Encode EVO HD files to AVI/MKV/MP4/MPG 1/2 etc.?

[SamuriHL]

I've got a vista ultimate HTPC, a 360, and a ps3. As long as it plays on my HTPC and laptop I'm mostly happy. If it plays on the consoles, as well, that's even better. This AVC stuff I've been working on holds the most promise so far for quality vs size. Divx is great, but, I think the quality of the AVC encode is slightly better IMO. I have to try an HD DVD next and will work on Transformers this week as I'd like to bring it with me on vacation. Since my laptop is not capable of HD DVD playback I need to scale it down a bit. I think a nice AVC encode with DD 5.1 would really rock.

[dburckh]

DIVX is going to be a royal PITA. At least if you're looking for a "all in one" solution. As feared, the PS3 won't recognize a DIVX with AC3. The 360 plays it fine, but, the PS3 won't touch it. I need to think about this more cause DIVX is really the best solution for me in terms of keeping size down and quality up. AVCHD took up WAY too much space on my conversion. I don't know what else to try.

Xvid/AC3/AVI works on the PS3 and I posted a how to quite a while ago. That's just video, no menus. I'm not sure it works on the 360.

[dburckh]

Any ideas on an avi / wmv wrapper / muxer so I can try with native VC-1 material with AC3 sound?

I played with this a while ago. I managed to get BluRay VC-1 into a WMV container with WMA2 sounds. Couldn't get AC3 working.

This is a topic of interest to me. Over on the eac3to thread they talk about doing this with mkv. That's really not an ideal solution for me. I'm probably looking for a TS solution for best compatibility.

[Threedcoder]

Xvid/AC3/AVI works on the PS3 and I posted a how to quite a while ago. That's just video, no menus. I'm not sure it works on the 360.

Okay well, I looked back through most of your posts and couldn't find anything labeled as a clear but "guide". Any chance you can just make a suggestion as to what I'm doing wrong with these DivX encodes with AC3 that is causing them not to play on the PS3?

Is ffmpeg a requirement? If so for what? Video? Audio? Both?

Thanks.

[SamuriHL]

Xvid/AC3/AVI works on the PS3 and I posted a how to quite a while ago. That's just video, no menus. I'm not sure it works on the 360.

So let me get this straight...xvid with ac3 works on the PS3 while divx with ac3 does not? What kind of screwed up implementation do they have on the PS3 anyway? They call that certified?? UGH. Alright, well, I can certainly look into that at some point. At some point I also need to get back to dealing with Blu-rays...another project sitting on the back burner. And considering I think I blew a cpu in one of my video machines last night(3:30am system alarms warning of overheating don't please me), this all may have to wait until I get back from vacation.

[Threedcoder]

So let me get this straight...xvid with ac3 works on the PS3 while divx with ac3 does not? What kind of screwed up implementation do they have on the PS3 anyway? They call that certified?? UGH. Alright, well, I can certainly look into that at some point. At some point I also need to get back to dealing with Blu-rays...another project sitting on the back burner. And considering I think I blew a cpu in one of my video machines last night(3:30am system alarms warning of overheating don't please me), this all may have to wait until I get back from vacation.

I assume dburckh meant both DivX and XVid -- but maybe he can clarify if he sees this post.

I would assume that they both worked, but maybe that's an incorrect assumption.

Any help getting either / or working on the PS3 with AC3 would be super appreciated.

[tfboy]

I played with this a while ago. I managed to get BluRay VC-1 into a WMV container with WMA2 sounds. Couldn't get AC3 working.

This is a topic of interest to me. Over on the eac3to thread they talk about doing this with mkv. That's really not an ideal solution for me. I'm probably looking for a TS solution for best compatibility.
Hehe join the club. I'd be very happy with using Matroska - a lot of my archived stuff on DVD is in mkv format, but the lack of support with the PS3 (for the moment, I hope!) means it's a no go.

Out of interest, when you say you couldn't get AC3 working, you tried this on a PS3 with software 2.10 ? I guess the answer is "yes", but just want to be clear :)
So let me get this straight...xvid with ac3 works on the PS3 while divx with ac3 does not? What kind of screwed up implementation do they have on the PS3 anyway? They call that certified?? UGH. Alright, well, I can certainly look into that at some point. At some point I also need to get back to dealing with Blu-rays...another project sitting on the back burner.[...]I don't think it's a "PS3 problem". If the PS3 can play DivX format (which it can) and AC3 (which it can with XviD apparently), then it has to be a mux issue. It would be interesting to compare the settings dburckh used to create his Xvid/AC3/AVI file that worked with the settings you used to create your DivX/AC3/AVI which didn't work.

I really want to get a simple remux working - if the Ps3 can play VC-1 / AVCHD without any issues (which it can), then surely we must be able to find the correct muxing parameters so we can just pass a remuxed rip of a BluRay / HD-DVD without requiring a lengthy 24-48h high def transcode!

[SamuriHL]

You make an interesting point, tfboy. I used AVI-MUX Gui to join my raw ac3 file (stripped from my HD mpeg2 file) with the divx video. I'd be curious to see what dburckh used to mux his xvid with ac3. I'm using 2.10 on my PS3 and divx with ac3 most definitely did not work for me. It was not at all interested in playing it. I might have to experiment with xvid but I won't have time tonight to try it.

[Threedcoder]

It would be interesting to compare the settings dburckh used to create his Xvid/AC3/AVI file that worked with the settings you used to create your DivX/AC3/AVI which didn't work.

This info is obtained via AVINaptic which is a great little AVI analysis program.

Here you go:

[ About file ]

Name: King_Kong_1080p.avi
Date: 21/01/2008 12:08:22
Size: 9,330,726,950 bytes (8898.475 MB)

[ Generic infos ]

Play duration: 03:07:23 (11243.166554 s)
Container type: AVI OpenDML indexes multi-chunks (*)
Number of streams: 2
Type of stream nr. 0: video
Type of stream nr. 1: audio
Audio streams: 1
JUNK: VirtualDub build 28312/release

[ Relevant data ]

Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Width: multiple of 32
Height: multiple of 8

[ Video track ]

FourCC: divx/DX50
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Frame aspect ratio: 16:9 = 1.777777
Pixel aspect ratio: 1:1 = 1
Display aspect ratio: 16:9 = 1.777777
Framerate: 23.975985 fps
Number of frames: 269566 (61514)
Stream size: 8,420,570,193 bytes
Bitrate: 5991.600428 kbps
Qf: 0.120515
Key frames: 900 (0; 300; 600; 900; 1200; ... 269452)
Null frames: 0
Min key int: 52
Max key int: 300
Avg key int: 299.517777
Delay: 0 ms

[ Audio track ]

Audio tag: 0x2000 (AC3)
Bitrate (container): 640 kbps CBR
Channels (container): 6
Sample rate (container): 48000 Hz
Chunks: 269554
Stream size: 899,450,880 bytes
Preload: 512 ms
Max A/V diff: 540 ms
Chunk-aligned: Yes
Mode: 3 front, 2 rear, 1 LFE
Delay: 0 ms

[ About MPEG4 encoding ]

User data: DivX503b2510p
QPel: No
GMC: No
Interlaced: No
Aspect ratio: Square pixels
Quant type: H.263

[ Profile compliancy ]

Profile to check: MTK PAL 6000
Resolution: 1920 x 1080 > 720 x 576
Framerate: 23.975985 <> 25
Warning: If you need a more complete report, then click on "DRF analysis"

This report was created by AVInaptic (http://fsinapsi.altervista.org) (18-11-2007) on 22 gen 2008, h 13:16:19

[dburckh]

Okay well, I looked back through most of your posts and couldn't find anything labeled as a clear but "guide". Any chance you can just make a suggestion as to what I'm doing wrong with these DivX encodes with AC3 that is causing them not to play on the PS3?

Is ffmpeg a requirement? If so for what? Video? Audio? Both?

Thanks.

Yes, ffmpeg converts the video from VC-1 to Xvid (or DVIX). Audio is done by eac3to. Muxing done with AviMuxGUI.

If you can find a way to create an AVS with VC-1, you could use GordianKnot or VirtualDub.

[Threedcoder]

Yes, ffmpeg converts the video from VC-1 to Xvid (or DVIX). Audio is done by eac3to. Muxing done with AviMuxGUI.

If you can find a way to create an AVS with VC-1, you could use GordianKnot or VirtualDub.

Is Sonic HD Demuxer -> Sonic Video Decoder 4.3 not an acceptable alternative? As that's what I'm currently using.

I am also using eac3to to go from .ddp -> .ac3.

Only differences I see here are Sonic vs. ffmpeg and VirtualDub vs. AviMuxGUI.

Edit: Note that the Sonic Video Decoder 4.3 does not appear to be the problem for me at least -- as the file I encoded without audio did in fact play on the PS3. So it seems to be purely an audio thing at this point.

[dburckh]

I assume dburckh meant both DivX and XVid -- but maybe he can clarify if he sees this post.

I would assume that they both worked, but maybe that's an incorrect assumption.

Any help getting either / or working on the PS3 with AC3 would be super appreciated.

As far as I know, Xvid and Dvix are equivalent (I'm biased towards XviD). I haven't tried Divx, but it should work as well.

[dburckh]

Is Sonic HD Demuxer -> Sonic Video Render 4.3 not an acceptable alternative? As that's what I'm currently using.

I am also using eac3to to go from .ddp -> .ac3.

Only differences I see here are Sonic vs. ffmpeg and VirtualDub vs. AviMuxGUI.

Edit: Note that the Sonic Video Renderer 4.3 does not appear to be the problem for me at least -- as the file I encoded without audio did in fact play on the PS3. So it seems to be purely an audio thing at this point.

I see no reason why Sonic wouldn't work. Are you using XviD or DVIX?

The PS3 might not support files bigger than 2GB (OpenDML). I only tested with small chunks. I'll verify tonight that it works with a large file.

I'm surprised VirtualDub doesn't work, it's a good product.

Try remuxing the .avi with AviMuxGUI.

[dburckh]

Out of interest, when you say you couldn't get AC3 working, you tried this on a PS3 with software 2.10 ? I guess the answer is "yes", but just want to be clear :)

I could not get AC3 to mux into an ASF (WMV) or MP4 container. The only thing I could get working was a AC3 in AVI, M2TS and MPG containers.

Hopefully that's then end of the questions. I'm exhausted :)

I'll verify that I can play a >2GB 1080p XVID/AC3/AVI video on my PS3 tonight and post the ffmpeg command line if I can. With so many people having problems, I'm starting to doubt myself.

[Threedcoder]

I see no reason why Sonic wouldn't work. Are you using XviD or DVIX?

The PS3 might not support files bigger than 2GB (OpenDML). I only tested with small chunks. I'll verify tonight that it works with a large file.

I'm surprised VirtualDub doesn't work, it's a good product.

Try remuxing the .avi with AviMuxGUI.

I'm using DivX. I also tested using small chunks as well. There is definitely a 2GB limit -- but all of my testing was done with smaller files.

VirtualDub does indeed work. There is just something about the AVI files it's kicking out that the PS3 doesn't like. I guess I could give AviMuxGUI a shot and see if it produces something the PS3 will accept.

[SamuriHL]

My testing was done with a 1.9 gig file on the PS3 and it could NOT play back my divx file muxed with AviMuxGUI with AC3. The 360 had no problem playing it at all.

[Threedcoder]

My testing was done with a 1.9 gig file on the PS3 and it could NOT play back my divx file muxed with AviMuxGUI with AC3. The 360 had no problem playing it at all.

How are you generating your ac3 audio? Via eac3to or via Sonic or Nero Audio Decoders in GraphEdit?

[dburckh]

My testing was done with a 1.9 gig file on the PS3 and it could NOT play back my divx file muxed with AviMuxGUI with AC3. The 360 had no problem playing it at all.

I wonder if it's a bit rate issue. I'm positive the PS3 will play SD XVID/AC3/AVI files built with AutoGK (most are <2GB). When I was using ffmpeg for my HD samples, most bitrates were around 10mpbs.

[Threedcoder]

I wonder if it's a bit rate issue. I'm positive the PS3 will play SD XVID/AC3/AVI files built with AutoGK (most are <2GB). When I was using ffmpeg for my HD samples, most bitrates were around 10mpbs.

Maybe an audio bitrate issue -- because I've been testing AVI files with DivX bitrates of less than 1500 kbps but 640 kbps of AC3 audio.

Like I said before, without the audio -- the video at 1500 kbps plays fine.

[SamuriHL]

How are you generating your ac3 audio? Via eac3to or via Sonic or Nero Audio Decoders in GraphEdit?

I'm not generating it at all. I'm not currently working on reencoding HD DVD or Blu-ray. I'm taking an HD MPEG2 file that I've recorded from my FusionHD USB capture card and attempting to convert that to a Divx 720p profile file. I used VideoReDo to split the AC3 file from the MPEG2 and muxed that in. Plays fine on the 360, but, not the PS3.

[SamuriHL]

I wonder if it's a bit rate issue. I'm positive the PS3 will play SD XVID/AC3/AVI files built with AutoGK (most are <2GB). When I was using ffmpeg for my HD samples, most bitrates were around 10mpbs.

It's possible I suppose. I don't really want to reencode the AC3 at all if I can help it. I'd even go with AVCHD if I knew the darn thing would play back on the 360 correctly, but, mine don't. Plays on the PS3, doesn't play on the 360. Talk about frustrating! :)

[dburckh]

Interesting. I have an 8GB Xvid 1080p/24fps/AC3 448k/AVI file playing on the PS3 off of a DVD DL, but I noticed it only recognizes the first 39 minutes. That must be 2GB. Since it's bigger than 4GB, I can't put it on a FAT32 partition. Further, the PoS3 won't recognize an AVI file via my media server.

Here's a sample config. Unfortunately, I deleted the config for the movie I have playing now.
SET COMMON=-y -f vc1 -r 24000/1001 -i "C:\Tivo\Riddick.mpv" -vcodec xvid -croptop 132 -cropbottom 132 -b 7797k -vtag XVID -an -passlogfile riddick -mbd rd

ffmpeg %COMMON% -pass 1 -f avi NUL
ffmpeg %COMMON% -pass 2 "E:\Riddick_movie.avi"

[dburckh]

It's possible I suppose. I don't really want to reencode the AC3 at all if I can help it. I'd even go with AVCHD if I knew the darn thing would play back on the 360 correctly, but, mine don't. Plays on the PS3, doesn't play on the 360. Talk about frustrating! :)

AVCHD is a BluRay cousin. Doubtful M$ will support that.

[SamuriHL]

I'm doing an AVCHD encode with DD 5.1 of Transformers HD DVD right now. It's going to take a while on my machine. It's going to be 720p as I want it to play on lesser powerful machines. It might be done tomorrow morning. Maybe. :)

[SamuriHL]

AVCHD is a BluRay cousin. Doubtful M$ will support that.

It's MP4, so, they should support it.

[dburckh]

It's MP4, so, they should support it.

Kind of. It's AVC in an M2TS container. The M2TS container is only used in AVCHD and BluRay, as far as I know.

[SamuriHL]

Hmmm, I'll have to mess with that some more then. I want to see what the quality is for now. I just don't have the time to really screw around with it too much at this point. I need to get some encodes done so I have some material to take with me on vacation. Since I leave in 2 days, that doesn't give a lot of time. :)

[Threedcoder]

Interesting. I have an 8GB Xvid 1080p/24fps/AC3 448k/AVI file playing on the PS3 off of a DVD DL, but I noticed it only recognizes the first 39 minutes. That must be 2GB. Since it's bigger than 4GB, I can't put it on a FAT32 partition. Further, the PoS3 won't recognize an AVI file via my media server.

Here's a sample config. Unfortunately, I deleted the config for the movie I have playing now.
SET COMMON=-y -f vc1 -r 24000/1001 -i "C:\Tivo\Riddick.mpv" -vcodec xvid -croptop 132 -cropbottom 132 -b 7797k -vtag XVID -an -passlogfile riddick -mbd rd

ffmpeg %COMMON% -pass 1 -f avi NUL
ffmpeg %COMMON% -pass 2 "E:\Riddick_movie.avi"

So here's the deal. I just downloaded ffmpeggui and used it to convert an ac3 file -- to an ac3 file?

Will ffmpeg not let you convert the .ddp (DD+) source file? Another thing I noticed was that the ac3 file it kicked out was only 2-channel (stereo).

I then used it as the audio source in my audio.avs script which I then used in VirtualDub. The AC3ACM converter in VirtualDub then converted it back into 5.1 (which is lame because it's obviously not true 5.1 at this point). But get this -- it played on the PS3.

Are you sure your converted .ac3 files are true 5.1? What is your original source audio? A demuxed .ddp file pulled out of the original .EVO file? (I'm talking primarily about HD-DVD).

Just so I know and am clear -- what's your order of operations for going from HD-DVD to AC3 inside of an AVI.

Mine is:

EvoDemux (generate a .vc1 and .ddp file)
eac3to the .ddp file into a .ac3 file
create the video and audio .grf files in GraphEdit
create the video and audio avs scripts
load into VirtualDub
Save (re-encode) AVI

[SamuriHL]

I can tell you my mpeg2 came from a transport stream that contains a true DD 5.1 audio track. I simply demuxed the ac3 file from the mpeg2 file and used that with AviMuxGUI to mux into the Divx file. That didn't play. So, if it's a 5.1 problem that really sucks.

[Tegeril]

Is Sonic HD Demuxer -> Sonic Video Decoder 4.3 not an acceptable alternative? As that's what I'm currently using.

I am also using eac3to to go from .ddp -> .ac3.

Only differences I see here are Sonic vs. ffmpeg and VirtualDub vs. AviMuxGUI.

Edit: Note that the Sonic Video Decoder 4.3 does not appear to be the problem for me at least -- as the file I encoded without audio did in fact play on the PS3. So it seems to be purely an audio thing at this point.

Does Haali Media Splitter --> WMVideo DMO Decoder not work for you? Considering commentary that people have on Sonic's audio abnormalities, I would hesitate to trust the video decoder as well. That said, if it does work for the video, that's great, but wait till you put the audio in to check for sync issues.

Your method above should work...at least as far as the avs file, grf file, evodemux, and eac3to as I am using all of that in my MKV/h.264 endeavor.

As far as differences, I am doing encoding with x264, then taking that video file, the ac3 audio, and putting it together with MKVMerge. Perhaps your mux method is to blame?

Also, there is an ffmpeg that handles eac3 just fine...Takes a bit of digging through the link made in the first post of thread, but I have the file hosted here (http://www.dotstrosity.net/doom9) for a bit if you want it. Though I suggest you use eac3to along with the Nero HD-DVD/Blu-ray plugin for eac3 conversion and eac3to with libav for TrueHD conversion (read: the default settings as long as the Nero plugin is installed and licensed -- does not work with Nero 8) as ffmpeg is still all beta on eac3.

[dburckh]

Does Haali Media Splitter --> WMVideo DMO Decoder not work for you? Considering commentary that people have on Sonic's audio abnormalities, I would hesitate to trust the video decoder as well. That said, if it does work for the video, that's great, but wait till you put the audio in to check for sync issues.

Your method above should work...at least as far as the avs file, grf file, evodemux, and eac3to as I am using all of that in my MKV/h.264 endeavor.

As far as differences, I am doing encoding with x264, then taking that video file, the ac3 audio, and putting it together with MKVMerge. Perhaps your mux method is to blame?

Also, there is an ffmpeg that handles eac3 just fine...Takes a bit of digging through the link made in the first post of thread, but I have the file hosted here (http://www.dotstrosity.net/doom9) for a bit if you want it. Though I suggest you use eac3to along with the Nero HD-DVD/Blu-ray plugin for eac3 conversion and eac3to with libav for TrueHD conversion (read: the default settings as long as the Nero plugin is installed and licensed -- does not work with Nero 8) as ffmpeg is still all beta on eac3.

I think this ffmpeg is one I was getting audio crackle out of.

[Tegeril]

I think this ffmpeg is one I was getting audio crackle out of.

Ah, that's no good :(

I'm not using it at all, so I can't really vouch for its usefulness except that the one time I tested with it, the AC3 file it created sounded fine (Poseidon). I did later use eac3to instead to get the TrueHD track converted and used that audio file instead. I've now completed my conversions of Corpse Bride and Happy Feet with excellent results.

[Threedcoder]

Last night I tried running the .ac3 file that was generated by eac3to through BeSweet to see if maybe eac3to was doing something non-standard with the output .ac3 file.

Still non dice on the PS3. So it's starting to make me think that the PS3 can't/won't play AVIs in general with true AC3 5.1 in them.

However, make no mistake about it -- regarding video only -- the PS3 will definitely play DivX/XVid video.

The problem seems to be with AVIs containing AC3 5.1.

Edit: So far I've encoded two movies (one being a very lengthy one at that) and they have played perfectly with perfect sync on the 360. Fast forwarding does prove to be problematic once you get further into the movies (like 1.5+ hours). Funny thing is that when I fast forward them on the PC they almost immediately get out of sync. I have to say that Microsoft has done a superb job with their AVI (DivX/Xvid) support.

The PS3 is looking like a major disappointment (at this point) to me in terms of fitting/integrating nicely into my whole house home theater setup/goals. Here's hoping that future firmware updates will help fix some of the major limitations -- two being: AVI files must be lass than 2GB and AVI files don't seem to support true AC3 5.1.

[Threedcoder]

Duplicate post removed.

P.S. Doom9 forums suck. Constantly down for short periods of time.

[dburckh]

So here's the deal. I just downloaded ffmpeggui and used it to convert an ac3 file -- to an ac3 file?

Will ffmpeg not let you convert the .ddp (DD+) source file? Another thing I noticed was that the ac3 file it kicked out was only 2-channel (stereo).



There are versions of ffmpeg that convert DD+ to AC3, but they I've had issues with "crackle" in the stream. I would use eac3to. In general, ffmpeg will do 5.1 ac3.

[Sephiroth0000]

Howdy! Seems we are stuck with this 5.1 AC3 problem. I have been researching more into it and I come across 5.1 MP3. Now to be honest I never heard of 5.1 MP3 but apparently it runs the same as MP3 but with sound being coordinated to the required speakers. Would this be of interest to anyone? I mean oblivously we would have to find a means of creating 5.1 MP3 and mux it in. Does anyone have a view on this?

[jmrenrav]

Hey guys, Kinda new here. Been watching this thread and has took me like 2 weeks to figure it all out.

I'm working on a HTPC project, and my main goal is to is to create a library of HD/Bluray movies encoded to a quality format.

I do not own a PS3 or Xbox (although I may in the future)

Right now im using EVODemux to strip just the video and then the main DD+ English track.

I'm using eac3to to convert the audio track to eac3

then I have been encoding both of them using TMPGExpress 4.0 to a wmv file.

I still have about 6 hours left on my encode, but I'm excited to see the results.

I wanted to try a different format (divx / xvid) but im confused on how to use ffmpeg.

are there any GUI based apps that can encode to 1080p divx or xvid? open source would be nice, but I will consider others ;)

[tyee]

TmpgEnc 4 Xpress works well for divx 1080p or 720p, for the video, but for audio you'll have to mux the ac3 in with another app.

[Threedcoder]

Okay -- so at this point, I've tried everything under the sun.

For those of you who claim to have DivX/Xvid + AC3 playing back on the PS3 -- I'm skeptical.

I even tried using the eac3to with the Nero Decoder last night -- as that's actually the preferred method over using Sonic.

Still, no dice. The ONLY suspect thing left in the equation at this point is VirtualDub and the way it's muxing the audio stream in with the DivX stream.

I haven't tried any other muxing programs to see if I get a different result as they all see to be so picky about the inputs they're willing to accept.

So for now, I'm temporarily giving up on AVI w / AC3 on the PS3. Not to mention the 2GB file size limit is also a killer.

I'm now trying to get WMV-HD encoding working. But Windows Media Encoder is proving to be a little bitch on Vista Ultimate 64. It keeps giving the error: "The required audio codec is not installed on this system." That's complete BS because the audio codec I'm trying to use is WMA 10 Pro and that comes by default with Windows Media Player 11 -- especially on all flavors of Vista.

That's with the 32-bit version. I'm going to try the 64-bit version tonight if I get a chance.

[Iskondi]

Hello all,

I'm a first time poster but long time reader. I'd recently decided that I wanted to take my HD-DVD movies and get them into a format that could be played on my PC or Xbox 360.

To that end I was quite excited to see Sephiroth0000's guide. First and foremost I'd like to say that was a very well done guide and knowing little to nothing about this very complex re-encoding process I was able to successfully get something going in Nero. I can see the work that you put into it, so thank you and thanks to all that have helped to contribute.

Before I start here are some system details:
I'm running Vista Ultimate x64, I have Nero 8 Ultra + HD/Blueray codecs installed and the 4.2 Sonic Decoder. I also have Tmpgenc 4.4.1.237

I figured since I ran through your guide and now have Nero trying to encode I'd point out a few things that I would update. (All of which are exceptionally minor but I can see how incredibly accurate you made your guide so I figured you might want to know)



As already mentioned the link for Eac3to is only the cmd portion, perhaps add a link to the gui? Like this one (http://www.afterdawn.com/software/dawnload.cfm?mirror_id=0&version_id=7973&software_id=1402)from Afterdawn?

When I try to do the registry change I cannot find that key. Perhaps because I'm on Vista, or x64? (Maybe just note that it won't exist there or correct me if I'm mistaken)

If I install the 4.3 Sonic Decoder I can no longer open up EVO files in Nero. (I have NO idea why that is the case but I could open them up fine, installed 4.3, couldn't open them up, uninstalled it and was able to again) Sooo I'm sticking with Sonic 4.2.

For some reason EAC3toGui didn't default to the Sonic codecs for me so it threw the normal Nero error (Since 8 restricts the codec usage) I saw from your screen shot that you were using sonic so I picked it from the drop down list and it worked fine. (Might be good to change that one screen shot to pick Sonic instead of default)



Finally, although Sephiroth's guide seems to be the most complete and well written of any I've been able to find, I wonder if I shouldn't be going about this a different way?


I don't care about play back on the PS3, I'd just like to be able to playback from the Xbox 360 and PC.


I'd like to get file sizes down, King Kong, the movie I'm working with now is 25GB or there abouts.


I'd like encoding to take a more "reasonable" amount of time. Nero 8 is saying 100 Hours??


Is there a different route/guide I should look at? Thanks in advance to everyone and once again GREAT job on the walkthrough Sephiroth.

This has been an exceptionally interesting thread to follow and I hope to be able to help contribute back once I get better at figuring all this stuff out.

Iskondi

[Threedcoder]

I'd like to get file sizes down, King Kong, the movie I'm working with now is 25GB or there abouts.


I'd like encoding to take a more "reasonable" amount of time. Nero 8 is saying 100 Hours??



My King Kong DivX with AC3 encode ended up at about 8.6 GB and took roughly 41 hours to encode.

[sbcale]

Howdy! Seems we are stuck with this 5.1 AC3 problem. I have been researching more into it and I come across 5.1 MP3. Now to be honest I never heard of 5.1 MP3 but apparently it runs the same as MP3 but with sound being coordinated to the required speakers. Would this be of interest to anyone? I mean oblivously we would have to find a means of creating 5.1 MP3 and mux it in. Does anyone have a view on this?

I am very interested in this! Anything I can do to help or test I will as well.

[Iskondi]

Threedcoder - Sorry I realized I wasn't clear, I meant the EVO's starting size is 25GB, Nero hasn't finished encoding so I've no clue what it will be like when it is done.

That being said, your encoding time is roughly half mine (And mine is going up! *Gasp*) and 8.6GB is totally reasonable for HD content.

Which steps did you go through to create the DivX with AC3 and what type of hardware are you sporting? I have a dual core 2.33 E6550, 2GB of ram and a 150GB 10k Raptor SATA Drive, CPU seems to be the bottleneck though.

Iskondi

[Threedcoder]

Threedcoder - Sorry I realized I wasn't clear, I meant the EVO's starting size is 25GB, Nero hasn't finished encoding so I've no clue what it will be like when it is done.

That being said, your encoding time is roughly half mine (And mine is going up! *Gasp*) and 8.6GB is totally reasonable for HD content.

Which steps did you go through to create the DivX with AC3 and what type of hardware are you sporting? I have a dual core 2.33 E6550, 2GB of ram and a 150GB 10k Raptor SATA Drive, CPU seems to be the bottleneck though.

Iskondi

Gotcha.

HD-DVD to Divx w/AC3
----------------------
DVDFab to get the contents off the disk onto the hard drive
EvoDemux the .EVO files to a .vc1 (video) and .ddp (audio) file
eac3to the .ddp file to a .ac3 file
Setup the video.grf and audio.grf
video.grf = video.vc1 -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> Sonic Video Decoder 4.3
audio.grf = audio.ac3 -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> AC3Filter
setup audio.avs to reference audio.grf
setup video.avs to reference video.grf
setup audio_video.avs to reference both audio.avs & video.avs
load audio_video.avs into VirtualDub and setup audio and video encoding.

Make sure AC3ACM is installed as you'll use it to encode the audio.
Make sure that either DivX or Xvid are installed for video encoding.

I'm running a brand new machine that's currently gimped by an old P4 3.8GHz processor while I wait for the new (Penryn) Q9450 quad cores to become available.

Your Core 2 Duo should be substantially faster than my P4 for the encoding.

[Sephiroth0000]

I am very interested in this! Anything I can do to help or test I will as well.

http://www.all4mp3.com/


This is the website. Now there is a GUI based MP3 surround program and a command line version. Now it is supposed to take the WAV. file and transfer it to MP3 surround and I did attempt to do this by taking REBUILT AUDIO ONLY EVO and taking it to EACH3TO and transferring it to WAV and to the MP3 surround program but the MP3 surround GUI refuses to accept it. Also if you read up on the website any MP3 player can play this sound so even PS3/360 would accept it as they accept MP3 output. And we should by right be able to mux MP3 surround (if we get it to work) with DIVX/WMV/AVI or pratically any other format (within in reason)

Going to take a look at the command line version today. ANYONE WHO WANTS TO GET INVOLVED PLEASE DO SO! :)

[Sephiroth0000]

Gotcha.

HD-DVD to Divx w/AC3
----------------------
DVDFab to get the contents off the disk onto the hard drive
EvoDemux the .EVO files to a .vc1 (video) and .ddp (audio) file
eac3to the .ddp file to a .ac3 file
Setup the video.grf and audio.grf
video.grf = video.vc1 -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> Sonic Video Decoder 4.3
audio.grf = audio.ac3 -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> AC3Filter
setup audio.avs to reference audio.grf
setup video.avs to reference video.grf
setup audio_video.avs to reference both audio.avs & video.avs
load audio_video.avs into VirtualDub and setup audio and video encoding.

Make sure AC3ACM is installed as you'll use it to encode the audio.
Make sure that either DivX or Xvid are installed for video encoding.

I'm running a brand new machine that's currently gimped by an old P4 3.8GHz processor while I wait for the new (Penryn) Q9450 quad cores to become available.

You're Core 2 Duo should be substantially faster than my P4 for the encoding.


Nice and simple! So what are you playing these files on? 360? PS3? I can already do DIVX but it is just getting a 5.1 source that everything can accept (thinking 5.1 MP3 is gonna be the answer I hope)

[sbcale]

Gotcha.

HD-DVD to Divx w/AC3
----------------------
DVDFab to get the contents off the disk onto the hard drive
EvoDemux the .EVO files to a .vc1 (video) and .ddp (audio) file
eac3to the .ddp file to a .ac3 file
Setup the video.grf and audio.grf
video.grf = video.vc1 -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> Sonic Video Decoder 4.3
audio.grf = audio.ac3 -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> AC3Filter
setup audio.avs to reference audio.grf
setup video.avs to reference video.grf
setup audio_video.avs to reference both audio.avs & video.avs
load audio_video.avs into VirtualDub and setup audio and video encoding.

Make sure AC3ACM is installed as you'll use it to encode the audio.
Make sure that either DivX or Xvid are installed for video encoding.

I'm running a brand new machine that's currently gimped by an old P4 3.8GHz processor while I wait for the new (Penryn) Q9450 quad cores to become available.

You're Core 2 Duo should be substantially faster than my P4 for the encoding.

Thank you, thank you. This is exactly what I needed.

On a side note, I converted Ratatouille the other night to a 1080p wmv and it came out at 4.24GB and streams perfectly to the 360. The HD quality is as good as I have seen. The original .m2ts was 26GB.

[Threedcoder]

Nice and simple! So what are you playing these files on? 360? PS3? I can already do DIVX but it is just getting a 5.1 source that everything can accept (thinking 5.1 MP3 is gonna be the answer I hope)

I'm playing them on the 360 just fine (even with video bitrates as high a 7Mbps and 1080p). The PS3 cannot play the files when they have the AC3 5.1 in them. However, I REALLY want to use the PS3 as my upstairs streaming device -- but I'm up against a wall at this point.

By far, the DivX + AC3 5.1 conversion seems to be the easiest and most reliable conversion at this point.

EDIT:

So this morning I was finally able to get something working with Windows Media Encoder. I had to jump through the whole split the .ddp track out into six mono .wav files (eac3to the .ddp -> .wav) then tranzcode the .wav -> six mono wavs.

I ran a quick 60 second test encode and as usual it played back perfectly on the 360. The PS3 on the other hand did properly recognize the file as VC-1 and even played it back -- but without audio. :(

From a quick google search it appears as though the PS3 cannot decode WMA Pro. ??? Any chance support for this will come online?

At this point it appears as though the PS3 is pretty worthless in the audio department. What exactly is it capable of decoding / handling at this point?

Not to mention, after further investigation it sounds like the 2GB file size limit also applies to WMV files.

I think Amazon is about to get another $270 from me for a 360 Arcade Edition with HDMI and 1080p support. It just works...what more needs to be said?

[jmrenrav]

Gotcha.

HD-DVD to Divx w/AC3
----------------------
DVDFab to get the contents off the disk onto the hard drive
EvoDemux the .EVO files to a .vc1 (video) and .ddp (audio) file
eac3to the .ddp file to a .ac3 file
Setup the video.grf and audio.grf
video.grf = video.vc1 -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> Sonic Video Decoder 4.3
audio.grf = audio.ac3 -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> AC3Filter
setup audio.avs to reference audio.grf
setup video.avs to reference video.grf
setup audio_video.avs to reference both audio.avs & video.avs
load audio_video.avs into VirtualDub and setup audio and video encoding.

Make sure AC3ACM is installed as you'll use it to encode the audio.
Make sure that either DivX or Xvid are installed for video encoding.

I'm running a brand new machine that's currently gimped by an old P4 3.8GHz processor while I wait for the new (Penryn) Q9450 quad cores to become available.

You're Core 2 Duo should be substantially faster than my P4 for the encoding.

can you explain this part for me?

Setup the video.grf and audio.grf
video.grf = video.vc1 -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> Sonic Video Decoder 4.3
audio.grf = audio.ac3 -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> AC3Filter
setup audio.avs to reference audio.grf
setup video.avs to reference video.grf
setup audio_video.avs to reference both audio.avs & video.avs
load audio_video.avs into VirtualDub and setup audio and video encoding.

Im new to graphedit

[jmrenrav]

no matter what i do, i cannot get the x264 to load the avs. It will say it cannot find it, even when it is there, what gives?