Using DVD2SVCD for DVD output with AC3 audio

[Nick]

This seems to be an area of interest for a few users at the moment.
I've been developing a couple of files which may be helpful to these ends.

As I am no developer I am not really interested in adding more features, only debugging etc. So please feel free to post questions, problems and/or modifications to the scripts.


Get them here:
http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/AC3EncSetup.exe - batch files
http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/AC3ExeSetup.exe - executables
Both work similarly well but on faster systems the executables seem to work quicker, on slower ones, especially those short on RAM, the batch files seem to be quicker. Try for yourself and use whichever you prefer.


Usage:

AC3Enc*.bat/exe parses the BeSweet commandline generated by DVD2SVCD. If the output mode selected in DVD2SVCD Audio tab is Stereo, this batch file runs BeSweet but using Aften instead of 2lame so that the output is AC3 2.0 instead of MP2 at the chosen bitrate. If NTSC2PAL is being used, BeSweet actually runs twice - once to resample to 48k (as some AVI's and MPEG sources have 44100Hz audio) and again for framerate conversion, since doing the two simultaneously causes major headaches.

If, however, output mode in the audio tab is set to MPEG5.1, the chosen bitrate does not appear in the BeSweet commandline. In this case, a textfile containing the pertinent parts of the BeSweet commandline is generated.

Then when DVD2SVCD runs the MPEG5.1 encoder (now set to MPEG51(*).bat/exe) this file obtains the commandline from the text file, which it then deletes, and obtains the bitrate from the commandline for the MPEG5.1 encoder. It now runs BeSweet to encode a 5.1 stream at the chosen bitrate.

So, simply put, what do we use this for?
OK. If you set the Output in DVD2SVCD to stereo, it works just the same as DVD2SVCD always did, but with AC3 output instead of MP2. Since MP2 audio alone makes a non-compliant disc in NTSC territory, you should now make fully compliant DVD's.

As for MPEG5.1 mode, this is used for 2 things - if you are doing DVD2DVD and want to downsize the audio stream(s) to make extra room for the video, you could say, make the output disc have for example your native language at 384kbps and a second language at 256kbps but keep the 5.1 soundtracks. Also, from DVD or AVI, it should now be possible to do NTSC2PAL and keep 5.1 audio :)


Limitations:

Don't use for SVCD! AC3 audio is not compatible. If doing an SVCD conversion, remember to replace the paths in the audio tab back to the original configuration.

If the input file is stereo, don't select 5.1 output. It is not possible to create a 5.1 output stream from stereo input.

This only works 100% with DVD Author or the BatchMux plugin - NOT Scenarist! In order for muxing to take place, the output file has to be called Encoded_Audio_*.mp2 - mplex.exe recognises that the file is AC3 despite the MP2 extension and continues normally. Scenarist muxes the AC3 correctly but the authors a disc which believes it has MP2 audio. This could cause playback issues on some players.

There is a quirk in the way DVD2SVCD is written that means using AC3Enc* and MPEG51(*) on sources without AC3 audio results in failure of fixed chapters. Manolito and I (but mainly him let's face it!) have developed a means of overcoming this by hijacking the process at the DVD Author stage. The files to do this are now included.

Have fun :)
Nick

UPDATE 18 March 07 - The new build uses Aften instead of BeSweet's AC3Enc.dll to do the AC3 encoding. With AC3Enc.dll, the main problem was that sources with broad dynamic range tended to encode very quietly. Whilst older versions of Aften solved this, they tended to sound harsh and produce distortion on musical sources. However, I am very impressed with the latest build of Aften and have decided, with the author's permission, to use it.

If you are less impressed, the older version of the plugin that uses AC3Enc.dll is available here:
http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/AC3Enc6+AC3_DVDAuthor.zip

UPDATE 17 May 07 - New build with installer, compiled files and many improvements and fixed issues.
UPDATE 20 Feb 08 - New build. Changelog in thread.
UPDATE 20 Apr 10 - Couple of fixes. Changelog in thread

[ChickenMan]

Fantaastic Nick, just whats been needed for D2S for quite some time. Thanks.

[manolito]

Yes, works perfectly here (I'm in PAL country). Just two questions:

Are you saying that a DVD with just an MP2 audio track is not DVD compliant in NTSC, but it is compliant in PAL?
And you mentioned the somewhat limited quality of free AC3 encoders. When my audio source is a high quality WAV file, would the quality of an AC3 encode be worse compared to an MP2 encode at the same bitrate (using the current version of BeSweet with ac3enc.dll or or lame_enc.dll)?

Anyway, thanks a lot for the great work, I think it's ready for a place in the "Plugins" sticky

Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

Are you saying that a DVD with just an MP2 audio track is not DVD compliant in NTSC, but it is compliant in PAL?

Certainly that was the case in the original DVD specs.
PAL
Audio:
48000 Hz
32 - 1536 kbps
Up to 8 audio tracks containing Dolby Digital, DTS, PCM(uncompressed
audio), MPEG-1 Layer2. One audio track must have MPEG-1, DD or PCM Audio.

NTSC
Audio:
48000 Hz
32 - 1536 kbps
Up to 8 audio tracks containing Dolby Digital, DTS, PCM(uncompressed
audio). One audio track must have DD or PCM Audio.

ie MPEG1 audio formats were not supported as the sole stream on an NTSC DVD. Rare as they are, some players simply won't play a disc with NTSC video and mp2 audio!

Would the quality of an AC3 encode be worse compared to an MP2 encode at the same bitrate (using the current version of BeSweet with ac3enc.dll or or lame_enc.dll)?

Variable. Some sources encode very well indeed with ac3enc.dll whereas others don't. It seems to be files with broader dynamic range which encode poorly. Using BeSweet, AC3 2.0 seems to do better in some cases than MP2 but marginally worse in most. For a PAL source to PAL DVD conversion, I would probably stick to mp2. But don't take my word for it, try it for yourself and see.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the great work, I think it's ready for a place in the "Plugins" sticky

No problem :)
I think I'll give it a few days to see if any problems are reported before I add it to the sticky.

Thanks for the feedback.
Nick

[raquete]

very cool Nick.

reading in BeSweer faq
10 Known issues in v1.5 :
16 - ac3enc.dll creates (almost) useless ac3 streams. don't use it to encode things you care for. it's there only for test purposes.
i saw that BeSweet v1.5 and inside D2S is using ac3enc.dll (11Kb) from 2/4/2004 and HeadAC3he v0.24-a13 use ac3enc.dll (26,5Kb) from 15/12/2004.
i did only for test with the same source to encode AC3-2Ch 192 bitrate in BeSweet and HeadAC3he.
HeadAC3he sounds better.
if the reason of this better result is the new dll inside HeadAC3he,we can change the ac3enc.dll inside D2S/BeSweet folder to encode ac3 2.0 or 5.1?

thank you.

[Nick]

Simply swapping the DLL over from HeadAC3che folder to BeSweet folder will unfortunately not work.

I would like to stick to BeSweet if possible for a number of reasons. Firstly I cannot see a way to do framerate adjustment in HeadAC3he. Also, I think it would be harder to automate creation of an ini file for HeadAC3che from a commandline for BeSweet than simply modify that commandline. Thirdly, long standing issues between the authoes of DVD2SVCD and HeadAC3he mean there will never be official support for things like the SweetHead plugin made years ago for this very task.

However, quality is, of course hugely important and if anyone has any suggestions on why BeSweet's output should be inferior to HeadAC3he's and what can be done about this, I should naturally be very interested.

[raquete]

you're right Nick,
swapping dlls don't work,see the log:
BeSweet v1.5b31 by DSPguru.
--------------------------
Using azid.dll v1.9 (b922) by Midas (midas@egon.gyaloglo.hu).
Error 73: Unable to get ac3enc.dll interfaces
Quiting...
[00:00:00:000] Conversion Completed !

Logging ends : 11/05/05 , 14:25:55.

i understand all reasons and don't knew that "long standing issues",so sorry. :o

as quality is very important and if you don't mind,take a look here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=732800#post732800). i was not waiting your guide and i did it few hours before you.
i see now only two advantages: you can choose what track to re-encode as AC3-2Ch and the other without re-encode,just like BeSweet extract.maybe you can change something to do the same here!
it's not for comparisons,only about audio quality because your guide have lots of advantages.

:thanks: (so much)

[ChickenMan]

When using the ac3enc4.bat file and doing avi (divx 5.0 with mp3 VBR audio) to dvd, I get no chapter points being set in the final DVDAuthor dvd files. If the avi contains AC# audio initially and set to Do Not Convert Audio, then Chapter points are set. If I use BeSweet (with MP2 audio) then chapter points are set as normal. It appears only with your bat file that for some reason Chapter points are not being set. I know of 1 other person having the exact same proble. Any ideas why ?

[Nick]

In a word, no. When I find time I'll try and reproduce this and see if there is anything I can do about it.

[Matthew]

If you are going down the path of AC3 support then perhaps you might like to add support for Soft Encode...command-line can be a bit wobbly though so I've decided to control it via a project file/registry/GUI :)

[jsoto]

It took me less than a minute to find this thread, because I knew there was this plugin, but I think the thread should be listed in pluggins sticky
jsoto

[Nick]

It's on the cards jsoto. I wanted to perfect it first.

There is one issue I still have, but have not had time to debug, what with Christmas and all. Maybe this will give me the kick up the backside I need.

Basically, it is written so that if "Use source audio" is checked, it passes the commandline unchanged to BeSweet. This doesn't happen. So if you choose this option, you have to reset the path in the Audio tab to the original BeSweet.exe - OK, so nothing too major but I got overrun with work and kinda forgot about it.

I'll try and do it this weekend. Otherwise if anyone else can a the glaring error in the script, please notify me here.

Cheers for the feedback guys

Nick

PS still haven't sorted Chickenman's issue above - I can reproduce it, but I'm not sure there's anything can be done about it :confused:

[Nick]

OK. The chapters thing is still a problem. The batch files don't do anything that could affect chapters so I'm stumped here.

The other thing was easy to fix. The error was suitably glaring so I've fixed it and updated the link.

[manolito]

One of my main problems with AC3Enc.dll is the extremely low volume of the resulting AC3 file. It depends on the volume of the source WAV file, and the "-ota( -g max)" command does not seem to help. It seems that the output volume decreases exponentially with a lower source volume. Just today I had a source WAV file with a -6dB level, and the resulting AC3 file was barely audible. The only way I found to get a decent level for the AC3 file is to normalize the source file to 0dB prior to conversion.

Of course this is easy to do using your favorite wave editor, but we want everything to be automatic, right? I found a very nice Wave Normalizer software which also happens to be free (GPL), and it can be easily integrated into AC3Encx.bat.

Get the software at https://neon1.net/prog/normalizer.html

Copy Normalize.exe to your BeSweet folder. My quick and dirty hack just consists of one line inserted right at the beginning of the batch file:
Normalize.exe %3

This is not elegant, but it works. If your source is not a WAV file, Normalize.exe just quits. After normalizing the "-ota" command does not make too much sense any more, but it also does not do any damage.

Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

The original version of my batch plugin used ffmpeg.exe to do the AC3 encoding and Normalize.exe to fix the gain.
However, I found the results almost identical to BeSweet with AC3Enc.dll and normalisation via ota.dll

So I ditched ffmpeg and normalize and used BeSweet instead.
Of course it could just be that my own testing material didn't show up this problem so if you could get a few seconds of demonstrative audio to me, I'll see if I can do a more elegant fix.

Cheers
Nick

[jsoto]

Yes, -ota ( g max ) also works for me..... BTW, I had in the past problems with the volume related with a bad drivers installation in my PC and I was wrongly thinking the problem was in ac3enc.dll.

Another BTW: The chapters problem.
Seems the only way to fix it is also hacking the authoring phase...
DVD2SVCD code analyzes the mpg file to get the audio total length. It "knows" which kind of audio (mp2 or ac3) has to look for, but using the batch file, the code thinks it is mpeg, when actually it is ac3. So the total length reported is zero seconds--> no chapters.

From AVI2DVD logs:
ac3 (Use original audio checked): The code looks for ac3 sound and find it.....

--------------------------------------------------------
- 30/01/2006 0:00:42
- Free on drive D: 3321.92 mb
- Determining length of audio
--------------------------------------------------------
Analyzing: D:\PRU_AC3\MPlex_Muxed_File00.mpg
64.168 seconds D:\PRU_AC3\MPlex_Muxed_File00.mpg
Analyzing finished.


mp2 (Using Besweet): The code looks for mp2 sound and find it...

--------------------------------------------------------
- 29/01/2006 23:49:53
- Free on drive D: 3397.78 mb
- Determining length of audio
--------------------------------------------------------
Analyzing: D:\PRU_OUT\MPlex_Muxed_File00.mpg
46.584 seconds D:\PRU_OUT\MPlex_Muxed_File00.mpg
Analyzing finished.


mp2 (Using Batch file): The code looks for mp2 sound and find ac3...

--------------------------------------------------------
- 29/01/2006 23:54:14
- Free on drive D: 3379.17 mb
- Determining length of audio
--------------------------------------------------------
Analyzing: D:\PRU_OUT\MPlex_Muxed_File00.mpg
0.000 seconds D:\PRU_OUT\MPlex_Muxed_File00.mpg
Analyzing finished.


jsoto

[manolito]

Of course it could just be that my own testing material didn't show up this problem so if you could get a few seconds of demonstrative audio to me, I'll see if I can do a more elegant fix.
I just uploaded couple of demo conversions to my web space. Get it under
http://scifi.pages.at/manolito/AC3_Test/AC3_Test.zip

Cheers
manolito

[manolito]

DVD2SVCD code analyzes the mpg file to get the audio total length. It "knows" which kind of audio (mp2 or ac3) has to look for, but using the batch file, the code thinks it is mpeg, when actually it is ac3. So the total length reported is zero seconds--> no chapters.
Yes, this is true, but only if "Fixed Chapters every xx seconds" was selected. If your source is a DVD and "Use DVD chapters" is chosen, D2S determines the length of the audio correctly, even when the MP2 file is really an AC3 file.

Funny, but this actually makes it much easier to hack the authoring process, because we only have to deal with fixed chapters. I just hacked together a quick and dirty workaround which so far seems to work very well on my machine. Here is what I did:

First you need to create a template XML file for DVDAuthor which contains the command for fixed chapters. Those should cover movie lengths of maybe 4 hours or more. DVDAuthor does not complain if the actual movie is much shorter. My template.xml file looks like this:

<dvdauthor dest="I:\Movies\DVD-Files\">
<vmgm />
<titleset>
<titles>
<video format="pal" />
<audio lang="--" />
<pgc>
<vob file="I:\Movies\MPlex_Muxed_File00.mpg" chapters="00:00:00,00:06:00,00:12:00,00:18:00,00:24:00,00:30:00,00:36:00,00:42:00,00:48:00,00:54:00,01:00:00,01:06:00,01:12:00,01:18:00,01:24:00,01:30:00,01:36:00,01:42:00,01:48:00,01:54:00,02:00:00,02:06:00,02:12:00,02:18:00,02:24:00,02:30:00,02:36:00,02:42:00,02:48:00,02:54:00,03:00:00,03:06:00,03:12:00,03:18:00,03:24:00,03:30:00,03:36:00,03:42:00,03:48:00,03:54:00" />
<post> call vmgm menu; </post>
</pgc>
</titles>
</titleset>
</dvdauthor>

You see that I have fixed chapters of 6 minutes which is all I ever do. Save this file with the name "template.xml" and put it into your DVDAuthor folder.

The next thing we need is a batch file which D2S must call instead of DVDAuthor.exe I have called it "AC3_DVDAuthor.bat. Here is the file:

%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\find /C "chapters=""00:00:00"" />" %2
if not errorlevel 1 goto fixed:
goto doit
:fixed
copy "template.xml" %2
:doit
"dvdauthor.exe" %1 %2

Also save this file in the DVDAuthor folder. Then open D2S and under the DVD Image tab point the DVDAuthor entry field to this batch file.

All it does is analyze the DVDAuthor.xml file and determine if just one chapter at 00:00:00 was created. If yes then the template.xml file is copied over the DVDAuthor.xml file which gives us fixed chapters. Else the normal authoring will take place. Not too elegant, but there is room for improvement.

Please test and report bugs...

Cheers
manolito


//Edit: Simplified and renamed the batch file

[ChickenMan]

I've found a small bug/typo in AC3enc5.bat file. AC3enc5.bat never converts 44.1khz through to 48khz for me and I found an extra space in the line:

SET shibatch=-shibatch ( --rate 48000)

The space between the ch and ( should be remove, so line becomes:

SET shibatch=-shibatch( --rate 48000)

This now works fine for me :)

[manolito]

This is a slightly improved workaround for the AC3Enc chapter bug which occurs when fixed chapters are specified. Dowload at:
http://scifi.pages.at/manolito/AC3_DVDAuthor/AC3_DVDAuthor.zip
This version now works in batch mode, because it uses the DVDAuthor.xml file created by DVD2SVCD. It just replaces the chapter entries with the content of a "Chapters.ini" template file. A couple of template files for fixed chapters with a length of 4min, 6min and 10min are included.

Thanks to ChickenMan for testing!

Cheers
manolito

[ChickenMan]

Fantastic, thanks Manalito, it works great for me :) Now an avi containing mp2, mp3, wav or ac3 audio can be converted and authored complete with chapters and AC3 audio in the one step and even in Batch mode.

[Nick]

@Manolito: Can you use this script at all?

SET c=%2
SET c=%c:"=%
SET c=%c:dvdauthor.xml=%
TYPE "%c%\DVD.INI" |find "Length of Chapters" /i > temp.txt
FOR /f "tokens=1,2 delims==" %%a IN (temp.txt) DO SET ChapterLength=%%b
IF EXIST temp.txt DEL temp.txt

SET /a length=%chapterlength%
SET /a hrs1=0
SET /a hrs2=0
SET /a min1=0
SET /a min2=0
SET /a sec1=0
SET /a sec2=0
ECHO 00:00:00>chapters.ini

:gen
SET /a sec2=%sec2%+1
SET /a length=%length%-1

IF "%sec2%" == "10" SET /a sec1=%sec1%+1
IF "%sec2%" == "10" SET /a sec2=0
IF "%sec1%" == "6" SET /a min2=%min2%+1
IF "%sec1%" == "6" SET /a sec1=0
IF "%min2%" == "10" SET /a min1=%min1%+1
IF "%min2%" == "10" SET /a min2=0
IF "%min1%" == "6" SET /a hrs2=%hrs2%+1
IF "%min1%" == "6" SET /a min1=0
IF "%hrs2%" == "3" EXIT

IF "%length%" == "0" SET /p chapters=<chapters.ini
IF "%length%" == "0" ECHO %chapters%,%hrs1%%hrs2%:%min1%%min2%:%sec1%%sec2%>chapters.ini
IF "%length%" == "0" SET /a length=%chapterlength%
GOTO gen

If run from the DVDAuthor commandline, it determines the path of the output folder, extracts the chapter length as set in DVD2SVCD from the DVD.ini file and creates a custom chapters.ini file for your DVDAuthor.bat file.

Is there a way to/do you wish to incorporate this script into your batch file to fully automate the process?

Cheers
Nick

[manolito]

Nick, this is incredible. In my wildest dreams I could not imagine that anyone could do the secs to hh:mm:ss conversion with a simple batch file!

Of course I will integrate this into AC3_DVDAuthor.bat. I do have some time this afternoon, so I will report back later today / tonight.

Cheers
manolito

[manolito]

Alright, here we go:

%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\FIND /C "chapters=""00:00:00"" />" %2
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 goto create
goto doit

:create
SET c=%~dp2
%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\FIND "Length of Chapters" /i "%c%DVD.INI" > temp.txt
FOR /f "tokens=1,2 delims==" %%a IN (temp.txt) DO SET ChapterLength=%%b
IF EXIST temp.txt DEL temp.txt
SET /a x=%ChapterLength% / 60
SET /a y=%x% * 60
SET /a z=%ChapterLength% - %y%
SET ChapterLength=%x%
IF %z% GEQ 30 SET /a ChapterLength=%x% + 1
If %ChapterLength% == 0 SET ChapterLength=1

SET /a length=%chapterlength%
SET /a hrs1=0
SET /a hrs2=0
SET /a min1=0
SET /a min2=0
SET /a sec1=0
SET /a sec2=0
SET chapters=00:00:00

:gen
SET /a min2=%min2%+1
SET /a length=%length%-1

IF "%min2%" == "10" SET /a min1=%min1%+1
IF "%min2%" == "10" SET /a min2=0
IF "%min1%" == "6" SET /a hrs2=%hrs2%+1
IF "%min1%" == "6" SET /a min1=0
IF "%hrs2%" == "4" GOTO sar

IF "%length%" == "0" SET chapters=%chapters%,%hrs1%%hrs2%:%min1%%min2%:%sec1%%sec2%
IF "%length%" == "0" SET /a length=%chapterlength%
GOTO gen

:sar
sed.exe "s/00:00:00/%chapters%/" %2 >temp.xml
COPY temp.xml %2
IF EXIST temp.xml del temp.xml

:doit
dvdauthor.exe %1 %2

As you can see, I did a couple of modifications to your code, mainly optimizing for speed. Most importantly, I restricted chapter creation to full minutes. On my machine it was terribly slow to run the loop for every second. I also scrapped the use of an intermediate "Chapters.ini" file, everything is done in memory now. I increased the maximum length to 4 hours (it happened to me once that I had to do an ecode which was more than 3 hours long).

The "find" command only works on my machine if I specify the full path. I have no idea why, I do have "Windows\System32" in my path. And you really should tell me how you managed to get the chapter length with the "for" command using "tokens" and "delims". The German Windows help is totally obscure about these commands, I could never have done this!

In my tests everything worked fine, I even did a torture test with 1min chapters with a 6 hour length limit. Please test and let me know what you think about it...

Cheers
manolito

[manolito]

Update:
I think I found a more elegant and much faster algorithm to convert seconds to hh:mm:ss. It uses div and mod operations, so the gen loop only occurs for each chapter point. Unlike the previous version this new version can create chapters at any second again.

%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\FIND /C "chapters=""00:00:00"" />" %2
IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 goto create
goto doit

:create
SET c=%~dp2
%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\FIND "Length of Chapters" /i "%c%DVD.INI" > temp.txt
FOR /f "tokens=1,2 delims==" %%a IN (temp.txt) DO SET ChapterLength=%%b
IF EXIST temp.txt DEL temp.txt

SET /a length=%chapterlength%
SET chapters=00:00:00

:gen
SET /a hh=%length% / 3600
If %hh% LSS 10 SET hh=0%hh%
IF %hh% == 04 GOTO sar
SET /a x=%length% %% 3600
SET /a mm=%x% / 60
IF %mm% LSS 10 SET mm=0%mm%
SET /a ss=%x% %% 60
IF %ss% LSS 10 SET ss=0%ss%

SET chapters=%chapters%,%hh%:%mm%:%ss%
SET /a length=%length% + %chapterlength%
GOTO gen

:sar
sed.exe "s/00:00:00/%chapters%/" %2 >temp.xml
COPY temp.xml %2
IF EXIST temp.xml del temp.xml

:doit
dvdauthor.exe %1 %2


Cheers
manolito

[manolito]

Well, I believe this thing is ready for release now. Get it at:
http://scifi.pages.at/manolito/AC3_DVDAuthor/AC3_DVDAuthor.zip

I did some more testing, and I could not even break it with 30sec chapters for 4 hours. For "normal" chapter lengths speed is quite acceptable even on my slooooow Celeron 1.1GHz.

I had one more improvement in mind, but I gave up on it. It would be nice to extract the movie length from one of the INI files and create chapters only up to the actual movie length. When using QuEnc or CCE 2.67 this would work because the D2S project file has the length. But when using CCE 2.70 the value for length is always 0, and I have no idea what happens when using Procoder.

Speed improvement would be minimal, so I think the whole idea is not worth bothering.

@Nick
If you like the plugin, maybe you could include it in your AC3Enc archive. It is your baby after all, and you also did most of the work :D

Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

Done.
http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/AC3Enc6+AC3_DVDAuthor.zip

Thanks for the extra work to slim down the scripts and get rid of my slow and cumbersome chapter routine. I notice you've also junked the chapters.ini file. I only retained this as my crude integration was to save the script I posted as a chap.bat, then put "chap.bat" at the start of your original batch file and "del chapters.ini" at the end. Clearly to integrate the two scripts into one does away with the need for it. However, I was short on time and brain power at the time.

And you really should tell me how you managed to get the chapter length with the "for" command using "tokens" and "delims"

Way OT, my friend so I'll do that by PM :)

[Nick]

OK. Not visited this for a while, but we have an update.
Some time ago I experimented with Aften to do the AC3 encoding but whilst it solved many problems with AC3Enc, it introduced some others.

However, manolito alerted me to progress on Aften and I am bowled over by the latest build. So we're now using it.

Link updated in the initial post for the new version of the plugin.

[manolito]

Thanks Nick!

I did a few more encodes using the latest Aften, and it looks like I am going to do all my (PAL) encodes with AC3 audio instead of MPEG audio from now on.

Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

Cool. It opens up a lot of handy possibilities - like NTSC2PAL with 5:1 audio but minimal quality loss.

Just one thing, re the DVDAuthor files. I am not routinely using Sir Didymus's Muxman plugin, although I have tested it. Do we have a way out of the chapter bug problem with this, to do AC3 audio and Muxman muxing with chapters?

[manolito]

Just one thing, re the DVDAuthor files. I am not routinely using Sir Didymus's Muxman plugin, although I have tested it. Do we have a way out of the chapter bug problem with this, to do AC3 audio and Muxman muxing with chapters?
Shame on you, it should be required by law for everyone using D2S to also use Muxman. :eek:

But seroiusly, the chapter issue caused by the AC3Enc plugin only applies to DVDAuthor. With the BatchMux plugin chapters were created correctly from the beginning. No problem at all.

The only exception is when using CCE 2.70 together with BatchMux. In this case BatchMux cannot create fixed chapters, because D2S cannot determine the movie length from the 2.70 ECL format.

But this issue is also solved. Have a look here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=971974#post971974

This little batch file fixes the chapter issue for CCE 2.70 plus gives you automatic PAL to NTSC conversions from within D2S.

I have a question regarding NTSC to PAL conversions with D2S. So far I had never tested this until a couple of days ago while testing your AC3Enc plugin with Aften. I used an interlaced NTSC source, and the quality of the encode was simply unacceptable. The log files revealed what was going on: D2S handled the conversion by just slowing down everything by almost 20%, then the audio pitch was corrected back to the original pitch. My source was a Jazz concert show, and it looked and sounded terrible.

Do you know if D2S does the same for progressive (film) sources? I think those sources should be IVTC'd and sped up to 25 fps instead of using AssumeFPS to slow down everything.

Anyway, the PAL to NTSC direction is much more useful for me, and the method I implemented (DGPulldown) gives very nice results.

Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

Yeah. 29.97->25 fps conversions are terrible!

For film sources, select IVTC in the DGIndex tab and then it'll do it correctly.

For the record I tend to author manually as I never really liked MPlex. I set it to No Images in the authoring tab and direct to an empty batch file in the Multiplexer tab. I know Muxman works but I've gotten so used to the flexibility of manual authoring that I don't see a need to automate it.

Just personal preference and no snub on Sir Didymus's fine plugin :).

But it does explain why the whole chapter bug thing had to be pointed out to me...

[jolson]

Are these batch files mainly meant for use if you have MPEG audio in your source but want to output a DVD with AC3 audio? Or also if the source already is AC3? Is there a "chapter bug" to fix in both cases?

[manolito]

This "chapter bug" only occurs if you use Nick's AC3Enc.bat to get AC3 output plus you have selected "fixed chapters" plus you use Mplex / DVDAuthor for muxing and authoring.

If the source audio already is in AC3 format and you ticked "Keep original audio" in DVD2SVCD then there will be no chapter bug of course. But if your source audio is AC3 and you use AC3Enc.bat to convert the source AC3 audio to another AC3 audio file with a different bitrate, then you might get this issue.

A sure way to avoid the AC3Enc "chapter bug" is to use the BatchMux plugin by Sir Didymus for muxing and authoring. This is highly recommended, because Mplex has many issues which could lead to stuttering when playing the resulting DVD.

Cheers
manolito

[lordkinbote]

Hi guys,

I've never gotten this to work for me. I use D2SRoba and when it's running BeSweet on the audio the first time, D2SRoba just keeps going and starts up CCE. Goes right into the video encoding before BeSweet is finished and then after it finishes, the second BeSweet window opens listing Aften in it, saying:
---------------------------------------------
Aften: A/52 audio encoder
Version SVN
(c) 2006-2007 Justin Ruggles, Prakash Punnoor, et al.

input format: Signed 16-bit 48000 Hz 5.1 Channel
output format: 48000 Hz 3/2 + LFE

[00:00:00:096] transcoding...

--------------------------------------
and it just hangs there. D2S keeps going with encoding the video and it finishes with that Aften BeSweet window still hanging. I was trying to use the D2S_CCE2.70 plugin so that I could do PAL2NTSC conversion while keeping AC3 sound but the resulting MPlex_Muxed_File00.mpg only comes out to 12kb.

It would not surprise me if I didn't set up something correctly but I've read over and over the Readme files of all the plugins and don't see what I might've done wrong. Anyone have any clues?

[manolito]

Hi lordkinbote,

you just might have discovered an issue with the specific build of Aften.exe which is included in Nick's archive. I tried to reproduce your task, and a couple of times (not every time) Aften would not close itself. Replacing this build of Aften with the stable version 0.6 or with the latest build 484 took care of this problem on my computer.

You can download these builds here:
http://kurtnoise.free.fr/index.php?dir=Aften/

Please let us know if this works for you.


The other things you mention are "not bugs, but features". When you select 6ch AC3 output, Besweet has to be called twice, and the only way to make this work is to call Besweet with the "Start" prefix for the second run. This will result in having the audio encoder and the video encoder run simultaneously. Maybe not too elegant, but it works.

Getting a 12 kb "MPlex_Muxed_File00.mpg" is also normal if you use BatchMux. This is just a dummy file which DVD2SVCD needs to continue. Muxman does the muxing and authoring in one step, so you will not get a muxed MPEG file at all. All you get is the final "VIDEO_TS" folder.

Cheers
manolito

[lordkinbote]

Thanks, Manolito!

I'll give the new Aften a try right now.

But, the Muxman thing might be a problem because i like to author my mpegs myself. I like to put 4 mpegs from converted AVIs on one DVD with menus and such. Perhaps I can just use the finished audio files and finished video files in my authoring, but if they were muxed, I could see if there were any sync issues.

Do you have any suggestions for other ways to convert PAL AVI to NTSC with keeping the AC3 sound? I'd been converting with the method stated in the forums to use D2SRoba in SVCD mode which uses an altered version of the BeSweetLater.bat and a small created pal2ntsc.avs file. It only give stereo audio though which is why I was looking for another alternative. As you may be able to tell, the resulting MPEG for me does not need to be DVD compliant since although I use D2SRoba in SVCD mode, I put the max bitrate to 8000 so I can specify the CD size of the mpeg I want.

EDIT: Okay, the new version of Aften didn't work for me either. I guess for now I will just stick with my PAL to NTSC conversions having stereo sound.

[jolson]

Another thing:

I have used D2SRoBa/DVD2SVCD several times to convert standard AVI files with AC3 audio to DVD, and it works good.

If the source isn't a standard AVI, I have used GraphEdit/avs scripts and "AviSynth frameserved" to the MPEG2 encoder. But then it's a lot of manual work left, which DVD2SVCD does so well...

So - is there a way to use DVD2SVCD even if the source isn't an XviD/DivX AVI (but something that's playable in GraphEdit/DirectShowSource'able to Avisynth)? I can think of a couple of possibilities:

* Extract the AC3 audio and encode the m2v file, set up DVD2SVCD as if this was just done using DVD2SVCD and then do "Recover Pulldown".

* Fool DVD2SVCD into thinking it really gets an AVI file by frameserving through VFAPI.

I have however no experience with either of these methods, and from what I understand frameserving with AviSynth to DVD2SVCD doesn't work.

Any help/ideas?

[Nick]

I use the VFAPI method very succesfully.
It's slow as hell though.

Open a new thread if you can't get it to work - we're veering off topic here.

[Nick]

New build

-Updated to Aften 0.07 (wisodev's build)
-Updated bsn.dll (13/5/07 version) - fixes 2h4min length limit for 5.1 conversions.
-Added "-readtoeof 1" to the MPEG51 Atfen commandline to help with the long files issue
-Fixed the untidy 5.1 encoding where it ran concurrently with video encoding.
-Compiled the scripts to executables
-Added an installer which (hopefully) installs all the files to the correct places and updates dvd2svcd.ini to change the paths for BeSweet and MPEG51. executables.
-No longer produces the lengthy and useless MPEG51_log.txt file.
-AC3_DVDAuthor.bat becomes DVDAuthor.exe and the real DVDAuthor.exe is renamed DVDA.exe. The rationale for this is if you previously used DVDAuthor, it now uses the plugin, if you used AC3_DVDAuthor, the installer corrects the ini file to use the plugin, whereas if the DVDAuthor executable is set to anything else, it remains that way. Thus things such as the BatchMux plugin are unaffected by the installation of this plugin.

http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/AC3EncSetup.exe

[manolito]

Great!
Just did a couple of tests with the new version, installation and encoding worked perfectly all the time. A big THANK YOU

Cheers
manolito

[bionic]

Testing as i post, so far so good, A big thank you from me too.
Simply excellent :)

[ChickenMan]

Same as Manolito and Bionic, working well here also :) Keep up the good work Nick :)

Just out of curiosity, what version of aften 0.07 is included, just the MMX version or SSE, SSE2 or SSE3 ?

[manolito]

Just out of curiosity, what version of aften 0.07 is included, just the MMX version or SSE, SSE2 or SSE3 ?
Neither one, it is the "PGO" version which is not even optimized for MMX (but is the most compatible version). Have a look here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=998384#post998384
But of course you can download an optimized build from Wisodev which fits your CPU better :)

Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

Oops.
Slight oversight on my part.
The option to uninstall previous versions also deletes the AC3Enc.dll which was part of the BeSweet package, not the plugin.

I have fixed this issue and uploaded the file to my webspace overwriting the old file, so subsequent downloads will not be affected.

At any rate, the advent of Aften has rendered the old ac3enc.dll pretty much obsolete, but if you've downloaded the plugin installer already, ac3enc.dll is gone and you want it back download it here
http://dspguru.notrace.dk/BS_ac3enc.zip

[bionic]

Cool, thanks didnt even notice :)

[Nick]

More major oversight on my part.
Bundled the wrong version of MPEG51 executable. The long files issue therefore returned for 5.1 to 5.1 conversions.
Not sure how I managed that but thanks to Manolito for the spot.
Now corrected but will require redownload and reinstall.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

EDIT - Manolito also mentioned some virus scanners seem to flag the plugin executables as suspicious. Not sure why this would be as they are just the original batch scripts run through a compiler. If people find this causes problems I'll just return to batch files.

EDIT AGAIN - had further reports of virus scanner problems. Returned to batch files. The installer has been changed to undo any changes made by previous versions and delete the executables. As for DVDAuthor, this returns to its original name and the file AC3_DVDAuthor.bat is used instead. The installer now checks for presence of the Batchmux plugin, and in its absence changes the configuration to use the batch file.

http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/AC3EncSetup.exe

[bionic]

Yeah kav, avg, bitdefender and others, attached is a screenshot of a virustotal scan of the new ac3 dvdauthor.exe
Im betting upx is the "culprit".


And thanks :)

Edit: I see you have already reverted to .bats. Considering the popularity of the antivrius engines reacting to upx i absolutely see the point, but wouldnt perhaps a note in the readme suffice, doesnt matter really.. i just kinda liked the exe versions :)

[manolito]

Just FYI:
Kurtnoise just came out with a new compile of Aften 0.07 rev 511. Works beautifully with this plugin...
Get it here: http://kurtnoise.free.fr/index.php?dir=Aften/&file=aften_rev511.zip

Cheers
manolito

[ChickenMan]

Its now revision 512 :) http://kurtnoise.free.fr/index.php?dir=Aften/

[Nick]

Has anyone with a dual core CPU tested this? I'm still on single core and there has been talk of issues w/ Kurtnoise's builds of 0.7 with multicore setups.

[ChickenMan]

I run an Intel E660 dual core and just did an avi2dvd run with your latest as in post #47 above. All ran fine and final audio appears fine but have not played the whole dvd yet.

Have now upped to the latest 512 build as above and will soon run that as well.

Also, what "..talk of issues w/ Kurtnoise's builds.." has been the main issues raised?

[Nick]

I run an Intel E660 dual core and just did an avi2dvd run with your latest as in post #47 above. All ran fine and final audio appears fine but have not played the whole dvd yet.

Have now upped to the latest 512 build as above and will soon run that as well.

Also, what "..talk of issues w/ Kurtnoise's builds.." has been the main issues raised?

From
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1006422#post1006422
It seems Kurtnoise's builds can crash on dual core CPU's. So if your conversion completed, clearly no crash but with stability a concern I shall retain wisodev's build for now.

[ChickenMan]

One small issue I have found today. An AVI 23.976 fps with ac3. The AC3 is extracted fine with an Extracted_audio_1.ac3. However, since there was no audio offset, there is now no Encoded_audio_1.ac3 generated. Natively, D2S always produced this Encoded_audio_1.ac3 file. Since this file doesn't exist, then authoring doesnt happen with the Muxman setup as its looking for an Encoded_audio_1.ac3.

So I'm not sure if this belongs in the AC3 thread or the Muxman thread.

Any thoughts?

[Sir Didymus]

One small issue I have found today...
Since this file doesn't exist, then authoring doesnt happen with the Muxman setup as its looking for an Encoded_audio_1.ac3.

So I'm not sure if this belongs in the AC3 thread or the Muxman thread.
Any thoughts?

In order to be sure on the matter the simplest way is to completely remove the authoring plugin (replacing the three hack.exe components with their original counterparts - Mplex, Dvdauthor and Spumux) and see what happens. If the authoring completes properly then I would say your trouble is in the domain of BatchMux...

However, I am someway doubtful about: in the BatchMux plugin the parameters (names of the audio and video files) needed for authoring are extracted from the c/l arguments passed to Mplex_hack. In case of need it is possible to include a check in the code for looking at the "Extracted..." files when the expected "Encoded..." are not there.

I am not completely happy about this possibility, since it may introduce mutual dependencies between the audio and the authoring plugins, which is not very clean as a solution...

In the ideal case, the condition to achieve would be to provide DVD2SVCD to have available the audio file(s), with the proper filename(s), if it expects to have produced such asset(s)...

@Nick. Please tell me if you think some adaptations to Mplex_hack may be useful. I will be in any case very happy to provide whatever support or contribution on the matter...

Cheers,
SD

[Nick]

@ Chickenman
Could you clarify what you are doing? I have a few questions.

- Are you using "keep source audio" on your AVI but the AC3 plugin is not producing an Encoded Audio file, or are you re-encoding the AVI's AC3 to a different bitrate?

- If you return to BeSweet for the audio instead of AC3Enc, is the Encoded_audio file generated?

-Is there an Encoded_Audio_1.log file generated when you use the AC3Enc plugin, and if so, will you post it?

@Sir Didymus
At the moment this sounds like my problem rather than yours. It may transpire it's easier for you to fix at the muxing end but what we need is mutual operability of plugins, not mutual dependency so, when Chickenman clarifies the issue he's found I'll have a look and we'll take it from there.

[manolito]

However, since there was no audio offset, there is now no Encoded_audio_1.ac3 generated. Natively, D2S always produced this Encoded_audio_1.ac3 file.

While Chickenman is probably sleeping, here's my two cents:

I think that Chickenman's statement that D2S always produces this "Encoded_audio1.ac3" file is not correct. If the audio has no offset then this file will NOT be produced by D2S.

Chickenman must have checked "Keep source audio". In this case DVD2SVCD can behave in two different ways. If the "Extracted_audio1.ac3" file has an offset, D2S will call Besweet just to correct this offset (no reencoding). The corrected file will be called "Encoded_audio1.ac3" in this case. The muxing commandline will have the correct audio file name.

If on the other hand no audio offset is detected, then D2S will not touch the extracted audio file. But D2S is smart enough to know when it comes to muxing that the audio parameter is now "Extracted_audio1.ac3".

To me it looks like both BatchMux and the AC3Enc plugin are innocent. As Sir Didymus already pointed out, Batchmux will use whatever audio file name is issued by D2S for the muxing command. And the AC3Enc plugin only gets called if audio reencoding is checked. In in this case the encoded audio file will always have the name "Encoded_audio1.mp2" (not .ac3).

Maybe an error related to resuming?

Cheers
manolito

[manolito]

And the AC3Enc plugin only gets called if audio reencoding is checked.
I have to correct myself here. Of course the Ac3Enc plugin is also called if "Keep source audio" is selected AND the extracted audio file has a delay which D2S corrects by calling Besweet.

But I just ran a couple of test encodes, and I can confirm that in this case the AC3enc7.bat also handles the situation correctly. The batch file calls Besweet with exactly the same parameters which are issued by D2S.

I also tested the other possible situations (Keep source audio checked and not checked, Extracted_audio1.ac3 with and without offset and combinations of the two), and I could not break anything.

My source was a short DVD chapter (I have no AVIs with AC3 audio), but what can be different for an AVI source?

Cheers
manolito

[ChickenMan]

Good morning everyone :)

Well manolito pretty well summed up what I did :) but further investigation this morning I found the problem, a combination of Nicks and mine.

There was an offset to the ac3 audio, BeSweet was called but was unable to find the ac3enc.dll that one of Nicks early aften installers took out by mistake and I had not replaced it. So BeSweet failed to produce the Encoded_audio_1.ac3 while D2S assumed that it had been and passed on what it thought were the correct commands to Muxman, which then fail due to missing file.

I added the ac3enc.dll to BeSweet folder and all is working fine. It appears when "Do not convert audio" is checked, D2S calls directly to BeSweet which then uses ac3enc and not aften.

EDIT: Also the link to ac3enc.dll Nick had given above is to the original ac3enc.dll v1.0 with all its compatibility and volume problems. The later ac3enc.dll v1.20 based on ffmpeg code is really preferred and is in the BeSweet 1.5b31 beta package from http://dspguru.doom9.net/

[Nick]

OK. Well, exe's are back :)
I couldn't find a cheap or freeware batch file compiler that both worked and didn't cause virus alerts. Rather than shell out for a $200 developers licence for ExeScript, I've dusted down my programming skills (BASIC > 20yrs ago, TurboPascal only 15 years ago but I can't remember any!)

A couple of minor changes in the new versions:
-Now written in FreeBASIC instead of batch script
-AC3_DVDAuthor now picks out movie length from the project file and only creates chapters up to the correct length.
-Sed.exe no longer necessary and so no longer bundled
-icon redesigned due to the old one having something resembling the DVD-Video logo in it, which it was pointed out to me could be infringing IP rights of the DVD Alliance.

The downside is I am now busy for a few weeks, so bugfixes are unlikely. I have lightly but not exhaustively tested but decided to inflict them on you to test if you wish, at your own risk. As there will probably be some issues, I suggest that you decline to uninstall previous versions during installation and I will continue for the forseeable to host the batch versions as backup. I am also hosting the BASIC source scripts for anyone interested in debugging themselves.

http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/AC3ExeSetup.exe -exe
http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/AC3EncSetup.exe -batch
http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ac3enc8.zip -sources

[bionic]

Cool, thanks :)
Only done a few tests with the exe versions and short clips, so far so good :)

[manolito]

Thanks Nick for the "Exefication"!

I had no time to test the new version yet (just returned from a motorcycle trip to Greece, highly recommended), but going over the sources I think there might be a problem when CCE 2.70 is used.
-AC3_DVDAuthor now picks out movie length from the project file and only creates chapters up to the correct length.
D2S cannot determine the movie length from the ECL file created by CCE 2.70, so the movie length will be 00:00:00 in the project file.

There is a workaround (which is used by the BatchMux plugin): The number of encoded frames and the frame rate can both be extracted from the project file. This way the movie length can be calculated by dividing the number of frames by the frame rate.

Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

Just done a few tests with CCE 2.70 and you are right.
Unfortunately, in my D2S Project file, both Length and Frames have a value of zero :confused:

Maybe there is somewhere else in the ini files etc that frames are shown but I cannot find it.

I think the simplest workaround for now is to just insert a line at line 50 of AC3_DVDAuthor.bas

IF mlength=0 then mlength=20000

Then if movie length is detected as zero it makes it 5½ hours, similar to what the batch file does. Even with 10 second chapters, it generated the new DVDAuthor.xml in less than 3 seconds on my machine!

Your frames/framerate solution is of course more elegant if the number of frames is reliably stored somewhere, but for AVI's at least, the Frames entry in the project file has a value of zero. If you can direct me where I should be looking, I'll code your suggestion (at some point), otherwise I'll insert the line as above, recompile and upload.

Cheers
Nick

[manolito]

I also just finished some tests with the same results.

But the workaround is pretty easy (I know because Sir Didymus used my suggestion for his BatchMux plugin).

You can extract the frame rate from the D2S project file, and the number of encoded frames is present in the ECL file. I do not recall the exact names for the relevant parameters, but there are entries for the first and the last encoded frames. In our scenario the first encoded frame is always 0, so the entry for the last encoded frame is our total frame count (Sir Didymus added +1 to this number for some reason).

This method should work for NTSC also, no matter if it is film with pulldown or pure video.

Cheers
manolito

[Sir Didymus]

Yes, I confirm the concept outlined by manolito works pretty well... :)

If it can be useful, the segment of code to extract the movie frames from the ecl file is as follow (in Mplex_hack - written in c -, after many other consistency checks...):


// checking the presence of CCE_Project_file.ecl
strcpy(TmpStr, CCEFolder);
strcat(TmpStr,"\\CCE_Project_file.ecl");

in=fopen(TmpStr,"r");

if (in==NULL)
{
fprintf (stderr,"Mplex_hack: Error opening file %s\n",TmpStr);
exit(1);
}

// looking for the lines
// encode_first=xx and encode_last=yy

while (fgets(TmpStr, 256, in)!=NULL)
{
if (strncmp(TmpStr,"encode_first=",13)==0)
{
sscanf(TmpStr,"encode_first=%I64d", &encode_first);
} else if (strncmp(TmpStr,"encode_last=",12)==0)
{
sscanf(TmpStr,"encode_last=%I64d", &encode_last);
}
}

fclose(in);

fprintf(stdout, "CCE encode_first parameter --> %I64d\n", encode_first);
fprintf(stdout, "CCE encode_last parameter --> %I64d\n", encode_last);

if (encode_first>=encode_last)
{
fprintf (stderr,"Mplex_hack: CCE parameters inconsistence\n");
exit(1);
}

// return the encoded MovieFrames parameter
return (encode_last-encode_first+1);



As you can see the program should look for the lines

encode_first=
encode_last=

to get the frame values.

The reason for adding 1 to the difference is that the above values are frame indexes...

For example in a a situation where:

encode_first=0
encode_last=999

then it seems to me the length returned should be 1000, not 999. I am right ?

As discussed in the thread of BatchMux, in case pulldown is applied, the scaling --> length * 5 / 4 should be applied in order to obtain the right number of presentation frames from the encoded frames.

Cheers,
SD

[manolito]

As discussed in the thread of BatchMux, in case pulldown is applied, the scaling --> length * 5 / 4 should be applied in order to obtain the right number of presentation frames from the encoded frames.
Is this step really required in this case? All we need here is the playing time of the movie in seconds. For film with pulldown this means

Encoded_Frames / 23.976

and for NTSC video it would be

Encoded_Frames / 29.97

Since the number of encoded frames is higher by a factor of 1.25 for video compared to film, the result of the division will be exactly the same. Or is my logic all wrong?

Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

Yeah, we only need length in seconds, to the nearest second.
So there's no need for being exact to the frame. Also, I agree with manolito, there is no need to know the number of presented frames as chapters are passed to DVDAuthor in hh:mm:ss, not frames.

I just tried a quick implementation of the planned approach but it didn't work. I might get chance for a look over the weekend but if not, I'll go with the cruddy workaround for now and debug the more elegant solution when I get time.

[Sir Didymus]

@manolito...
Yes... It's evident you are right...

The point is that if you want to recover the play time (in seconds or in terms of presentation frames) you need to know in avance if pulldown should be applied or not to the encoded video...

In alternative you should know (for NTSC sources) if the framerate is 24,976 or 29,97...

I just wanted to point out that if you simply assume 29,97 for all NTSC clips, you may go off by a factor of 1.25...

[Nick]

OK, seems to work now.
http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/update.zip
just the new DVDAuthor file for now. Copy to your DVDAuthor folder in the DVD2SVCD installation directory.

Also included - the FreeBASIC script file.
The changes are that it now checks before generating the xml file for DVD Author, whether movie length has been detected as zero.
If so, it runs a new subroutine called "contingency"

This checks the ecl file for start and end frames, and obtains the framerate from the d2s project file.

Movie length in seconds = (end frame - start frame) / fps
expressed as an integer.

It then checks again if movie length = 0 - this could only happen AFAIK if CCE 2.7 is used but the ecl file has been deleted, or if another unsupported encoder is used. If it is 0, it sets it to 20000 (about 5h30m) and then generates the xml.

Subject to it working for everyone else, I'll recompile the installer this week sometime and upload it.

[manolito]

Just did a quick test with a PAL Avi using CCE 2.70 and fixed chapters. Works beautifully...:)

Will do NTSC tests ASAP


OT: Kurtnoise just uploaded a new Aften Build rev531. This build does NOT work with AC3Enc.


Cheers
manolito

[manolito]

NTSC tests:

I used two NTSC XviD Avi files, one @ 29.97 fps (no pulldown) and one @ 23.976 fps (pulldown). The clips both had a length of 2min 01sec. Fixed chapters every 20 sec were selected. CCE 2.70 was my encoder.

Results:
In both cases the DVDAuthor.xml file showed the correct number of chapters up to 2min. No problems whatsoever...:)

Cheers
manolito

[manolito]

Both Kurtnoise and Wisodev just have issued new builds of Aften.

Wisodev's build 561 (VS2005) does NOT work with Nick's AC3Enc plugin, but the version from Kurtnoise DOES. And on my machine this is also the fastest version of Aften I have come across so far.

Cheers
manolito

[wisodev]

Both Kurtnoise and Wisodev just have issued new builds of Aften.

Wisodev's build 561 (VS2005) does NOT work with Nick's AC3Enc plugin, but the version from Kurtnoise DOES. And on my machine this is also the fastest version of Aften I have come across so far.

Cheers
manolito

I have switched to new build system and my new binaries have by default enabled Multi-Threading and all SIMD optimizations (MMX,SSE,SSE2,SSE3). To be sure that aften runs on older hardware you can change command-line to something like this:

aften.exe -threads 1 -nosimd mmx,sse,sse2,sse3 your_file.wav your_file.ac3
Note: you can also disable only part of optimizations by changing for example -nosimd mmx,sse,sse2,sse3 to -nosimd mmx.

[manolito]

Hi Wieslaw,

I just downloaded and tried your latest build with Nick's AC3Enc plugin, but it still does not work on my machine.

The objective of the plugin is to work with ANY CPU without modifying the command line. The plugin calls Aften with this command line:
BeSweet.exe -core( -input I:\Movies\Extracted_audio_1.wav -output I:\Movies\Encoded_audio_1.mp2 -logfile I:\Movies\Encoded_audio_1.log ) -ota( -g max ) -shibatch( --rate 48000) -bsn( -exe aften.exe -b 384 )
It uses the modified BSN.DLL by Kurtnoise to make BeSweet compatible with Aften.

My CPU is an older Intel Celeron Coppermine which supports only MMX and SSE (no SSE2 or SSE3). When I use the latest Aften build by Kurtnoise the log file correctly says "SIMD: MMX SSE, Threads: 1", and the encode works. With your latest build I get "SIMD MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3, Threads: 1", and the encoder hangs at this point.

So it looks like Kurtnoise detects the CPU capability while your build just assumes that the CPU is capable to support all optimizations, and if the CPU does not then you have to alter the command line accordingly. But I think that changing the command line depending on the CPU is not an option for Nick's plugin. The command line issued by the plugin should just work for ANY CPU.

Cheers
manolito

[manolito]

New Aften Version 0.0.8 is out.

Again Wisodev's build hangs on my machine (MMX and SSE1 only), but the Kurtnoise build detects the CPU capabilities correctly and works perfectly here.

Cheers
manolito

[manolito]

While I tested if the latest Aften 0.0.8 (Kurtnoise build) still worked correctly in 5.1 mode for a movie longer than 2 hours (it does work perfectly), I made this interesting observation:

Using the batch version of the plugin is significantly faster on my machine than using the EXE version. For a 2 and a half hour movie in 6ch AC3 to 6ch AC3 mode the EXE plugin needed 58 minutes (62 minutes for the included Aften 0.0.7), while the batch version only took 44 minutes (49 minutes with Aften 0.0.7).

The better performance of Aften 0.0.8 compared to 0.0.7 is in the exspected range (MMX + SSE1 optimization vs. no optimization), but I absolutely have no clue why using FreeBasic should slow down Aften this much.

Any ideas?

Cheers
manolito


P.S. The download links in the very first post of this thread both point to the the same file (batch version). Can you correct this?

[Nick]

Links corrected.
No idea whatsoever why the exe versions should be slower at all - for the DVDAuthor aspect I found the exe version significantly faster.

I can't say I've done time trials of really long files. I'll do some test runs when I get a minute (wednesday probably) and see if your results are repeatable here.

Thanks for the heads up anyway. I'll look into this.

[manolito]

After trying to analyze task manager information for both plugin versions it looks like memory usage is the reason for the performance difference on my machine (I only have 512 MB of RAM).

Here are the relevant numbers:

Batch version:
CPU usage Memory
BeSweet 40% 3116
Aften 50% 1304
DVD2SVCD 0% 9788


EXE version:
CPU usage Memory
BeSweet 40% 1208
Aften 50% 1064
DVD2SVCD 2% 15088
MPEG51.exe 0% 56


The interesting part is the memory usage of DVD2SVCD. On a machine with more RAM this might not make much of a difference, but on my computer it certainly does.

Cheers
manolito

[wisodev]

New Aften Version 0.0.8 is out.

Again Wisodev's build hangs on my machine (MMX and SSE1 only), but the Kurtnoise build detects the CPU capabilities correctly and works perfectly here.

Cheers
manolito

New build (http://win32builds.sourceforge.net/aften/index.html) should fix the issues you had with my binaries (download VERSION 0.0.8 UPDATED (http://win32builds.sourceforge.net/aften/index.html)).

[Nick]

OK. Finally got round to updating this.

New version (same links in original post) differs as follows:

1) Aften version updated to 0.0.8 (and not before time). I still can't get wisodev's build to integrate properly with my plugin so I've gone with Kurtnoise's build.

2) Bug in the installer fixed. Deinstallation of older versions did not clean up all the old files. Now it does.

3) Delay in rofile.bat shortened. This aspect of the plugin write-protects the converted audio file in 5.1 mode for a few seconds when video encoding begins, otherwise DVD2SVCD inexplicably deletes it. The arbitrary time I chose of 20 seconds interferes with the HCEnc plugin of manolito's. Delay now 3 seconds which seems long enough to stop deletion but allow the HC plugin to function correctly.

[bionic]

Thanks Nick, much appreciated :)

[manolito]

Thank you Nick,

just one question: The new EXE build still has the older AC3_DVDAuthor.exe in it, not the update from this post http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1024764#post1024764
Oversight or did you find any issues with the updated version?

Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

Oversight!

I haven't looked at this for a while and, thinking the last build would be the last for at least a while, I left the project files in something of organised choas. When I returned to it some months later, I had forgotten the organisation and was just left with the chaos!

It should now be fixed.

[Nick]

Slight update.
A typo in the AC3Enc8 FreeBASIC script (missing open-bracket, line 23) led to failure with exe's and frame selection.

Fixed.

Link as per opening post in the thread.

[bionic]

Thanks man :)

[ChickenMan]

Nice :)

[rip-in-peace]

Hi All

Been a "silent" visitor to this forum for quite a while and have been using DVD2SVCD for some time. (a killer app for me)

Have read through the posts on this thread but I'm a little confused... thread states "using this app for DVD output with ac3 audio" - that's simple enough with an extra prog. Whats the input format you are having trouble with?
V1.1.3.B2 rocks for me.

RIP

[manolito]

Hi RIP,
since Nick seems to be unavailable, I will try my best to answer your questions. :)
thread states "using this app for DVD output with ac3 audio" - that's simple enough with an extra prog
I´m not sure that I understand what you are really asking.

Without Nick´s plugin DVD2SVCD cannot create DVD output with AC3 audio unless your source already has AC3 audio and you tick "Do not convert audio". If your source audio is PCM or MP3 then DVD2SVCD can only convert it to MPEG (MP2).

This is acceptable for a PAL DVD, but for NTSC the specs say that a DVD with only MPEG audio is not DVD compliant, you need at least one AC3 track. Well, most NTSC standalone players will play a DVD with just MPEG audio, but it never hurts to comply to the standards.


Cheers
manolito

[ChickenMan]

I've just upgraded to Windows 7 (32bit) and having trouble to get AC3Enc8.exe to run in DVD2SVCD. I am trying to convert an avi with mp3 audio, same one converted fine in XP. It extracts okay, converts to WAV okay, but as soon as Ac3enc8 starts, it instantly shuts down and no Encoded_audio_1.mp2 is ever produced, not even a 0kb length file. I have changed compatibility to XP SP3 for all exe files in my BeSweet folder, same problem. I have tried many avis (xvid with mp3) and all experience the same problem.

If the avi has ac3 audio, ac3enc8 stays fired up and an Encoded_audio_1.ac3 is produced as per normal.

I can run Aften.exe manually with no problem. BeSweet runs manually also no probs.

Anyone else seen or have this problem, or better still a solution ? Thanks.

Edit:
This is my Encoded_audio_1.log file --

BeSweet v1.5b31 by DSPguru.
--------------------------
Using Shibatch.dll v0.25 by Naoki Shibata & DSPguru (shibatch.sourceforge.net).
Using bsn.dll v0.24 by DPeshev,Richard,E-Male,DSPguru (DSPguru.Doom9.org).

Logging start : 01/20/10 , 09:20:33.

BeSweet.exe -core( -input K:\TEMP02\Encoded_audio_1.mp2.wav -output K:\TEMP02\Encoded_audio_1.mp2 -logfile K:\TEMP02\Encoded_audio_1.log ) -ota( -g max ) -shibatch( --rate 48000) -bsn( -exe aften.exe -b 224 )

[00:00:00:000] +------- BeSweet -----
[00:00:00:000] | Input : K:\TEMP02\Encoded_audio_1.mp2.wav
[00:00:00:000] | Output: K:\TEMP02\Encoded_audio_1.mp2
[00:00:00:000] | Floating-Point Process: No
Error 84: error configuring bsn!
Quiting...
[00:00:00:000] Conversion Completed !

Logging ends : 01/20/10 , 09:20:33.

[ChickenMan]

I installed AC3EncSetup.exe (downed from the first post of this thread) and it installed AC3Enc7.bat ( and deleted my AC3Enc8.exe :( ). Only run one trial avi through but it seams to work just fine, just a lot lot slower than what I'm used to with AC3Enc8.bat. But hey, if it continues to work, speed is not a real issues.

[manolito]

Hi ChickenMan,

looks like FreeBasic has an issue with Win7 :confused:

First thing I suspected after reading your log was BSN.DLL and Win7 might not get along...
Error 84: error configuring bsn!
But this cannot be true if the AC3Enc7 (bat) package works, because it uses the same version of bsn.dll as the AC3Enc8 (exe) package.

Otherwise (except for speed) the two versions work identically. We should ask Nick if he already has Win7 installed, and if he can reproduce the error. Another reason for me to stick with XP for the time being...:p


Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

Managed to miss the 2010 updates to this, so sorry for the late response!

I don't have Windows 7 installed - indeed I haven't had any version of Windows installed for some 2 years now! Which I guess means this one is a dead project.
I have uploaded AC3Enc8.bat to my webspace so you can update manually:
http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/AC3Enc8bat.zip
Just extract to the BeSweet folder and set the path in the BeSweet tab of DVD2SVCD to use it.

The installer was made using Nullsoft Scriptable Install System, which doesn't seem to work from Linux. I can provide the script and the files required to build an installer for the batch files if anyone is so mindful. Indeed I will happily make all the files available to anyone who wishes to seize the reins on this project.

Can't find anything on the FreeBASIC forums to explain any issues with Windows 7 and certainly FreeBASIC itself has not seen an update since 2008. So there wouldn't be anything I could do about it anyway.

[ChickenMan]

Good to see you again Nick :) I have been using AC3Enc7.bat very successfully since my last post but will give AC3Enc8.bat a go.

Though the one problem any version of AC3Enc has been unable to do, is convert a mono mp3 (within an AVI) through to a mono or stereo AC3. The result is always twice the original length and drawn out. I've lived with it now for so long, I suppose I can continue to do so.

[Nick]

Hmm. Might get chance to have a look at that sometime. Otherwise I guess use something like Avidemux to convert the audio to stereo first.

BeSweet runs under Linux using Wine, so if you were to upload a short extracted mp3 file to somewhere line Mediafire.com, I could take a look and see if there is an easy fix. Sadly DVD2SVCD doesn't run so I can't really do that much testing. Since Avisynth, HC, Batchmux and the 0.15R revision of Muxman all run under Wine and Aften is native to Linux anyway, I just have a simple shell script to automate my DVD encodes.

Remind me what happens with a mono mp3 file - does MadPlay run to convert it to a wav file? If so is the wav file correct? And can you convert to mono mp2 if you don't use the plugin?

[ChickenMan]

Yes, MADPLAY converts the extracted mono mpa file to a mono WAV file just fine. I then manually load the mono WAV file into Goldwave, convert to Stereo, normalize, sample to 48kHz if needed and save back out as a WAV. I then use WAV to AC3 Encoder v0.9 to convert to ac3 (it uses Aften for the conversion). Then rename the out put to Encoded_audio_1.mp2. I do this while dvd2svcd is running and encoding the video and when thats done and authoring starts, it sees the correct named audio file and authors to a dvd and all is well.
So the problem lies with the BeSweet stage.

[Nick]

OK. So the next question is whether it works without the plugin.
If BeSweet creates a duff mp2 file when the plugin isn't used, then it will always produce a duff ac3 file when it is. All the plugin does is parse the BeSweet commandline and rewrite it to use Aften instead of 2Lame as the encoder.

If on the other hand, mp2 audio works fine then there it is an issue directly connected to the plugin and therefore can be resolved.

[ChickenMan]

Okay, just did a couple of test runs. AVI is an xvid 1hr 40min long with mono mp3 (87bit/s and 48khz). D2S with audio set to use BeSweet.exe (the one bundelled with D2S) it extracts and MAdplay converts to mono WAV. Then BeSweet converts to a mp2 file STEREO and 1hr 40min long, so all good, just mp2 not ac3. Changed Audio to use AC3Enc8.bat, ran same file, and now get an ac3 file, stereo but 3hr 20min long and speech sound ssttrreettcchheed oouutt. Thats exactly twice the length of the original.

[manolito]

Hi Nick and Chickenman,

good to see you guys again...:)

For sources with mono audio DVD2SCVD always threw up IMO. This has nothing to do with the AC3Enc Plugin. Here is Nick's own quote from the DVD2SVCD stickies:
If your AVI has mono audio, it will not convert properly in DVD2SVCD - the output will be double speed and sound very high pitched. If this is the case (VDubMod File menu > File information will tell you), then go into Streams menu > Streams list and right-click on the audio stream. Select "Full Processing mode" from the menu that appears. Now right click again and choose Conversion. In the window that opens, select Stereo under the "Channels" heading and click OK. Save the AVI as instructed above and it should now work.

I also just checked the differences between AC3Enc7.bat and AC3Enc8.bat. Only 2 significant changes:

In AC3Enc7.bat BeSweet is called with the "Start /w /min" parameter, while AC3Enc8.bat calls BeSweet directly. On my Win XP SP3 system this does not make a difference.

For 5.1 output AC3Enc8.bat now saves the parameters to the file "fiveone.txt" instead of "fiveone.ini". This seems to be a bug since MPEG51(4).bat expects "fiveone.ini" as its input.


Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

???

My copy of MPEG51(4).bat says fiveone.txt

I think I need to sort out my files.
Obviously manual editing of either/or will fix that bug in the short term.

[ChickenMan]

Hi Manolito, good to see you to :)


In AC3Enc7.bat BeSweet is called with the "Start /w /min" parameter, while AC3Enc8.bat calls BeSweet directly. On my Win XP SP3 system this does not make a difference.
Arr... its the other way around

For sources with mono audio DVD2SCVD always threw up IMO.
Its never been a problem when converting to mp2 as per original D2S and just using the BeSweet.exe, its only since using the ac3 pluggin (of all versions) that the conversion of mono audio takes a dive. I ran a small test yesterday and confirmed mono converts to stereo mp2 correctly using BeSweet.exe for audio conversion.

[manolito]

Arr... its the other way around
Oops, sorry....:eek:

[Nick]

This might work for ChickenMan's problem with mono audio:

Create a madplay.bat file as follows

madplay.exe -S %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 %10 %11 %12 %13 %14 %15 %16 %17 %18 %19 %20

Save it to the same folder as madplay.exe and set DVD2SVCD to use it.

This will simply force the -S switch and pass on all DVD2SVCD's other commandline parameters to Madplay, thus always creating a stereo wav. This should work in all circumstances as Madplay doesn't run unless audio is mono or stereo - it isn't used for 5.1. A stereo output wav should work with the plugin.

Obviously for reasons previously stated I can't test this but I think the principle is sound.

[manolito]

Right now I cannot test this because I do not have any sources with mono audio. But the madplay.bat file could be a little more simple:
madplay.exe -S %*should do...

Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

(facepalm)

Long while since I've done batch

[ChickenMan]

Fan-bloody-tastic, as we would say here in Oz. It works !!!! Ran same file through and madplay created a STEREO wav this time and therefore a stereo AC3 was produced. Tried it on an avi with stereo mp3 also and that still works fine.

One thing, you have to include the full path to madplay ie. "c:\Program Files\DVD2SVCD\Madplay\madplay.exe" -S %* otherwise you get an error (in the madplay_log.txt) saying madplay.exe is not an internal or external command.

Thanks again guys, you both came through in the hour of need. Many thanks and much appreciated.

[manolito]

What do you think about this generic version of madplay.bat ?

"%~dp0madplay.exe" -S %*

Or, in order to make it more readable:

SET mad_path=%~dp0
"%mad_path%madplay.exe" -S %*


Cheers
manolito

[ChickenMan]

Looks okay to me, but its very late here and I'm off to bed, so will check it out tomorrow. Thanks.

[Nick]

One quick question beforehand - possibly obvious!

Did you save your madplay.bat the the directory with madplay in it? Or did you save it in the BeSweet folder with the other bat files? In which case of course, it wouldn't find madplay.exe without the full path...

[ChickenMan]

I dropped it in the MADPLAY folder as its really got nothing to do with BeSweet.

I also tried manolito's latest amendment and it works fine also. Thanks guys :)

[manolito]

I already mentioned that I did not have a source with mono audio for testing, so I made one...

Captured MJPEG AVI, audio converted to MP3, 64 kbps, mono, 8 bit resolution, 44.1 sample rate. In one word: As incompatible as it gets.

DVD2SVCD took forever to extract the audio, but it did it without errors. The extracted audio had the .mpa extension, but it was MP3. MadPlay was called through madplay.bat (forcing stereo output), and the resulting WAV file was stereo 16 bit 44.1 sample rate. The AC3Enc plugin then converted the sample rate to 48 kHz and changed the bitrate to the specified value.

Conclusion: Perfect! The MadPlay hack deserves a space on Nick's download page.


Cheers
manolito

[Nick]

Great stuff. Seems pretty foolproof.

I shall email all the files to work, where I have access to a Windows machine and rebuild the installers to install the madplay batch file also.

@ChickenMan, As for the exe's, if you want to try to further this project, how about downloading freeBASIC (http://downloads.sourceforge.net/fbc/FreeBASIC-v0.20.0b-win32.exe?download), downloading the sources (http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ac3enc8.zip) and compiling your own executable for AC3Enc8.exe in a Win7 environment. See if that works. Otherwise I'm stumped. As we only have Vista at work I can't do much more.

Any which way I doubt this plugin is in terribly wide use nowadays so if you're happy with the batch files don't worry about it.

[ChickenMan]

Thanks Nick, your right, I'm happy with the bat file as it works, it cant get much better than that. However, I will have a play with FreeBasic when I get some spare time.

[Nick]

OK Here goes:
New build 20/04/2010 FINAL


Fixed: Sources with mono audio now work thanks to madplay.bat solution above. Installer now installs this file and updates the ini files to use it instead of calling madplay.exe directly

Fixed: Better integration with BatchMux plugin - The readme with said plugin suggests you place dvdaut_hack.exe in the DVDAuthor folder but states this isn't mandatory. The installer for AC3Enc plugin did not detect the presence of the plugin if the file was elsewhere. It now should.

Fixed: ChickenMan's issues with Windows 7 32-bit. This seems to be a fluke but I'm not complaining!


Download links in original post now link to latest build.
There are no code changes to the main files so if you already have a working plugin you can update without a full reinstall. Just download http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/madplay.zip
and follow the instructions in the readme.

And that, guys, was that. It's been fun reuniting the AC3Enc plugin dream team one final time but this really is it. I've put this one to bed, tucked in the covers and now I'm leaving her be.

DVD2SVCD hasn't been updated in half a decade and for something that is essentially a GUI for a series of external applications, it is a tribute to how well designed the original project was that it is still even spoken of. Morever, its remaining userbase can hack every phase - audio encoding, video encoding, muxing and authoring - to use different applications from those it was designed for and continue to do so rather than simply using something else! Nevertheless, times move on, things change and from a personal viewpoint, I see no merit in investing any further time on this.

The executables were programmed in FreeBASIC and the installers built with Nullsoft Scriptable Install System. All the source files are contained here
http://nickspage.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/sources.zip
for anyone who ever may wish to do anything else with this.

Be warned though, if you wake her up, when it comes to getting her back down afterwards, you're on your own :)

[ChickenMan]

Thank you Nick for all the above, the mono to stereo bit was the only lasting problem with D2S that I have found, but now fixed :)

I know DVD2SVCD is getting somewhat old now and probably not used by anyone thats new into converting (nor many of us oldies either) as it looks so complicated compared to many other 1 click wonders around. However, there is simply no other converter that is so darn flexible with out of spec input files, use of best encoders, quality ac3 conversions and fully compliant authoring. I have tried just about every avi to dvd converter available, but I just keep coming back to DVD2SVCD.

[manolito]

Could not have said it any better than ChickenMan. As long as I keep converting to DVD output I will certainly keep using DVD2SVCD. IMO nothing else can touch it, and like ChickenMan I tried most other available converters.

Right now I am not ready to make the switch to High Definition, but a friend already asked me if I could help him convert some Blue Ray disks to DVD for watching on his laptop while he is on the road. Well, I don't even have a Blue Ray player, but I am confident that DVD2SVCD will be able to handle this task, too.


Anyway, thanks so much to Nick for his contributions, it has been a lot of fun working with him...:)


Cheers
manolito