Check audio file for AC3?

[zony]

I am authoring DVD's with DVD Maestro. My problem is the following. Sometimes the program tells me that there is no AC3 (or something second which I don't remember at the moment) which leads to problems within the audio layer on the authored DVD. Now my question: is there a tool to check the 192kbps/48kHz .WAV-file for the required format or do I always have to compile the DVD (which takes some time of course) and see the errors afterwards? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

zony

[zony]

Nobody got an idea? :eek: The exact error message is:

At least 1 Audio Track must be PCM or AC-3 Format.

zony

[Matthew]

Well you could just try compiling the DVD with a very short video clip...1 second long or whatever. Compiling won't take long and you'll get your answer.

[zony]

Well that's not the best solution for me. No tools available for that? :confused:

zony

[echooff]

I don't use Maestro so forgive me if I'm off base. It is my understanding Maestro takes in the audio and video as seperate files. If so' how is it you don't know. If it is a single file, there is a program called media info that will do the trick. Do a search of the forum for a link.

[auenf]

Originally posted by zony
Nobody got an idea? :eek: The exact error message is:

At least 1 Audio Track must be PCM or AC-3 Format.

zony

firstly, thats actually a warning

secondly, to be compliant a NTSC disc has to have a PCM or AC3 audio track on there, PAL discs can also have m2a.

since you havent described what you are actually trying to do, everyone that is replying is just clutching at straws.

Enf...

[atimoc]

Hi !

It sounds like your trying to import a mp3-encoded wave-file, because of the 192kbps. DVD-compliant wave-files have to be pure PCM. If it was a compliant wave, assume 16bit/48khz/stereo, it would have 1500kbps.

in order to use it as wave in maestro, you have to decompress it to a pcm-wave. You can use Cooledit or another soundeditor for this (open and then save as 'windoze-pcm (*.wav).

Anyway, u might want to compress it to either a mpeg2-audio or ac3, since a wave-pcm takes up a lot of space on the dvd. for info 'bout doing this, consult the guides on doom9 (-!

Btw, where does that wave-file come from (demuxed from an avi)?

yours
atimoc

[zony]

Yea sorry, of course it's a warning. And yes, I think the problem only arises when the format is NTSC. I am authoring DVD's from SVCD's - this way I can get three movies on a single DVD without wasting 6 CD's. At the beginning I got an .mpg-file which i split into video (.m2v) and audio (.mp2). The audio will be reencoded to 192kbps 48kHz in order to be DVD compatible. The problem is when the compilation stops with that warning the sound is asynchronous after some time. I cannot compile an NTSC (480x480) video source with PAL settings in DVDMaestro, can I? Is it possible to convert? Thanks for your help.

zony

[atimoc]

I'm starting to get what you wanna do, and that's making a PAL-DVD from NTSC-Sources, right?

You can try to patch your mpv to have 25 FPS, and you can also patch it to have a PAL-resolution, both using DVDPatcher 1.06 (http://kickme.to/DVDPatcher). This way, maestro will accept it for a PAL-Project.

But since this way you actually don't convert the video, there may be problems when playing this on a standalone player.

In order to really convert the video, u have to reencode it. U can go dvd2avi - avisynth - cce/tmpeg for example.

atimoc

[zony]

I'm starting to get what you wanna do, and that's making a PAL-DVD from NTSC-Sources, right?

Yes, kind of. But I already guessed that it won't work that easy. I tried using an NTSC environment in DVDMaestro when the movie was NTSC. I am using DVDPatcher in order to patch the movies from SVCD resolution (NTSC 480*480) to DVD resolution (NTSC 352*480) so DVDMaestro accepts it (it then creates the .prv and .pra files). Afterwards I was repatching the video layer to its original values and reloaded the saved project in DVDMaestro. Unfortunately this dirty warning appears crashing my sync. Do you think reencoding to PAL will help? How is that done with TMPGEnc (tutorial anywhere?)? TMPGEnc doesn't accept the .m2v files I demuxed from the original .mpg file with "Simple de-multiplex" from TMPGEnc's MPEG Tools. Thanks again!

zony

[SomeJoe]

Your warning that you're getting is a warning about the audio format. It doesn't have anything to do with your video resolution or video attributes.

You've finally revealed that the source audio is .mp2. You keep saying your audio you're trying to get Maestro to accept is 192kbps 48kHz. You still have not stated what format this audio is. How did you make it? Is it just the .mp2 from the SVCD, or have you done something else?

Like auenf said, you need to give us more info before we can help you.

[zony]

Your warning that you're getting is a warning about the audio format. It doesn't have anything to do with your video resolution or video attributes.
I know that but the warning only appears in an NTSC environment so converting the movie to PAL would maybe fix that issue.

How did you make it? Is it just the .mp2 from the SVCD, or have you done something else?
The only thing that has been done with the audio files is that they'd been extracted from the original SVCD .mpg file and reencoded to 192kbps 48kHz with TMPGEnc. I didn't do anything else. Maybe I should reencode to PCM/AC3 but I don't know how to do that.

Do you need any other information?

zony

[atimoc]

Yes, reencoding the 'wav' to an ac3 will most probably solve the prob when importing to a ntsc-project. like auenf said:
secondly, to be compliant a NTSC disc has to have a PCM or AC3 audio track on there, PAL discs can also have m2a.

How to do this with BeSweet is described in the guides on Doom9 (-: Guides -> Audio -> 'AC3/MP2/MP3/WAV -> AC3'.

Or just dl Besweet, unzip it to a folder on your hd, then open a command-prompt (start-run-cmd.exe), change into the dir where besweet was unzipped (e.g. cd c:\besweet), and type the following command:
BeSweet.exe -core( -input "d:\audio_in.mp2" -output "d:\audio_out.ac3" -logfilea "D:\BeSweet.log" ) -ssrc( --rate 48000 ) -ac3enc( -b 384 )
followed by 'enter'.

U have to replace 'd:\audio_in.mp2' with the filename of the demuxed mp2-file, and 'd:\audio_out.ac3' with a destination file of your choice. And of course u can specify another bitrate for the ac3 by changing the 384 in '-ac3enc( -b 384 )' to let's say 192.

this will give you an ac3 file that can be imported into maestro.


atimoc

[zony]

Excellent, thanks for your answer, I will try that this evening!

zony

[zony]

Hum, I reencoded the .mp2 file to AC-3 using BeSweet as you told me (which worked if I believe its logfile). The warnings are gone now but I don't hear anything any more. What's wrong?

zony

[atimoc]

Damn!

I've heard of problems regarding the volume of the resulting ac3 when ac3-ing with besweet.

you can decode the demuxed mp2 with lame.exe (lame.exe --mp2input --decode c:\infile.mp2 c:\outfile.wav) and take a look at it with a soundeditor (cooledit, for ex.). if the wave is very silent, u can use the -ota( -g max ) switch in besweet for normalizing the wave when transcoding, put it in between -core(...) and -ssrc(...).
If there's no sound at all, it may be a prob with the demuxing-step u took.

u can try to play the ac3 in win-media-player (needs ac3-filter for that, dl at doom9), and crank up the volume! if there's sound, it may be very silent (prob with ac3enc?).

... have a nice day ...

atimoc

[zony]

Well, I installed the AC3 filter and reencoded the .mp2 file using the '-g max' stuff. I do hear something from the .ac3 file in WMP but not hear anything from the DVD in WinDVD after it has been compiled. Very strange. By the way, lame isn't working with the options you gave me and I couldn't find any equivalents. Maybe reencoding the video layer to PAL will help? Thanks!

zony