can't get 5.1 audio with my meGUI rips

[hachi]

Hey everyone, I'm trying to get into encoding a little bit further and backing up my DVDs with x.264. So far I'm really impressed. I'm able to get file sizes close to half of what they were encoding with xvid and autoGK and I just want to say thanks for all the wonderful help around here.

So... my rips are looking pretty good and I'm really excited at the possibility to keep the surround sound intact in the .mp4 files but the audio just isn't coming out right when I mux into a compressed format. If I don't encode the audio (which I guess is just like appending the .ac3 DVD audio to the new x.264 video) then it's fine and VLC for example will show me the different channels. I want to compress into multi channel .aac though, as I'm pretty sure that's the new standard with .mp4 (correct me if I'm wrong). At any rate, it's smaller and sounds fine.

I like to play things with Zoom Player and I've installed ffdshow version 20051129 which the guys that make the player are now suggesting over the 3vix for getting the audio to play right (3vix didn't work for me either though). I've installed other things to help out Zoom like Haali's splitter but I'm pretty sure ffdshow is solely resposible for handling the audio. If I go in to config ffdshow and swap some channels around I can finally hear voice over the center speaker but the other speakers/channels sound too faint and I've never been able to get sound out of both of the rears. The sub channel has always been fine. If I go back to one of my xvid encoded movies with 2 channels they sound like crap so I half to go back into ffd and switch back everything which gets old fast.

I've been searching around for days trying to get this resolved but I haven't gotten anywhere. I'm using meGUI since I'm a noob who needs a nice front end and I've pretty much just followed the guide on setting it all up. It's set to "keep original channels" and is encoding with Avisynth. I've tried both NAAC and FAAC but it's all the same so far. I would LOVE to get this set up right so I can just open a movie with its surround goodness and have it work and then still be able to go back to other stereo stuff without a hassle. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[check]

Are you using the mixer in ffdshow to change the channels? Set the preset in mixer to whatever your speaker configuration is (for a 5.1 system, choose '3/2' and check the subwoofer option). Make sure none of the other features are enabled and see if that works.

[cmw]

In ffdshow, set AAC Decoding to decode with realaac (I had some issues with the other option aswell, like crap sound). See if it helps.

[hachi]

In ffdshow, set AAC Decoding to decode with realaac (I had some issues with the other option aswell, like crap sound). See if it helps.

That didn't make any difference. This is really bugging me now. I kinda thought it would be a problem lots of people have had.

About the mixer... 3/2 plus LFE doesn't change anything. The best so far is messing with the channels in the swap menu but then I just get an overly load center(it seems like more than 1 channel starts going through the center) and I can't get both rears to work. I messed with configuring the channels forever but something else is wrong and I don't know if it's in the encoding or decoding.

[cmw]

When encoding, do you use "Force Decoding via Direct Show"? If yes/no, try out the other option (allthough at least no force decode should work..)

[VideoX]

I have the same problems as hachi and have done allot of research trying to figure out what’s going on. The only thing that I have come up with is the way that Avisynth handles the Nero 7 aac codec’s with in MeGui, this may be causing problems with the channel mapping. I have not tried since the new Nero 7.2 aac codec’s came out a few days ago.

I'm at work right now so I can’t say what versions of the Avisynth Nicaudio.DLL or the MPAsource.DLL files are. But I think there was talk about going to a single file DLL that handles the operations of the ones listed above.

The only workable solution I have is to use the time tested technique of BeSweet via BeLight. Works Flawlessly.

[hachi]

When encoding, do you use "Force Decoding via Direct Show"? If yes/no, try out the other option (allthough at least no force decode should work..)

It was set not to force Direct Show decoding but just for kicks I set it to force and nothing changed. I'll try to encode with BeSweet. Please post if you find anything out about that .dll. I'm using the .dll from Nero 6 that came with my NEC burner so it's kind of weird that I would be having the problem.

[hachi]

I'm a complete idiot! I just missed the checkbox to specify using nero 6 in the program path settings. I just finished a new encode and it works great. Moral of the story is follow the guide CAREFULLY. I'll go sit in the corner now.

[Sharktooth]

once the NeroDigital AAC command line encoder will be implemented there will be no need to specify any version :)

[VideoX]

That’s great news; I look forward to the ND Cli in the next MeGui. Should defiantly make things run smoother.

Keep up the great work.