dolby digital cd won't play

[aprunic]

Hello all.

I' having a week of problems with my dolby digital encoded files that I want to play from my dvd player.

I used every tool I could get my hands on: besweet, sixwave2ac3, ac3machine...you name it, and keep getting ac3wav file that I can burn on ordinary cdrw, but can not play on my pioneer dv470 dvd player!

DVD player recognises the disc as a regular cd and plays it, but doesn't light up DD led, while my denon avr1905 av receiver does not understand the stream it gets through optical cable from the dvd and does not make a sound.
Ocasionally, dts light on receiver goes on and off, but no sound is ever heard.

On the other hand, if I create a dts encoded cd with surcode dts and play it in the same setup, everything works like a charm - dts led shines on the dvd and receiver, and sound is quite well.

What am I doing wrong with DD encoding? Or is some of my equipment having problems?

Just to mention that any divx movie with ac3 sound plays normally with DD sound, which can be seen on the receiver and heard on the speakers.
Also, DVD's with ac3 sound work fine, just like DVD's with dts sound.

Please help, I'm losing my patience and sanity here...

[ursamtl]

Check your source file's sampling rate before encoding to AC3WAV. It must be 44.1kHz to burn to a regular CDR that's playable this way.

[aprunic]

Originally posted by ursamtl
Check your source file's sampling rate before encoding to AC3WAV. It must be 44.1kHz to burn to a regular CDR that's playable this way.

It is 44.1KHz for sure, because it is just the ripped audio cd wav file reencoded to be 5.1 and ac3 (I'm playing with stereo->surround), so I'm sure it is not the problem.

Besides, Nero wouldn't let me burn audio cd with 48KHz wav file...

The only thing I can think of now is that my dvd player has problems with reproducing the stream correctly, or my av receiver is having problems decoding it.

[E-Male]

my denon amp doesn't decode 44.1 ac3 properly (dts works)
maybe some amps don't support that (they don't have to for dvd)

[aprunic]

Originally posted by E-Male
my denon amp doesn't decode 44.1 ac3 properly (dts works)
maybe some amps don't support that (they don't have to for dvd)

Hmm, and how then that ac3 sound in divx avi's work flawlesly?
On the same equipment? And is recognised correctly as dolby digital on both dvd player and av receiver?

Could it be that it will work with 48KHz but won't with 44.1KHz?

:confused:



On dvd's it is a must and it works, but only if I try to play ac3wav from a regular cd, my dvd does not show it is dolby digital stream and av receiver does not recognise it...

The only thing left for me to try is to play that cd from a regular cd player through it's coaxial output and see what happens then.

If it works, my dvd is not working as it should. If it does not, my ac3wav is probably not ok and then I'm at the beginning.

Is there anybody here who has made ac3wav succesfully that can be played as a regular audio cd and still hear 5.1 from his av receiver?
What equipment is used, and how it is connected?
Is it working with dvd player or it has to be regular audio cd player?

Thanks...

[ursamtl]

Originally posted by aprunic
Is there anybody here who has made ac3wav succesfully that can be played as a regular audio cd and still hear 5.1 from his av receiver?
What equipment is used, and how it is connected?

I've made such CDs (both AC3WAV and DTSWAV)with no problems at all. I play them back using a Toshiba SD2805 DVD player connected via digital coax to a JVC RX-6030VBK 5.1 receiver. The DVD player recognizes them as regular audio CDs but because the audio data is passed directly to the receiver's digital input (thereby bypassing the DVD player's internal digital-to-analog converters), the receiver recognizes the 5.1 AC3 data and decodes properly to 5.1. When I mistakenly encoded 48kHz source files, all I got was digital noise, but with 44.1kHz files, it worked perfectly.

Originally posted by aprunic
Is it working with dvd player or it has to be regular audio cd player?

Thanks...

Actually it should be a DVD player. A regular audio CD player will not work unless it has a direct digital out that bypasses the d-a converters. Most consumer CD players don't have such an output so it will take the data and convert it to an analog version of digital noise. Once this is done the AC3 header data is lost and the receiver has no way of recognizing it.

[daphy]

I´ve read about a problem with the ac3enc.dll -> the AC3 files wouldn´t fit to 100% to the dolby digital standard :(
for me this was never a problem (using a KISS 450 and a Yamaha A2) but some player could be in trouble playing those files.

Suggestion:
test a commercial encoder maybe the problem is gone

[aprunic]

Originally posted by ursamtl
Actually it should be a DVD player. A regular audio CD player will not work unless it has a direct digital out that bypasses the d-a converters. Most consumer CD players don't have such an output so it will take the data and convert it to an analog version of digital noise. Once this is done the AC3 header data is lost and the receiver has no way of recognizing it.

Well, I've got Philips CD753 CD player which has coax digital out. If I remember correctly, it is fed from SAA7xxx IC that does digital work (oversampling etc) and feeds digital data to TDA1549 DAC.
So, the signal should be still in pure digital domain, and should be good enough for av receiver.

On the other hand, my Pioneer DVD might be the cause of problems because I'm not sure does it change the digital stream from an audio cd (as it sees my ac3wav cd) before it goes out the optical output.
Also, denon av receiver might be the problem, not recognising it for some reason...

Well, I'll try tonight philips CD as a source and see what happens.

[aprunic]

Originally posted by daphy
I´ve read about a problem with the ac3enc.dll -> the AC3 files wouldn´t fit to 100% to the dolby digital standard :(
for me this was never a problem (using a KISS 450 and a Yamaha A2) but some player could be in trouble playing those files.

Suggestion:
test a commercial encoder maybe the problem is gone

Heh, if I could find one...
What would you suggest that can be found around the net, even as a functional trial?
Some Surcode thing? Something else?
Do Adobe Audition or Sound Forge 7 or even Nero know how to do 100% correct DD encoding?

So that I can make a test cdrw and check what will happen then...

[daphy]

check your PM - Inbox

[E-Male]

>>Could it be that it will work with 48KHz but won't with 44.1KHz?<<

that's what i'm saying
it seems like that

[aprunic]

Originally posted by E-Male
>>Could it be that it will work with 48KHz but won't with 44.1KHz?<<

that's what i'm saying
it seems like that

OK, I'll try today to rip the cd again but in 48KHz (if that's possible at all) or to convert my 44.1KHz files to 48KHz and the try to make ac3wav file.
Maybe then it'll work...:rolleyes:

Just an update - I tried playing the existing cd from my Philips cd player through coaxial output, and same thing happened. No decoding, just noise coming out of av receiver.
So, that leaves me with 3 options:
1. ac3wav file is not good (bad header, has to be 48KHZ instead of 44KHz etc)
2. my dvd/cd do not output it correctly through their digital outputs (not likely)
3. my denon 1905 av receiver has problems recognising the stream

1 and 3 seem most likely. To eliminate 1, I need some software encoder that works for sure. To eliminate 3, I need another av receiver.

What a bummer...:(

[daphy]

one other way could be that some encode an AC3WAV for you for testing

I will try do that this weekend (but I have a visitor from US so not much time...)

any other volunteer :o

[aprunic]

Originally posted by daphy
one other way could be that some encode an AC3WAV for you for testing

I will try do that this weekend (but I have a visitor from US so not much time...)

any other volunteer :o

Works for me and I think it would be great if somebody did that as a favor.
For example, 3-4 minutes, one song, at 44.1 and again at 48KHz, to see which one would go.
Then compress them as separate files with rar or monkey's audio, make md5sums and send the whole bunch to my mail. Or put on some web/ftp so I can download them and check their integrity.

Yeees, that'd be nice... :cool:

Anybody besides good man Daphy?

[daphy]

monkey's audio
surely doesn´t work because it´s no real PCM file!

-> 30 sec. should be enough -> file size complete ~3MB :rolleyes:

[aprunic]

Well, I've tried creating ac3 file from 48KHz wav files, and it plays correctly on my pc.
But, when I transcode it to ac3wav file and burn it with nero, I still get same results from my dvd/av receiver - only noise comes out.

So, it is not the problem with the ac3 file, but either with ac3wav file that is burned onto the cd, nero burning rom that converts it somehow (or messes it up) to 44KHz before it is burned for real (maybe it changes the header but leaves the data) or my dvd/av receiver combo that can not understand what is on the cd.

Just to see if my ac3 files are ok, I've used them to create standard dvd, and it worked just fine.

Anybody wanting to send me 30sec of some ac3wav file that work on his/her equipment?

Greetings, Andrea

[ursamtl]

From what you wrote I think the problem is that you took an AC3 file encoded at 48kHz and used it to encode the AC3WAV. In my experience, the only AC3WAVs I got to work started with the AC3 file encoded from 44.1kHz source wave files. Nero won't change the sampling rate. You have to do it yourself before encoding to AC3 in the first place.

[aprunic]

Originally posted by ursamtl
From what you wrote I think the problem is that you took an AC3 file encoded at 48kHz and used it to encode the AC3WAV. In my experience, the only AC3WAVs I got to work started with the AC3 file encoded from 44.1kHz source wave files. Nero won't change the sampling rate. You have to do it yourself before encoding to AC3 in the first place.

Noooo, I tried first with ordinary stereo wav file at 44.1KHz, split it to 6 wavs, made ac3 out of them which works cool, and create DDwav from them which is also 44.1KHz.

Since it didn't work, I started with 48KHz file, did the same thing and finally got DDwav@48KHz that I burned with nero.

Same thing - no sound, only noise.

I even tried converting from 48->44KHz using ssrc during besweet creation of DDwav, and nothing changed - no sound, only noise.

So it's gotta be something else.

[aprunic]

And here's a post that a new member has sent me because he can't post to the forum yet:

Hi,

I have exactly the same problem, but as I have not been a member of the forum for 5 days yet, I am unable to post a response - perhaps you could echo my words in a post if you think worthy.

In searching back through the forum I notice a lot of very similar and unanswered queries. But in one thread I noticed a reference to the ssrc.dll, which would be required to downsample to 44KHz. The ssrc.dll is not included in the BeSweet package, nor does the log write an error if it is not there, despite the "-ssrc (-rate 44100)" command line parameter.

I intend to check this line of thought out when I get home tonight. If this one fails, then my next line of thought is along the lines of how the processor detects an AC3, DTS or PCM input. As I understand it from the Meridian user guide for my device - the processor listens to the signal for about 30ms to decide whether PCM or DTS. But for AC3 it only detects that if it is a true 5.1 signal. If it is a 2/0 AC3 signal then the processor will wrongly assume PCM. Not sure how this helps, but perhaps a clue. I am taking my AC3 source from a DVD VOB file, so I thought perhaps that I had chosen a 2 channel AC3 audio stream - but I checked that out last night - 0x80 is the only channel in my VOB file and it is 3/2.1.

David.

David here mentioned ssrc, which I used in one iteration of creating 44KHz ac3wav, and it didn't help, so that is not the solution.

Further, timeout for checking whether signal is ac3/dts/pcm is rather small, but that just might be the issue here.
The only confusing thing that creates some suspicion about that is that avi's with ac3 sound in them work just fine, and, as far as I can remember, they work regardless of the number of channels in them. So, avi with ac3 2/0 or 3/2.1 sound always works, but sound only cd won't...

[ursamtl]

It could simply be a limitation with some DVD players. I can only speak for my experience, which was successful on my equipment, which is just a run-of-the-mill Toshiba DVD player hooked up digitally to a JVC receiver.

[aprunic]

Originally posted by ursamtl
It could simply be a limitation with some DVD players. I can only speak for my experience, which was successful on my equipment, which is just a run-of-the-mill Toshiba DVD player hooked up digitally to a JVC receiver.

Well, that is what scares me....
What if my equipment really is problematic such that my av receiver can't recognise ac3wav that besweet generates?
The weird thing is that dts wav burned on cd works just fine...

I do not think it is the dvd that is problematic, because I tried playing it from regular CD (should work) connected with coaxial to my receiver, and same thing happened - just noise on the speakers.

[ursamtl]

Ok well the fact that it recognized DTSWAV suggests that it's not a problem with the DVD player or the receiver. It's likely that the problem is either with the AC3 file itself or else the way the player handles the AC3 file (I'm not sure if it would work from a CD player. Did the DTSWAV work from it?). You might try the new version of HeadAC#he that daphy has made available for download on Needfulthings. It has a modified version of ac3enc.dll that produces better results than the one that comes with Besweet. I haven't done any AC3WAVs with it yet, but I have done some AC3 files for DVD soundtracks with it and then results were fantastic!

[aprunic]

Originally posted by ursamtl
Ok well the fact that it recognized DTSWAV suggests that it's not a problem with the DVD player or the receiver. It's likely that the problem is either with the AC3 file itself or else the way the player handles the AC3 file (I'm not sure if it would work from a CD player. Did the DTSWAV work from it?). You might try the new version of HeadAC#he that daphy has made available for download on Needfulthings. It has a modified version of ac3enc.dll that produces better results than the one that comes with Besweet. I haven't done any AC3WAVs with it yet, but I have done some AC3 files for DVD soundtracks with it and then results were fantastic!

Actually, I didn't try playing dtswav from cd player, because it worked on my dvd player from the start, but I'll do it today and see.
I do agree that the problem might be in the way player or av receiver handle and recognise ac3 files, that's why I am going to try new headac3he also, and see what comes out.

What's the difference in sound, can you tell us more? More spacing in the sound, better dynamics...what?

Cheers.

[ursamtl]

The modified ac3enc.dll seems to resolve the volume level problem a lot of people had with the previous version. I haven't used it a lot, but the test DVDs I did came out fine.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi aprunic,

Have you tried using DVDdecrypter to extract the AC3 streams to your hard drive and then burning them onto CD or DVD~R/RW media without further conversion!

I did some tests some time ago and found some players could spin AC3 as .ac3. While other players could only spin AC3 in .VOB, or AC3 in .VOB along with .IFO and .BUP files!


Cheers

[ursamtl]

Yes, but what he's doing is creating AC3WAVs, which add a wave header to an AC3 file and pad the file so that CD burning software sees it as a regular audio file and burns it as if it were a plain old wave file.

In the case of a real DVD, the player demuxes the audio data and sends it as a stream through the digital out. However, if the player is able to also play audio CDs, then when the CD with the AC3WAV is loaded, the player thinks the disc is a regular audio one, so it tries to play it back as such with a sampling rate of 44.1kHz. Normally it would send the digital data to its digital to analog converter and out through the Left and Right audio analog outs, but with a digital connection, the data bypasses this stage and goes directly through the player's digital output, assuming that the receiver's d-a converter will do the job. However, the receiver's sees the data coming in recognizes the AC3 flags at the beginning of the stream and thinks it's a regular AC3 stream coming from a DVD.

I'm wondering if the players that you found would only play AC3 files that were contained in a VOB, etc., were also players that were not capable of regular audio CD playback. I thought all DVD players would, but it's conceivable that some first-gen DVD set-top players did not. Interesting.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I see ursamtl...

...I think I would rather play the AC3 streams on my DVD player, rather than try converting it to an AC3.WAV!


Cheers

[ursamtl]

Yes, I agree, but for those who don't have a DVD burner, but who do have a CD burner, AC3WAVs are an option. Plus for players that don't support .ac3 playback, the only way is to create some sort of video footage or static image that will forum the video part of the mux.

By the way, how are you burning these .ac3 files to disc, with a DVD burner or a CD one? As a data disc or a DVD video disc?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by ursamtl
By the way, how are you burning these .ac3 files to disc, with a DVD burner or a CD one? As a data disc or a DVD video disc? From what I remember I created the disc's with an old CD burner and transfered the files using WinXP's CD writing utility!

I will have to check though... because all my "personal" A/V equipment changes very frequently!

[arash]

i also need this
converting wav or mp3 ro dts
i would be happy if u help

[aprunic]

Originally posted by ursamtl
The modified ac3enc.dll seems to resolve the volume level problem a lot of people had with the previous version. I haven't used it a lot, but the test DVDs I did came out fine.

Well, believe it or not, it really works!

So, new headac3he does a great job, and now finally my dvd sees ac3wav that I made using the new headac3he as 5.1 source and my receiver sees it as dolby digital just fine.

Great, thanks to Daphy and his mods.
Although I think there might me more tweakings and definitivelly much more checking of the final ac3wav (for example, my receiver had a problem reading the disc that was burned on 10x but worked flawlesly when burned on 4x), maybe the volume of the signal somehing something...

So, check out Daphy's site and download the latest headac3he from there.

[aprunic]

Originally posted by arash
i also need this
converting wav or mp3 ro dts
i would be happy if u help

Well, you must have surcode dts encoder (I don't know of any other so far, especially freeware, unfortunatelly) to which you give wav file that is made from mp3, for example, and then it converts it to cd or dvd dts track.
If the output is for cd, the input wav must be 44.1KHz and the outoput you get is also 44.1KHz so you can burn it onto a regular cd, like a regular audio disc.
If you want dts track for dvd, input wav must be 48KHz and output is also 48KHz (because that's what dvd specs say), and then you get something.dts file which you then burn using some dvd authoring tool that knows how to handle dts tracks (just a few of them, unfortunatelly) when creating vob files for burning onto the dvd.

And I am also interested in this, but I'd like to put straight ac3 files to cd or dvd that I can play directly. With dvd it is not a problem, you only have to create some menus for selection and some static video content (a background pic is just fine), but how about using regular cd?
Or burning ac3 files on data disc?
Because not many dvd players can read ac3 file as data file and play it (my pioneer is one of them) - they are expected to be in the vob files.

It would be great to have a bunch of full 5.1 music in ac3 files burned on dvd...

Anybody has clues on this?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
I will have to check though... because all my "personal" A/V equipment changes very frequently! Okay, I've checked my old notes and I must have been really lucky with the old Pioneer DVD player I had.

When I tried the same .AC3 CD files in the two cheapo DVD players I/we have for the kids, they would not work!

I'll have to see if I can get my hands on another Pioneer player!


Cheers

EDIT: Does anybody have a link for the new version of headac3he. What version number is it up to now?

[mortod]

Does anybody have a link for the new version of headac3he. What version number is it up to now?

I got it from http://www.needfulthings.webhop.org/

Note that the ac3enc.dll (Dec 2004) that comes with it does not work with BeSweet though.

I was not as succesfull as aprunic in getting my AC3-WAV encoding working at the weekend (& yes I did try using this version of Headac3). I did today though get an email from Meridian stating that a new version of the firmware for my processor should enable it to decode this 'non standard format'. So hopefully I'll succeed tonight.

In my case I am attempting to extract the AC3 stream from a DVDA disk (I don't have a DVDA player), as my DVD player does not like one of the DVDA disks that I purchased (DTS or AC3).

[mortod]

Actually looks like I do already have the firmware upgrade for my processor. Aprunic - could you please confirm exactly what you used to achieve your AC3-WAV ?

I assumed you used Headac3 (HAC3-024A13) at http://www.needfulthings.webhop.org/
I notice though a comment 'AC3-WAV (broken function)' which is slightly worrying - or did you use a slightly earlier version ? I used DVDDecryptor to demux a VOB file into an AC3 file which I then used as input into HeadAc3. I did burn at a fast speed, though I assume that gave you different problems to what you were seeing before ?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Thanks for the link :)


Cheers

[daphy]

I assumed you used Headac3 (HAC3-024A13) at http://daphy.mine.nu/tools/item.php?id=9.
no direct links please -> this link could change occasionally -> please use the main entrance http://www.needfulthings.webhop.org

THX

[mortod]

SUCCESS !

The new ac3enc.dll does indeed work - I had been persevering with CDRW on my DVD player in order to save on disk blanks whilst testing. But last night gave CDR on my CD player another go, and it works fine - sounds fab. I can however crash my Meridian processor just by changing preset (eg 'DD THX' to 'DD'), but that must be a problem with the processor.