AC3 in OGM : mux problem - End results ?

[inoteb]

Hi everybody!

I'm making my first attempts with Ogg Media, but not very successfull.
I would like to to mux:
-1 AVI file [DivX Pro 5.0.2 - VirtualDub, Avisynth frameserving with DVD2Avi]
-1 AC3 (5.1) file + 1 OggVorbis (surround 0.400) file [BeSweet/OggMachine]
-1 SRT file [SubRip]
-Chapter infos [ChapterXtractor]

The result is a OGM that is two times larger than it should (~2.40GB instead of ~1.34GB!) and that I can't load in OggCutter, neither in any player (tried with ZoomPlayer, BSPlayer & WMP).

Is it impossible for the moment to mux an AC3 stream with an OggVorbis one (with OggMux)? And if it is, is there another way to do it? (I've read some posts on the subject, but it's still very confused in my mind).
Could somebody be enouth kind to give the end result of this subject?

Please, help a poor Ogg newbie! Thanx

[Doom9]

all I've seen points to big problems ith ac3 in ogms..

if you do a search on the issue you'll find this: http://forum.doom9.org/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=137651&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending

[inoteb]

Damn! This forum's running at lightning speed !
And master Doom9 himself replying to my very first post...

Well OK, I had already made a search on the subject, but I just wanted a "recent" and clear answer. So, if I understand, for the moment I should stick with AVI container hoping that one day OGG container will support AC3...
It's a great pity. I made some OGM mux tests today (with Vorbis streams only) and became quickly an OGM enthusiast : pleasure to have all streams muxed together, simplicity to use, instantaneous seeking, etc...
Anyway, thanks for responding so quickly.

P.S. - Koepi, the chapters function (import & rename) in OggMux is great !

[OxP]

If you really really want this here is what you can do. Load up nandub and mux video+ac3. Load up graphedit, hit ctrl+r and load the created file. Delete the decoders and the video render etc.. Now, ctrl+f and load Ogg Multiplexer Directshow Filter. Works fine for me, and im sure you can add an extra vorbis track. Just a few days ago a program was posted in the audio section to add wav header to the ac3...which i suspect will allow a person to properly mux an ac3 w/o nandub, but this has not worked properly for me.

[Peters]

@Oxp

Instead of rendering the file and deleting filters, it's more easy to use Graph->Insert Filters->File Source (async), isn't it?

[inoteb]

Thanx OxP & Peters

I'll try your "trick" and get back in 3 or 4 days.

I think I'm gonna love this forum! :p

[Belgabor]

Originally posted by Peters
@Oxp

Instead of rendering the file and deleting filters, it's more easy to use Graph->Insert Filters->File Source (async), isn't it?

Thats a matter of taste I think. In your case you'd have to insert the AVISplitter, too.

Regards
Belgabor

[inoteb]

Well, I just made short tests before leaving home, but ran into problems since I had never used Graphedit (it's a shame, I agree!)
Could you give me more details on the process.
Please, look at the attached image to see the point I reached.
Is it correct ?
If it is, what comes next?

@ Belgabor : Peters trick is good (AviSplitter is automatically insterted)

[Belgabor]

Heh, didnt know that since i mostly use the render file method.

Next would be a file writer.

EDIT: Yes, its correct ;)

[ChristianHJW]

Nice work guys !

So, now as you were succesfully muxing it, can you play it ? What player ( WMP 6.4 ) ? Can you select the audio streams in the player menu ?

[Belgabor]

Heh Christian, you might be a bit overenthusiastic. I dont thik he said it worked yet. (As he has no file writer in the graph) ;)

[inoteb]

I'm back at last!

Thanx for your advices, but I need more help : I've inserted a file writer, named the output file "Test.ogm", and connected the Ogg media output to the file writer input (see attached image) but I'm stuck again :(
How sould I save the file (extension...) and what is missing ?

Sorry but I'm really hopeless with Graphedit!

Reminder :
AVI Splitter stream 00 = DivXPro 5.0.2 stream
AVI Splitter Stream 01 = AC3 5.1 stream
(muxed with NanDub)
Ogg Splitter Audio 41 = OggVorbis surround 0.400 stream

@ChristianHJW (if you're still here...) : I'm waiting impatiently for a public beta release of PowerDivX NG 4. What date should I expect it ? (a few weeks, a few months...?)

[kilg0r3]

to save the file simply press the play button. yet, don't expect any kind of progress indication. the process is finished when the play button becomes green again.

[inoteb]

Thanx kilgOr3; I'll try that straightaway and come back with the result...

[nah]

Hi,

I've tried this method, but on zoomplayer, you have in fact 2 audio streams in the file, but the two are selected and it seems that only one is played. And I notice that there isn't any Intervideo filter or any AC3 filter.
So, now I cannot mux AC3 and OGG to an "OGM" file.
I need to find another way to do it because I have some DivX 5.02 files with AC3 and OGG to mux, waiting on my HDD :(

[inoteb]

OK, after many muxing tests my computer is close to overheating, but I think I'm very close to OggMedia Paradise ! :cool:
Let me summarize the facts :

What is muxed :
Video = DivX 5.0.2
Audio 1 = English AC3 5.1
Audio 2 = Franch OggVorbis surround 0.400
Subtitles = French (Subrip)
+ Chapters renamed in french

The results :

When I mux only video + audio 1 + audio 2, it's perfect : normal size (1,34GB), valid file and very nice playback. :D

But (unfortunately there is a "but"!) when I add subtitles [see attached image] and/or edit chapters, the size stays good (1,34GB), the file's still valid, but when I load it into a player, it appears that the movie last in fact ~35 minutes (instead of 129 minutes)!!! Very weird isn't it ? :confused:
Moreover the following "bugs" are appearing :

ZoomPlayer 2.60
-Video : ugly playback
-Audio streams : OK (can jump from one to the other)
-Subtitles : impossible to hide
-Chapters : OK

BSPlayer 0.85.486
-Vidéo : perfect
-Audio streams : superimposed (impossible to have just one)
-Subtitles : impossible to hide
-Chapters : OK

WMP 6.4
-Video : ugly playback
-Audio streams : superimposed (impossible to have just one)
-Subtitles : impossible to hide
-Chapters : OK

Now I need to sleep (in France it's 1.30am)
To be continued...


Edit @nah : Welcome in the mess! Stay tuned and wait the help of some nice guys (Belgabor, where art thou ?!).
See you soon ;-]

[kilg0r3]

personally, i never mux subtitles. i use bsplayer, which can load external subtitles. => no nedd for directvobsub or any other subtitle directshow filter :)

[inoteb]

I know that, but my goal is to get one single file holding all the streams I want (hence Video + AC3 5.1 + OggVorbis + Subtitles + Chapter data).
However, external subtitles doesn't solve the problem with chapter editing and what's more in BSPlayer the two audio streams are superimposed (and in ZoomPlayer, I don't know how to display external SRT subtitles).

Edit : In my post of 30th May 1:30 I failed to mention that (for audio + AC3 + Ogg only muxing) the playback is perfect only in ZoomPlayer (jump from one audio stream to the other in the "Audio track" section of the context menu). In BSPlayer as in WMP, the two audio stream stays superimposed.
May be all of this is just a problem from the players and not from the DS filters ?

[MaTTeR]

@inoteb

Any new progress yet? At this point it would be most helpful if you could take a snapshot of your Graph from GraphEdit and post it as well.

Forgive me if this is redundant but does the file play fine if you only mux the 1 AC3 stream? Maybe best to keep it simple at first with 1 audio stream and see what happens.

[inoteb]

@ MaTTer : thanx for replying. I was beginning to think that the subject didn't interest anybody anymore (ugly english, no ? well... I'm french!)

OK, what is REALLY working for the moment:
-DivX + AC3 5.1 works great! (tested with ZoomPlayer 2.60, BSPlayer 0.85.486 & WMP 6.4) :D
-DivX + AC3 5.1 + OggVorbis works, but only in ZoomPlayer (in BSPlayer & WMP, the 2 audio streams are superimposed)

What is still bugging :
-DivX + AC3 5.1 + Subtitles (SRT) : works in BSPlayer but can't hide subtitles (ZoomPlayer & WMP don't display the subtitles).
-DivX + AC3 5.1 + OggVorbis + Subtitles (SRT) : in BSPlayer & WMP, audio streams are still superimposed and impossible to hide the subtitles. In ZoomPlayer audio streams still OK but no subtitles. Moreover in this case, weird bug : file is valid, good size (~1.34GB) but when I open it in a player, it lasts a few seconds (instead of ~2 hours!):confused:

[see attached .zip for snapshots of the 4 graphs]

Well, this is the results for the time being. I must confess I'm despairing a little bit of getting what I want... :( At least with the actual filters and players...

Comments would be appreciated ;)

PS - Do you think the subject could interest Tobias ?

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by inoteb
PS - Do you think the subject could interest Tobias ? Tobias was seen lately, he was chatting with Blacksun on ICQ, maybe Blacksun can tell us what latest situation is and if Tobias will continue his work on Ogg container format or not !

[nah]

Hello,

( DivX5.02 + AC3 with nandub) + Ogg + subtitle .srt + chapter (all in oggmux)
- ok in Zoomplayer 2.60 but in language the 2 audio file is selected, but only the first is played. to select the second audio, i use the audio track selection. Subtitle is ok, and chapter also.

@Inoteb : tu ne dors pas le soir ?

[Emp3r0r]

so i'm assumming AC3 in OGM's is entirely possible using the nandub mux, graphedit split and mux routine?

[inoteb]

Well, everybody's waking up in the week-end !

@ ChristianHJW : I didn't know Tobias was considering stopping his great work on OggMedia... would be a great pity :(
And what about PowerDivX 4 ? I'm dying to try it.

@ nah : incredible, wonderful, miraculous!!! What releases of the OggDS/SubTitDS filters are you using ? And for OggMux (0.8.4 ?). What size is your .avi (DivX+AC3) file (maybe mine was too big) ? Do you use Subrip to extract subs (and what release) ? Do you succeed several times or just one time ? Please, give me all the details! I've been slaving away for two weeks on the subject and I've just about had enough of this mess. But as you're telling me it can work, I'm going to run new tests with OggMux... This is going to drive me mad!
Tu vois, je vais pas encore me coucher tôt cette nuit ! Faut dire que j'ai des tendances insomniaques. Et depuis que j'ai une bonne bécane pour m'amuser, ça ne s'est pas arrangé : je ne décolle plus de devant mon écran ! :D

@ Emp3r0r : If you just want one AC3 stream with the video stream in your OggMedia, AFFIRMATIVE. Works flawlessly :)

[nah]

Hi,

Ok, here's my config :
- OggDS 0.9.9.1
- SubtitDS 1.1.2.2
- OggMux 0.8.5 (0.8.4 works also)
- Intervideo Audio Decoder
- ffdshow 21-05-2002 (alternative to divx decoder because it remove the bads frames when muxing divx into ogm)
- avi size (divx 5.02 + AC3 224k) : 750 Mb
- subrip 0.98b
- zoomplayer 2.60 final
- ChapterXtractor 0.961

choosing track 2 only possible with "Audio Track" and not "Language" option.
I will test with 1.5Gb avi+ac3 size.

@Inoteb : bonne nuit quand même ! :p

[inoteb]

@ nah : thanx for replying so fast.

OK, I tried another time with OggMux (0.8.5), and guess what... it works ! I couldn't explain why it didn't work in my first attempts, but it's a fact that now it works. :) At least with ZoomPlayer (in BSPlayer & WMP, audio streams still superimposed).
BUT, subtitles are not displayed :mad: They are listed in the "Language" section but don't appear in the movie window (witch yet is AR 1.33 for a 2.35 movie, so ZP do "know" there is subs). Any idea ?

PS - I don't use ffdshow, because I never had bad frames problems (at least until today...)

PPS - Par curiosité, tu es de quel coin ?

[MaTTeR]

This is great information guys. Thanks for the constant updates.

Unfortunately I've not had the time to try your methods yet. I hope to in the next week or so.

I found a thread that could be of interest. CyberDemonII has created a utility to add a WAV header to an AC3 file. This sounds very interesting and might be able to help in the muxing of AC3 but I've not tested. Here's the thread- http://www.everwicked.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1030

If anyone gets a chance to play around with the tool, please post your results.

[ChristianHJW]

Originally posted by inoteb
@ ChristianHJW : I didn't know Tobias was considering stopping his great work on OggMedia... would be a great pity :(
And what about PowerDivX 4 ? I'm dying to try it.

I never said i believe Tobias is stoping his work. We just havent heard from him for a while, so we dont know ( maybe Blacksun knows who could talk to him recently ).

About PD4 : care to check your private messages here from time to time :D ?

[MaTTeR]

Just wanted to give a big thanks to all of you guys involved in this thread. I finally got around to muxing the AC3 in the Ogg container and am happy to report it worked flawlessly. As Doom9 pointed out, awhile back we beat this subect to death and didn't really have any luck. It seems none of us really thought to get rid of the InterVideo filter and mux the AVI with AC3 first:D

@Doom9
It might be worth adding the AC3 and Ogg muxing to the guide now. I think people will be happy to know that the AC3 playback appears to be much smoother during pan and scans using Ogg over the AVI container. Of more interest is I'm curious how this might affect interleave settings for those people that have problems. More testing needs to be done on that front I guess but I'm out of time for now.

Thanks again folks!

[nah]

Ok, I've made another movie with subtitle
and it's OK, no pb with subtitle. You can select Subtitle OFF or not.
I've set in the subtitle Mixer :
- distance : 10%
- Aspect ration 4:3

Sometimes, I have little pb with the intervideo filter that doesn't want to go to stereo. sometimes it's blocked to mono :(

AC3 interleave in nandub : 96 preload and 96 ms

@inoteb : Toulouse + fer à cheval :D

[MaTTeR]

@nah

I've read that lots of people have had success using 96ms/96ms for AC3 interleaves, that always sounded very tight to me. Have you tried 256ms/96ms? Otherwise, I have some other common values that you can have a look at in the AC3/SPDIF FAQ.

[Palikrovol]

Originally posted by inoteb


OK, I tried another time with OggMux (0.8.5), and guess what... it works ! I couldn't explain why it didn't work in my first attempts, but it's a fact that now it works. :) At least with ZoomPlayer (in BSPlayer & WMP, audio streams still superimposed).
BUT, subtitles are not displayed :mad: They are listed in the "Language" section but don't appear in the movie window (witch yet is AR 1.33 for a 2.35 movie, so ZP do "know" there is subs). Any idea ?


Hello.
About the problem with audio superposing in OggMux, i had the same problem (playing it in BSplayer). To solve the problem, in the movie section add the avi file WITHOUT audio stream (you can get the movie stream without audio using nundub or virtual dub). And in the soundtrack section add all the audio streams you want.

I don't think this is the best solution, but hope it works for you :).

About the subtitles, i had some problems too (they always stayed in screen even when you deselected them in bsplayer). I have read (in this forum) that this is a problem within the bsplayer. They will solve it in the 0.85 build 487 or 489 version (i'm not sure). If it's not true, please let me know.

Bye

[Snollygoster]

I do not know if this is going to help but the Ogg Subtitle filter has caused me several problems. So I uninstalled it and guess what. I still have proper subtitles support with DVobSub even when my source is an OGM. In ZoomPlayer I can hide them whatsoever...

[Blight]

Just my 2c:
To support multiple audio tracks in zoom player, originally written for AVI, I included code that checks the number of renderers then shuts them off only keeping the first renderer active. This assures only one audio track at a time is active.

I wrote it in such a way that it isn't AVI specific, so in theory, it should work with anything with more than one audio renderer.

All the detected audio renders are then listed under the "Audio Track" entry of the context menu.

Now OGG usually does this internally, allowing you to choose which tracks are actually being decoded. My "guess" is that it doesn't recognize the AC3 track as an audio track and renders it anyway, thus 2 audio streams active at once. I think the only fix for this is to have the filter author modify the code to accept AC3 tracks as audio streams.

[tscholz]

I have tried something similar, and have gotten different results. I have noticed that it is often not possible to playback an ogg file with many audio and/or subtitle streams in it. If if put 2 subtitle stream in it, it will not playback as long as it uses a subtitle filter. And when I put more audio stream in, the result is different. Sometimes the movie is shorter (even when it's not), or it can't playback, or some other thing.

I think either there is a muxing or demuxing problem with the ogg filters, but i'm not sure.
I have btw never had problems muxing a single AC3 stream into an ogg file, works perfect.

[Emp3r0r]

I'm happy to announce I made my first ogg stream with AC3 and it works great. In fact I can say it works better than the AVI did because my choppyness problem is gone now no matter how much I seek around in the file. On the AVI, if I seeked a whole bunch then I would get a weird choppy AC3 output that was only fixed by restarting the stream. I always thought it was my hardware but it has something to do with AVI cause this problem doesn't exists with my OGM file.

[Emp3r0r]

now if oggmux supported this I wouldn't have to use graphedit to convert all my movies from AVI to OGM... or is it possible already with oggmux?

[Snollygoster]

Oh yes please reply.

[inoteb]

@ Emp3r0r (& Snollygoster) :
If you have only 1 AC3 stream to wux with your video, you can use OggMux but provided that you mux video + AC3 first in Nandub and then load this new *.avi file (containing video+AC3) in OggMux. It should works flawlessly. :D
(Muxing direct in OggMux, you'll certainly run into troubles with the *.ogm file you'll get at the end. Besides muxing first in Nandub allows you to set preload/interleaving/delay values ;) ).

@ tscholz :
I think you're right. Problems generated by "complicated" mux (AC3, multiple streams...) probably come from the current Ogg DS filters. I'd realy like to hear Tobias' opinion on the subject... :cool: but infortunately, he seems to be very busy at the moment...

@ Blight :
Well, your post about the code you included in your player was very enlightening to me. Now I understand why ZoomPlayer is (as far as I know) the only player ATM that allows to jump from one audio stream to the other (in the case of video+AC3 muxed in Nandub and them muxed with 2nd audio stream in OggMux). BSPlayer, and even PowerDivx4 (beta) , play the 2 audio streams simultaneously (no way to choose just one of the 2).
Point : your code works [B]flawlessly with OggMedia. At least with OGM file containing AC3 (muxed first in Nandub)+ OggVorbis and with OGM file containing 2 OggVorbis streams (muxed direct in OggMux) ;)

@ nah :
I really can't solve my subtitles problems (can't display them in ZoomPlayer and can't hide them in BSPlayer & PowerDivX). It bugs me seriously :angry:
PS - Tu as consulté tes "private messages" récemment ?

@ MaTTeR :
I tried CyberDemonII' tool (AC3Wav), but OggMux crashes systematically
when I mux DivX video + AC3 (wav header) stream. Pity ! :( Would have been nice (and easy) trick...

Cya all...

PS (question from a french guy with poor english) - Browsing the threads, I often read the expression "just my 2 cents". Does anybody could explain me what does this mean exactly ? (american forum's slang is sometimes a little bit obscure to me ;) )

[Snollygoster]

@inoteb -> THANK GOD one guy writes down and explains things in a very comprehensive way. Thank you.

I have one more question. Even when muxing in Nandub and then passing the whole file in OggMux and finally getting the OGM file, will this provide better seeking, no desynching and all the positives that OGG container is famous for?

[inoteb]

@ Snollygoster : You're welcome; very glad that you like my replies. I don't speek/write english very fluently and every post is a little pain for me! :) (THANK GOD I have a goog bilingual dictionary! :D )
For your question : yeaaaaaaaah! :D ALL the positives (at least if my numerous tests are to be believed) : instantaneous seeking and chapter jumps, no desynching at all. Only issues, as far as I'm concerned, are subtitles (see previous post) and superimposition of AC3 stream (muxed in Nandub) with 2nd audio stream (muxed in OggMux) during playback (except with ZoomPlayer, thanx to Blight's code).

Regards,
inoteb;-]

[Emp3r0r]

Yea, i got AC3 OGM's working great... now I wanna try and add chapter support now that I know I can open a muxed avi in Oggmux... anybody else tried AC3 OGM's with chapter support? Also would anyone be interested in an online chapter database such as WMP8 accesses somehow.

[Snollygoster]

Very clever idea about the online chapter database...

Can anybody tell me why ZoomPlayer 2.60b disables Windows XP cleartype technology?

[inoteb]

Originally posted by Emp3r0r
now I wanna try and add chapter support now that I know I can open a muxed avi in Oggmux... anybody else tried AC3 OGM's with chapter support? Also would anyone be interested in an online chapter database such as WMP8 accesses somehow.

If you're talking about importing chapter list in OggMux : it works great. But you should extract chapters info with ChapterXtractor 0.961 (OGG in "presets") because there's a bug in chapter list of SmartRipper info file (all times = 0:00:00.00).

Online chapter database : why not ? although it's really not very hard and time consuming to rename them in OggMux ;)

[Didée]

Originally posted by Snollygoster
Very clever idea about the online chapter database...

Can anybody tell me why ZoomPlayer 2.60b disables Windows XP cleartype technology?
Yes, THIS is extremly annoying ... the only issue I have with Zoom Player - and it was in the preceding versions, too.
You can fix it by *disabling* the on-screen-display feature.
Alas, I found nothing in ZP´s forum about this. And ATM I don´t want to subscribe to yet another forum ... but if you would, it´d be very appreciated by me ;)

[Emp3r0r]

does anybody know where or how to access the database that the WMP accesses when you load a DVD in WMP8? I am specifically interested in the Chapter Names that it downloads for each DVD that you put in. I'm too lazy to type this info in manually, although this online chapter database could ease things.

[Emp3r0r]

ok, my first attempt at adding chapter support to my AC3 OGM files failed miserably. I'm not sure what the problem is but it crashes mplayer2, zoomplayer, etc.

Here is how I created my file:
mux video and AC3 in nandub
open file in oggmux
add chapter file created from chapterxtractor
mux all to ogm

here is a link to the chapter file: http://www.jvance.com/files/Behind Enemy Lines.chapterinfo.txt

I can hear first 5 seconds of AC3 sound but i get the crash "Send Error to Microsoft" window right away. Anybody else tried this yet?

[MaTTeR]

I didn't think OggMux was working with AC3 yet. Or have I missed something in the past week:)

[Emp3r0r]

@ Emp3r0r (& Snollygoster) :
If you have only 1 AC3 stream to wux with your video, you can use OggMux but provided that you mux video + AC3 first in Nandub and then load this new *.avi file (containing video+AC3) in OggMux. It should works flawlessly.
(Muxing direct in OggMux, you'll certainly run into troubles with the *.ogm file you'll get at the end. Besides muxing first in Nandub allows you to set preload/interleaving/delay values ).


well, i'm going by what inoteb said

[MaTTeR]

I see what your saying now but did you get a chance to try the manual GraphEdit procedure?

Render Source file->AVI Splitter->Ogg Multiplexer->File Writer

The source file already being muxed with NanDub using your typical interleave settings should work fine. Guess I need to try OggMux soon.