OK, I've seen a lot of posts here and at other forums looking for help in getting DWS to let you use an AC3 audio track along with your Mpeg2 Video.

Well I've done just that and it plays quite well on both PC's and consumer players !!

The assumption here is that you are archiving a DVD and want to preserve the audio as is, that said, here goes ....

Use DVD2Avi to create the D2V that you will use in CCE or TMPgenc, configure DVD2Avi to demux your selected audio track, NOT decode. This will extract the AC3 as is.

Encode your video only stream, giving you an M2V file.

Now, you'll notice that when DVD2Avi demuxed your audio track that it added some info to the file name. Most important in this is the DELAY info. If you were to mux this AC3 track back in with your video, it would be out of sync.

You can use a little tool that you can get from Doom9.org to fix this, it's called "AC3 Delay Corrector". Run your AC3 through this to clean up any delays.

To mux the audio and video together we will now use BBMpeg which has direct support for muxing AC3 and Mpeg2.

Load up your AC3 and M2V files, set your program stream type to ~DVD and mux away.

You now have a complete Mpeg with an AC3 audio track.

When in DWS, after you've laid out your DVD and your ready to burn, make sure to check the "Do not convert compliant file" checkbox. And burn your DVD.

The result is a beautifull DVD complete with AC3 audio ...

Works like a charm ........

Moovy,,
two questionz for you,
i heard over from doom's that bbmpg wouldnt properly produce a dvd compliant stream, are yours coming out compliant?

and in
DWS, "Do not convert compliant file" doesn't show up in earlier versions, only once the patch has been installed from ulead's website, or did i just miss it...


ztr

Hey el_mero_zooter,

BBMpeg does produce a compliant DVD Mpeg stream, even with an AC3 audio track. DWS will complain that the audio is non compliant, but that can be safely ignored.

Yeah, the "Do not convert Compliant" checkbox is new to version 1.2, or 1.0 patched to 1.2.

I now have several DVDs that have been created this way, they play on all of the DVD players that I've put them in.

I even made one disc, in this case a DVD+R and walked into a local Future Shop store and tried it out in 12 different players, I only had a problem with one Toshiba. Don't remember the model. In the case of the Toshiba, it wouldn't read the disc. So it simply didn't like the DVD+R.

Later

kooly, thx,,
i gotta check out this new version. and look for this do not convert button.
ztr

Hi,

I have read that some standalone DVD player will not accept mpeg audio.
Can you guys confirm that ?

If so, after capturing from Mini-DV, I would create separate stream audio and video files (mpa/m2v) from the original AVI.

Then create an AC3 audio file, using Besweet or AC3Machine - both free.

Afterwards, using BBmpeg, to mux the m2v and ac3 file into a single mpg file.

Is there a way to make DVD Workshop 1.0 not reencode the MPEG2 file with AC3 audio ?

Thank's.