No more ac3enc support with BeSweet?!

[hippoth]

Hi,

I wanted to transcode an 448 kbit AC-3 file to an 384 kbit with AC3Machine 0.41 ...but the command line just opend for a second and closed...so I took a look into the besweet log...this is content:

BeSweet v1.5b24 by DSPguru.
--------------------------
Using azid.dll v1.9 (b922) by Midas (midas@egon.gyaloglo.hu).
Error 85: support for ac3enc.dll had been removed due it its suckness!
Quiting...
[00:00:00:000] Conversion Completed !

Logging ends : 12/30/03 , 01:15:41.


Can anybody explain this...was the ac3enc.dll erroneous so that the ac3 support has been removed?
When can I transcode it again?

[Doom9]

There are two problems with ac3enc:
1) quality sucks
2) the output isn't specs compliant (at least in 2ch mode)

So, I guess unless those two are fixed besweet will not offer ac3 output anytime soon. It is a reasonable measure to spare people from the frustration of broken and useless AC3 streams imho and if you really want, you can use an old BeSweet build after all.

[hippoth]

So whats next best solution to do a transcoding except BeSweet?

Maybe the old Sonic Foundry Soft Encode 1.0 or what can you recommend?
(With S. F. Soft Encode I had the problem that I coudn´t encode the AC3-file despite I did all settings in the encode settings...the "encode "- or "save as" dialog was greyed out!?)

Why comes the recognition with the ac3enc.dll so late?

[KpeX]

http://forum.doom9.org/search.php?s=&action=showresults&searchid=870079&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending

Searching for "problem with ac3enc.dll" yields the above results, if you take a look you'll get an idea why AC3 support has been removed in b24 and up. Imagine being a software writer (for free I might add) that has to constantly answer error reports and deal with upset users whose audio won't play on their standalones, and these errors are caused by a software not written by yourself, but included as a dll. I think you'd remove the support for ac3enc as well. Not to put words in DSPguru's mouth, but I think his reasons are pretty clear.

As far as commercial 5.1 encoding programs go, I don't have much experience with them myself, but using the search is your friend here. You'll find that Soft Encode and Surcode are pretty popular software.

[Happygolucky]

The only time I ever had a problem with an AC3 file produced by BeSweet was when I somehow had obtained a version 0.22 of the ac3enc.dll. Every file it produced was bad. Going to the 0.21 version of the dll solved the problem, haven't had any compatibility issues with it and I've made MANY DVDs using AC3 sound.

[Ace_V]

Originally posted by Doom9
There are two problems with ac3enc:
....
2) the output isn't specs compliant (at least in 2ch mode)


Hi

Does this mean that for 5.1 it is compliant?

thanks

[GeneralMartok]

Well, for my part it means I'll stick with b19. I had some bad results with ac3enc as well, but I know how to handle the problem. If I obey certain rules when encoding ac3, it just works fine.

- Stay below 0 db
- When transcoding ac3 to ac3, use Dialog Normalization
- When transcoding 5.1 ac3 to 5.1 ac3, don't use the "-s" switch
- Regardless from how may channels ac3 to 2.0 ac3, use the "-s" switch

The GUI doesn't alway get that right.

[Ace_V]

Cool, thanks GeneralMartok

[KoVaR]

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/ac3machine.htm
so it's time to remove this ?
and replace with.... ?!

i really don't get it
i made dozens of rips with ac3 and i never had and problems :(

well...
it's looks like i'm going to stick to b23 for a looong time...

[Mtz]

In BeSweet Gui we can encode DTS with Surcode and AAC with nero.
DSPguru, can you make the same thing with BeSweet to use an external program for AC3?
Can you tell us about the future of AC3 and BeSweet?

[Happygolucky]

Originally posted by KoVaR
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/ac3machine.htm
so it's time to remove this ?
and replace with.... ?!

i really don't get it
i made dozens of rips with ac3 and i never had and problems :(

well...
it's looks like i'm going to stick to b23 for a looong time...

Me, too. The only thing I use BeSweet for is ac3 encoding for my DVDs. Since NTSC DVDs only support WAV or AC3, and WAV is just too huge to be practical, I have no choice but to stick with AC3 and an old version of BeSweet.

[plazz2000]

So what's the best alternative AC3 encoder (freeware or otherwise)?

[Ace_V]

d/l Besweet v1.5b23. That's the only one I could get to work.

Vegas Video + DVD also comes with an ac3 encoder.