HD-DVD to MKV with AC3...

[homerpez]

I'm hitting critical mass here... :confused:

Can someone simply post ONE, STEP-BY-STEP guide that will explain in detail how to demux an HD-DVD, which settings to use, how to graph it out so it can be decoded 100% of the time, then what program to use to encode, and what settings there, and how to properly encode the audio, AND how to multiplex it so both streams are totally in sync???

Everywhere I look on here, there's "too many cooks in the kitchen". 1,000 solutions, but not one that "just works" if followed step-by-step. I for one am getting desperate.

My goal, personally, is to encode h.264 stream for video, ac3 5.1 channel AC3 for audio, muxed into a MKV stream, which then I can play on my PC. I would accept any alternative container if it works better.

I have made it as far as encoding AC3 from the DD+ stream, and encoding the video stream - but not in sync.

PLEASE, can someone just post a STEP-BY-STEP guide, with pictures, that can hopefully put all these questions to rest???

It might also be helpful, if it kind of "branched off"... like, you rip with X program, demux with Y program, and if you want to encode to h264, DO THIS... if you want to encode to WMV HD, DO THIS... It would also help to have a single guide, so this way questions can be phrased as "I'm stuck on number 3" or whatever. This way at a glance we can see which problem is being talked about.

I'm just getting totally frustrated, and I'm one of those people who needs things simplified to the extreme.

:thanks: THANKS! :thanks:

[Kal]

I'm looking for that kind of guide too :helpful:

[pasta03]

I'm looking guide too!!!

[Slowekistan]

guys, as I go through this forum it feels like we are a few mammaluccos on a deserted island hoping for a liner to stop by.

I'm going crazy here. I came upon this HD DVD file (VC-1). I google, google, boards, forums... farken it feels like I downloaded this stuff from another planet... fuck the movie by now. I wasted so much time, that if I was assembling ball pens instead I could have had a High def Ultimate Behemoth bonanza setup already. Fuck it. Now it's personal. Human versus Computer!! I won't stand down!

[Slowekistan]

maybe...

http://hdclips.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2411

[homerpez]

maybe...

http://hdclips.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2411

That seems to be a better start than I've seen "all at once" on this board... but I also noticed it's about 2-3 times as complicated as it needs to be... are they REALLY dumping the whole file into an uncompressed AVI just to get the correct number of frames?

EVODemux does that on a simple read, it shows "Calculated Frames"...

I dunno, I'd post one, but then it would be followed by tons of people saying "oh, no, you shouldn't do it that way" and then 10,000 more people will get confused...

Maybe that's why nobody's posting one. :P

I have had some decent successes, but it's no thanks to any "simple, step-by-step" guide... it's been 3 or 4 weeks of total agony, and having one person say one magical thing that makes it fall into place.

Someday, maybe...

[Slowekistan]

I figured out how to use avsynth and megui to work on a VC-1 stream... however I get stuck at 99.8% first pass... believe that?

[bluesk1d]

A single guide would sure be nice! The problem is there just isn't a single method that works on all the different variables. It'll pretty much take someone combining all the various tools and directshow filters (once they are all ironed out) into one standalone application. I am waiting for that day too! Also the demand to go from HD-DVD into wmv is not nearly as popular as say mkv. Thats going to make it take even longer for us who are wanting to play these on the 360. If only MS would stop forcing WMV down our throats and just support 5.1 channels in AAC or even AC3 with h264 and the like it would make our lives so much easier.

[yazoo]

I've got the video 100% sorted, but having all sorts of troubles muxing the audio to be in sync with the video!!

[bluesk1d]

I've got the video 100% sorted, but having all sorts of troubles muxing the audio to be in sync with the video!!

Fun times. Welcome to HD DVD ripping :p

[diogen]

...If only MS would stop forcing WMV down our throats and just support 5.1 channels in AAC or even AC3...A long time ago (IIRC, around the time WMP9 was released) the question about AC3 support was raised on AVS with MS insiders.
They claimed licensing costs prevent them doing it.
Somebody speculated that it is in the $.5-1 per player (Windows license) range.

Since XBox is MS' closed architecture, I don't think AC3 will ever be supported.

Diogen.

[bluesk1d]

A long time ago (IIRC, around the time WMP9 was released) the question about AC3 support was raised on AVS with MS insiders.
They claimed licensing costs prevent them doing it.
Somebody speculated that it is in the $.5-1 per player (Windows license) range.

Since XBox is MS' closed architecture, I don't think AC3 will ever be supported.

Diogen.

Would a license not be required to convert WMA 5.1 to AC3? That is exactly what the 360 does when you play a file with WMA 5.1 in order for A/V receivers to decode it. What about the real-time 5.1 sound in games that the 360 encodes to AC3 for output to receivers? Thats a weak escuse from MS. If they don't want to pay the 50 cents for the license, then offer it on Xbox Live Marketplace. The 360 already supports encoding (not just passing the audio through like DVD players do) to AC3 in a number of ways. Passing the AC3 stream from a file out the optical port shouldn't be much more involved with licensing (if at all) than playing a damn DVD since it shouldn't require decoding. They just want to conquer the world with WMA/V.

[zeflash]

About the original purpose of this thread, here is what I do is to just remux a hd-dvd into an mkv without recoding the video. I usually only keep the audio stream I'm interested in and recode it in AC3.

Tools needed:
- evodemux
- avimux gui
- behappy (and therefore avisynth)
- mkvmerge
- gdsmux (part of haali media splitter install)

filters needed:
- sonic decoder 4.2 (audio & demux)
- haali media splitter, haali muxer

1) Use evodemux to get an idea of what the audio streams are in the evo.
That's necessary because gdsmux doesn't tell you anything about the audio streams appart from the format (DD+ or DTS)
You can also export the chapters for later import in mkvmerge by hitting write chapters.

2) Remux both audio & video in a mkv with gdsmux
Open gdsmux (in the haali install folder), add the evo as a source, select the VC1 video stream, and the audio tracks you want, select an output file, start. Do this for both evos if the hddvd is splitted in 2 files.
This will create a mkv muxing the VC1 stream as it is, and the DD+ stream. Trouble is, the video stream doesn't have any framerate info .. so it will need to be adressed later.

3) If multiple evos, join them.
run avimux gui, drag&drop the mkvs in there, select both mkvs at the same time (shift-click both), hit the generate data source button. It will show one joined mkv with both the video stream and a EAC3 stream in the bottom list.
Hit start, it will output one big video only mkv.

4) reencode to AC3 if you want, with behappy
For that, you need to create a graph with a haali media splitter (pointing to the mkv), and sonic audio decoder 4.2. Save it.
Be warned, you need to configure your speakers settings in windows to 5.1 in order to actually get 5.1 output from the audio decoder. (I had it set to quadro the first time and I was getting 4 channels without the center one, it was quite weird).
In behappy, open a directshowsource, load up the .GRF saved graph file. Start the reencode using the encoder you like.

I'm saying recode if you want because it seems that sometimes the DD+ can be decoded by AV amplifiers using a direct passthrough to spdif.. so recoding to AC3 isn't mandatory like it's been said elsewhere. I guess it depends on your whole playback setup.

5) remux video & the AC3 file, and set the framerate on the video stream
mkvmerge is used for that. Drag the video mkv and the reencoded audio streams in there. Add the following extra option for the video stream:
--default-duration 1:23.976fps
This forces the mkv video to playback at the correct framerate, as there aren't any reference in the video stream afaik.
Also, you must create a text file with the following text in it:
# timecode format v1
Assume 23.9760

And load this file as the timecodes with the video stream selected.
If you exported the chapters from the evo, load them up in the global tab, chapters section.
And start muxing. And you're done.

Well. that's when everything goes according to plan :)
Somehow sometimes the audio is no synced anymore with the video. I believe it's a hd-dvd ripping problem. It happened to me only on kingkong, I had to delay the audio by 1000ms.
Anyway, what I do in that case is that I use ffdshow for playback, and adjust the video delay (in Queue & misc in the video decoder configuration) so that everything's in sync. I'm sure there are alternative players that can do the same too. The go back in mkvmerge, and add a delay on the audio wich is the opposite of the one you put on the video basically. And mux again.

The end result is a file that opens right away (as opposed to my previous method which generated weirdass mkv files), and it also ensures that you don't get audio in sync for the first half of the movie (first evo) then out of sync on the second half.

The only thing I'm missing now is subtitles. No way to properly convert the extracted sups to srt. Supread is good & all but it's not adaptative, and it doesn't work with french characters. Subcreator needs office 2003 to do OCR, and resizing the .sup to a SD sub isnt really an option given that subrip then barfs on some of the resized image, and the fact the image is resized means that no "e" looks like any other. Basically what would be needed is a new release of subrip that would properly handle HD images.

I hope it helps anyone trying to do something similar. I do that to actually achieve fluid playback, as reclock does not work well with powerdvd. And it also saves some space too.

[zeflash]

I've updated my way or turning a hddvd into a mkv; it's easier than before, and it works pretty reliably (did 3 hddvd and all of them were fine).
See previous post.

[winkgood]

I tried following your guide but every time I would load the audio graph file into BeHappy and try to start encoding, I got the following error:

Error: BeHappy.AviSynthException: DirectShowSource: Only 1 stream supported for .GRF files, one of Audio or Video must be disabled.

I tried exporting an .avs file from Behappy then adding the line:
audio=true,video=false
within the script and I got the following error:

Error: System.ApplicationException: Can't start encoder: The system cannot find the file specified ---> System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception: The system cannot find the file specified

Anyone have suggestions?

[winkgood]

Turns out that the version of Behappy I had didn't have all the needed plugins and codecs. I still have to generate the .avs file, but after downloading this version of Behappy, I was able to successfully output the .ac3 file.

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=998715#post998715

[Slowekistan]

I made it. After a month or so, I cracked the fuckers.

Here it goes:

BACKGROUND
I came upon a couple of HD-DVD / B-RAY rips, all transport streams files with VC-1 video and AC-3 audio splitted into DVD size chunks.

MISSION
convert a 20GB TS with VC-1/AC3 at 1920x1080 into a 7GB MP4(quicktime compatible) with 264/aac at 1366x768.


JOINING
First I set out to join the little buggers into real TS files. There are quite a few app out there, for one reason or another, none worked 100%, then I stumbled upon a Java app "NullPacketStripper.jar". What a beauty. Works on macs too.


DEMUXING
I thought that maybe once a had a pure VC-1 video clip, it would be easier to convert it into something else. Every app i tried, failed. OK, you win the first round computer. Next I demuxed the audio with a rather new yet excellent app "MPEG Streamclip". So I ended up with a real audio AC3 file yet the video remained muxed into the TS file.

CONVERTING
The hard part, the Calvary.
First. No player, codec, virtualdub, graph... blah blah could play the darn TS file, the video stream inside it was recognised ONLY after I renamed the TS file into MP4.
Second. All apps, players, anisynth, directshow... all reported a 29.976 frame rate. All attempts to convert the whole file in MeGUI failed. The last 20% of the movie failed the cnvertion process.
Third. Only after an attempt to mux at 23.976 a smaller converted part of the movie, did I notice that the 29.976 rate was wrong.
I started experimenting.

avisynth/directshow were trying to squeeze frames out of the video stream that did not exist since the movie had less them 29 frames per second. When the frames ran out, anisynth/directshow srated feeding either a grey screen / or / started feeding again from the first frame / or / failed the x264 encoder.

it turns out the movie is not even 23.976 but 23.96 exactly! What does it mean? It means that while feeding the stream into the x264 encoder via avisynth / directshow, one has to specify a 23.96 frame rate, yet later on when muxing -- 23.976.
all convertions were done with MeGUI as x264 rawavc without container and aac multichannel with FAAC. Nero failed 100% in producing multichannel audio.


MUXING
For some reason when encoding with x264(QT settings) into a mp4 container, the file was unplayable in QT, wheras when encoding as a raw 264 file and the muxing it with the MeGUI MP4 muxer
the results were satisfactory.


Human wins.

[busta.rhymes]

I want to make a HDDVD a MKV to.

Is their any new and easy way to make a hddvd a mvk x264?
A lot of time has past since this thread was made so it would be nive for a new tutorial update or so.

I would be thankfull for the newest solution.

My favorite would be to make an identical copy with no quality loss.

[bluesk1d]

The reason no such guide exists at this time is there is no single method that works 100% of the time. In different scenarios, you have to use different tools, graphs, scripts, etc. Until someone develops an all inclusive tool that can handle the WIDE variety of audio/video streams found on HD DVD/BD/BD+ it simply just isn't simple. Once you dive in and figure it out, it isn't that hard. All the info is on this site.

[busta.rhymes]

Im a absolute noob and i would really apreceate some help because i wont make i all by my self. The HDDVD I am using has avc mpeg 4 codec. It would be even better if i could make an mpeg 4 file. I want to play the file on the playstation3.
I dont care if it is mkv or mpeg 4, important is that it is avc codec. And with no quality loss. I dont care if the file is 20gb big.

[busta.rhymes]

Please Help