!: :!: :D :D :D
What soft (and version x.xx ?) are you using to plot these frequency and phase analysis stuff ?

Adobe Audition (aka cooledit)

@Inc

Very good presentation indeed. So, your and our tests seems to show that ffmpeg (new build with applied patch) is the way to go in treating of free ac3 encoder ... :)

Cheers,

Inc,

have you had the chance to try any more recent commercial AC3 encoder? My friend has the Sony Vegas 6 suite which contains an AC3 encoder - if you cannot do the test encode, I'll ask if he would do so.

Basically I see both encoders the same, except that ffmpeg cuts of a little higher (about 200Khz), which is good. Phase differences are almost the same in all :)

-kwag

A Remark: I saw that I did encode that stereo Waveform using 448kbits in each encoder! Which is not real condition like!

Now the test shows how those encoders do behave if we do use on that stereo Waveform a 192kbit encode and a 128kbit encode.
192kbit CBR is fully sufficient for a stereo signal at 48000Hz, 16bit seen on a technical point of view.


192kbit - Softencode:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/error.gif

A clean full up to 20.3KHz freq Range.



192kbit - FFmpeg:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/error.gif

Also here up to 20.8Hz freq Range but a phase error which rises from 13Hz. BUT this is minimal -- check if you can recognise it!



128kbit - Softencode:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/error.gif

As shown in the SFSE encoder config settings at 128kbit the encoder forces the Freq being cut at 13.55Khz!



128kbit - FFmpeg:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/error.gif

Full Hz range but a phase error starting at an even earlier Hz point compared to 192!



What do these diagrams say? Very easy:
If you want "no" compromise in stereo AC3 audioencoding then you should go for Softencode at 192kbit as a full very phase-error-free freq range will be provided after decoding the AC3.
If you go for 128kbit AC3 then you have to choose between freq fullrange but minimal phase-errors (ffmpeg) or a limited freq range incl. no errors (SFSE).

Now you should make tests using your ears especiall on the phase errors .... ;) And then you decide what will be your choice.

A point to freq range: dont be affected by reading specs/values! "Normal" human ears wont recognise in a "normal attention" freqs above 16Khz, if so then congrats to excellent ears and for shure mega congrats to an EXCELLENT playback/speaker combination! Audiophile systems which do provide signals in "an accurate db state" so that you can recognise these high freq are very expensive. Shure technical specs of some speakers/Receivers do often mention high freq outputs about 18-22Khz but thats theory and beside this it depends WHAT these high freqs are made of and for shure if they can be provided at a needed db ratio.
BTW: A regular very good TV broadcast in PAL wont exceed 16Khz!

No sorry, I dont have any other choice. When doing tests be shure NO DRC is set as this will provide an almost untouched range.

BUMP! :lol:

Sorry guys but I really can't tell what I'm doing wrong here :(.
Could you please post a step-by-step tutor on how to transcode AC3 with this tool?
BTW screenshots would work wonderfully for me :D.

Cheers

Update: new ac3 encoder based on FFMPEG lib.
 

@Incredible

Take an eye at this topic.

The author (Justin Ruggles) is the same guy that did propose the patch to correct the 'low volume bug' on ffmpeg-devel list ...

JFYI. :)

Regards,

It does VBR ac3 ? I did not know this exist. 8O

Thanks Danpos!

Thats indeed quite interesting. :)

Even if I do not understand that people still do focus on Besweet, as its not beeing updated anymore and DspGuru seems to be in other things since a longer time.

@Dialhot

Me neither, but seems that this 'beast' exists ... :o

@Incredible

With regard on BeSweet, it's really a shame that such excellent tool doesn't be developed anymore :( Anyway, it seems that Justin Ruggles is interested to develop it and what is more cool is that he opened the source (the first release was focused on Linux, since that he uses this plataform; win32 was provided by Kurtnoise). Well, lets see how the things goes ahead ... :)

Regards,

Posting this on a BeSweet thread just sounds strange to me but anyway I am experiencing difficulties with AC3 to AC3 transcoding as explained by Incredible previously in this thread.
I tried BeHappy and since it didn't work properly I then tried ffmpeg alone.
Here is ffmpeg's CLI that I have been using (which is basically a copy paste from a BeHappy CLI):
And here is the log from when it finished transcoding:
As you can see from the log my source is 448kb/s and I am trying to transcode to 384kb/s and apparently at 1st sight all went well.
It's just that the source in 448 ac3 (308819KB) is smaller than the target 386 ac3 (317640KB) 8O.
Now watch carefully these lines:
My source was extracted with DGIndex from a DVD.
The movie has 141.174 frames so if my math is still good:
But the log says final filesize was 317640KB and when I try to open the file in any softplayer like foobar or mpc my PC crashes and reboots :(.
To prove my math:
And my 448kb/s ac3 file extracted with DGIndex is in fact 308819KB
This way you guys see that my math is not wrong or anything.
Plus the log also says that there were 6776.3 seconds but I only have 5647 seconds in my movie.
Obviously either there is something wrong with my ffmpeg CLI or there is something wrong with my ffmpeg binary.
For some reason I lost the ffmpeg.2006.04.19.7z binary that Incredible posted in this thread so I downloaded another one.
There are several developers that provide ffmpeg binaries, unfortunately Celtic Druid is not one of them any more :(.
Edit:
Wrong. Apparently this mirror does have all his files http://tirnanog.fate.jp/mirror/ while his most common site in the US http://ffdshow.faireal.net/ doesn't.
Nevertheless I tried with all his builds and I'm getting the same result :arrow: oversized ac3...
So I downloaded from http://arrozcru.no-ip.org/ffmpeg_builds/.
Since I kept experiencing the same problem with the binary that I downloaded I just downloaded a more ancient release from the same site.
And since the problem was still there I downloaded from http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ffmpeg/ but I am still experiencing the same issue.
So, could somebody please upload the ffmep.2006.04.19.7z that Incredible posted on rapidshare but that is no longer available?
I used to work with that release and everything worked perfectly back then :).
And sorry for this long post.
Cheers

Bump :oops:.
Guys, I'm really all out of options here.
If nobody posts a link to a working FFmpeg I can only go back and reencode my KDVD from scratch to accommodate 448 ac3 instead of 384 ac3.
All help will be much appreciated ;).
Cheers

Sorry Rui, cannot help you with FFmpeg, I don't work with it.

I guess that you don't need me to tell you, as what you need is FFmpeg for your encodings, and not just a solution for this particular encoding, but... did you try converting to wav and then encode to ac3 again?.

Just to solve your actual problem. Did you try with another source?, does it happen again on a different source?.

Well, I wish somebody will be able to upload this particular version for you.

Thank you so much for your comments digi.doc :P.
In fact after it started failing me with that ac3 track I extracted several other ac3 tracks from 4 or 5 movies covering from 448 to 384 and even one was 256 which I am told is very rare.
All the 4/5 of them fail with the exact same problem, target size above the source size (when I am trying to downsize), and target is not playable as it crashes and reboots my XP.
Now, I am veeeery newbie when it comes to audio.
I can encode ac3 to mp2 resampling to 44khz in case of KVCD and I can either keep the ac3 as is (usually at 384kbit/48khz) or if it is above 384kit I can transcode it to 384kbit when I am authoring a KDVD.
The only tools I know are HeadAC3he, BeSweet (find it bizarre and usually fail when using this one), BeHappy and last but not least FFmpeg since it is actually very similar to my good old MEncoder :P.
So this means that I can't extract the god damn thing to wave and then reencode it to ac3 or mp2 because I'm an idiot.
I can't do anything that takes more than 1,5 neuron :lol:.
Even if I could I am pretty sure that it would come out with the center playing on the front/right and the bass on the center, etc lool.
If I could I would use BeSweet, right?
Or I could maybe use SoftEncode...
But these tools have so many options that I don't know :?
I guess I'll wait a couple of days and see if Andrej logs on.
Even because in this particular case I could improvise but there will be times when I will really want to keep it in ac3 and then I won't be able to unless if I solve this issue first :roll:.
But thanks for caring :).
Cheers Digi.doc

Sure Andrej way will be the best way. :wink:

I did this recode from 448 to 384 with SoftEncode several times, with some success. If it gets necessary, I could try to remember how it was.

Just tell me.

What about Aften Rui?
Regarding the original and resulting mediasizes: You should post this on the ffmpeg mailing list, maybe its really a bug.

:) Inc

Thanks for your PM Andrej :D.
Anyway I would be very much interested in Aften or SoftEncode if I learn to do it right :lol:.
For instance, Aften can only load a wave file right? No way I can load an AC3 file into Aften.
But anyway, intead of asking DGIndex to demux, you mean that I should ask it to "decode AC3 to Wave" right?
And then it's only a matter of loading that wave into BeHappy and make sure it uses Aften?
I mean, what settings should I use in BeHappy?
Will all the channels end up in the right place?
Or can I screw that up if I don't know what I'm doing :lol ?
Cheers guys and thanks a bunch :)

I've browsed and searched the mailing list but although I found resemblant issues I did not find any with AC3 transcoding.
So I posted this http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp....mpeg.user/7086.
Let's see if they can give some help or at least shed some light to the subject.
If you want to browse the mailing list "à-lá" forum here it is inside gmane http://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.video.ffmpeg.user.
Cheers

Tjis is possible with the GUI "Behappy" (if it has been fixed) or manually using bepipe.
Remember this thread :
http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic....ighlight=aften

I don't think DGIndex manage 6-channels wav, so do not do that.

Behappy can't open ac3 directly ? I remember that I had use it once, but not sure of the way.

Yes, that is sure. I did not change anything to the default.

I didn't recall the bepipe.
I will look into that ASAP.
Ok, I will take that into consideration and I will start with the method above ;).
Anyway, I just posted this at D9.
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.ph...094#post917094
One can actually extract a decode wav file.
As you see, no need to re-save your project if you already saved it before with audio demux instead of audio decode.
BTW I got a file name is T01 3_2ch 448Kbps 48KHz.wav so I would guess it is a 6-channels decode.
But I'm not an expert and I can't prove that :roll: so I will take your way first :).
No, it keeps on bugging me with an error message.
I will post it (the error message) in a couple of minutes.
That's nice.
No way a big "john of the jungle" like me can screw up the process :lol:.

FYI : if I did that only once, it's because I found the process not convenient at all :-).
But I can swear there is a way to do a 448 -> 384 transcode using aften/bepipe/behappy, that is sure. You just have to find how :).

Forget the part about not being able to load an ac3 into behappy.
It does load into behappy and it even starts encoding.
But around ~70% of encode it stops, I mean behappy stays loaded and on-screen but the progress bar keeps in the same position.
When I go to the folder where it should be creating the new transcoded ac3 I can see the file it is creating only that the size does not increase as it usually does until the 70% encode ;).
Half an hour later I am forced to go to task manager and stop behappy and ffmpeg otherwise I burn my CPU for nothing because it is really stopped and ffmpeg keeps the CPU at 99% usage.
Sorry for misleading you guys in the previous post but I'm also getting messed up myself :lol:.
BUT loading an ac3 into Aften using Behappy GUI doesn't work and Aften manual only mentions wave input :?.
Dead end again?
Or can I use bepipe to load that ac3 into Aften?
Cheers

I'm sorry but I just can't understand the logic behind bepipe.
To me it looks like behappy's CLI version.
Which means, behappy limitations are shared by bepipe thus I can't get anywhere with it and my 448 ac3 that I want to transcode to 384 ac3 using Aften.
As said Aften seems to be able to open wave files only.
Meaning that avisynth scripts are not an option either otherwise I would gladly use the avisynth script generated by behappy.
So unless someone is willing to test this with/for me, I'm going to try the wave file outputted by DGIndex with Aften :(.

Edit: and here is the error log dump when I try to load DGIndex's wave file into Aften using BeHappy :(
The odds seem to be all against me don't them? :(
Cheers

Then again, if you're doing a DVD, why re-encode the audio at all? The difference in bitrate is very small when you add the extra bits to the video bitrate.

Hi Boulder :).
Several reasons for that.
I'll give you 2 good reasons:
1-Many free or low cost authoring tools can only work with movies that are all in the same specs i.e. same resolution, same AR, same audio bitrate, etc...
2-In this case I made my calculations first based on transcoded audio size, which means that I have already encoded the video @ ~6fps 8O considering that the audio will have a certain size.
My current project size exceeds DVD-R specs if that specific audio track remains at 448 instead of the calculated 384.
I know it is only ~44MB that I'm saving with the transcoding but that will be enough for my project to fit on a DVD-R.
I really don't know what else to do, apart from reencoding the video which I am already considering doing :(.
Maybe I'll wait for reports from ffmpeg mailing list and if they can't solve it I will go for video reencoding.
Cheers :)

If I remember well, behappy calls bepipe, but the syntax it sues it erroneous. When I did my test, I manage to find the command that behappy send to bepipe and simply use this command, fix it, and call bepipe myself manually.
That is what I mentionned in the aften thread :
For your problem at 70%, did you try to fix the source ac3 using ac3fix first ? It can have a problem.

If you can't get BePipe/BeHappy to work, try using BeLight. Decode the ac3 track into a 5.1 wav file and feed that into Aften. I don't know if it matters but disable dialog normalization reduction in BeLight (in the advanced settings).