How on earth do you keep AC3 when mastering a DVD-R

[ImsPro]

Hi all,

:confused:

I've tried everything, but I must be missing something.

I'm trying to get Dolby 5.1 on my movies, but only seem to get stereo when I'm doing buring these to DVD-R..Here's what I'm doing..I've tried all kinds of variants of this, but here it goes.

1. Use Smartstripper and only select the movie. In the stream processing menu, I select the movie and the 6Ch. audio only (0xE0 and 0x80) for this movie. I have each of them set to direct stream copy though I have tried to demux the audio track to a separate file.

2. Go into DVD2AVI and load up the 1st .vob file. For audio I have selected Track 1, Channel format-Dolby Digital, for Dolby Digital I have it set to Decode..That's about it...it runs and builds a .ac3 file along with the .d2v file.

3. Go into TMPGEnc and load up the .d2v as the video source and the .ac3 file as the audio. I load in the DVD template and start the process. For Video, I do NOT force film. I leave it at none.

4. Once done I use MyDVD to build a menu and insert the resulting .mpg output from TMPGEnc to a button. I have it buld the DVD folder structure, then burn the resulting Audio_ts and Video_ts files using Prassi PrimoDVD.

Now..at this point I actually have 2 issues..
1st. No Dobly Digital (Stereo only)
2nd. Audio will loss sync with video after about 3 minutes and progressively gets worse.

If I used Smatstripper and feed a resulting .vob file into TMPGEnc and take it through DVD-R creation, it works fine (audio is sync'd) but it will still be in stereo.

Any suggestions? Anyone??

Thanks in advance!

[jdobbs]

MyDVD doesn't support AC-3. It only supports PCM. If you use any other input it will convert it to PCM. I was REALLY disappointed when I found that out (MyDVD came with my drive). Use one of the other authoring programs and your problems will disappear.

[sumotherdude]

There's an easier way with other methods listed on this forum, I'd type my own but it's more or less the same as what's posted here, here's the link:

http://rilanparty.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11411

I don't know if you tried or read this, my apologies if you have but it's really helped me. The only problems that you'll run into are movies that are larger than 4.2 GB or so. Then a run through ReMPEG might be necessary.

Once everything is finished just create the VIDEO_TS & AUDIO_TS folders and burn them to the disc. I use Stomp's Record Now or HP's version of Record Now. Pop it in your player and you should be go to go.

With the above methods, Dolby Digital 5.1 stays intact. All the movies I've done, with the exception of Planet of the Apes have came out perfect. I think my problem with Apes was an encoding issue.

If you have any questions, feel free to email or PM me and I will help all I can.

sumotherdude

[ImsPro]

Well..I'm still not getting AC3 audio with the video..I took jdobbs advice and used another authoring software (Ulead's DVD Movie Factory) but still end up with Stereo audio. The movie is over 4.3gb, so sumotherdude's procedure won't work on this one.

I'm stepping back a step to TMPGEnc stage as I think this is were the audio is dropping back to stereo.

So my question.

For video input, I'm using the .d2v file created by DVD2AVI and for audio I'm using the .ac3 file created by DVD2AVI (i've tried the .ac3 file created directly out of Smartripper and get the same results).

Are there any other settings in TMPGEnc that I need to worry about for AC3 (and DTS for that matter?) I load in the DVD-NTSC template included with the program. The audio tab has settings for Stereo, Dual and something else..do I need to pick a specific setting? How about anything else?? I'm running Windows 98 (not SE)..Could that be a problem?? I'm writing onto DVD-RW's that seem to play fine in my Pioneer DV434..is there an issue with using RW's releated to audio?

Needless to say, I'm frustrated and I'm grasping at straws. Any suggestions?

Regards and Thanks!

[Commander XJL]

TMPGEnc does not support AC3. I posted detailed instructions on copying a movie with AC3, all chapters, and no encoding here: http://rilanparty.com/vbb/showthrea...&threadid=11411

If the movie is too big you need to encode with TMPGEnc then use an app like Spruceup or DVDMaestro to bring in the original AC3 file (not the one from DVD2AVI) with the new encoded video file and build the DVD, I do this all the time with both apps and everyone has been perfect