Premiere and TMPGEnc won't play GK's avi's

[JimmyTheSaint]

I've been using GK 0.35.0 here and there for some time with no problem even though I'm not an expert. Until now I've always played back its products with ZoomPlayer and VLC. I now need to extract clips from the videos I make with GK, but when I try to load these into Adobe Premiere CS3 or TMPGEnc DVD Author 3 neither one will work properly with anything I've produced with GK: Premiere refuses to load any GK avi file, complaining about an incompatible audio type and TMPGEnc loads the avi's but crashes when I try to play them inside the app. Yet tons of other avi's I get from other sources work fine with both these apps.

The problem definitely has something to do with the audio format GK produces. I've tried changing GK's settings when making a video, but nothing fixes the problem. I see there are user customizable audio settings but I have no idea what I could specify there to fix the incompatibility with Premiere and TMPGEnc. Any suggestions how to fix this?

[CWR03]

The problem definitely has something to do with the audio format GK produces.
GordianKnot uses either Lame MP3 or the original AC3 - you can convert the audio to something universal like WAV and use that as the input to Gordian Knot.

[JimmyTheSaint]

GordianKnot uses either Lame MP3 or the original AC3 - you can convert the audio to something universal like WAV and use that as the input to Gordian Knot.

That's what I don't quite understand. GK's default behavior when I select the ac3 file is the radio button that says "MP3, 128kBit/sec, average Bitrate." The checkbox "Delete Wav." is checked. This always gave me the impression that GK's final product for the audio track is mp3. Are you saying I should convert the ac3 file outside of GK to wav, and then select it in GK instead of the ac3?

One more bit of info. When I load one of GK's avi's that don't work in TMPGEnc it plays for a few seconds with no audio before crashing. At that time, a transparent box appears in the lower righthand corner where Divx reports something like "this file has multiple audio tracks." None of the avi's that work properly bring up this notification, so perhaps this multiple audio tracks is the problem?

[CWR03]

That's what I don't quite understand. GK's default behavior when I select the ac3 file is the radio button that says "MP3, 128kBit/sec, average Bitrate." The checkbox "Delete Wav." is checked. This always gave me the impression that GK's final product for the audio track is mp3. Are you saying I should convert the ac3 file outside of GK to wav, and then select it in GK instead of the ac3?
Yes, exactly. When you select the wav, by default it will still try and convert it to MP3, so just select "Just mux." You will also want to select the WAV files in the main Bitrate window to ensure your encodes are to the right size.
One more bit of info. When I load one of GK's avi's that don't work in TMPGEnc it plays for a few seconds with no audio before crashing. At that time, a transparent box appears in the lower righthand corner where Divx reports something like "this file has multiple audio tracks." None of the avi's that work properly bring up this notification, so perhaps this multiple audio tracks is the problem?
It may be only that. I don't use TMPGEnc, so I don't know how multiple audio tracks will affect the application. I don't believe Premiere will properly handle files with multiple audio at all.

Perhaps you might have better luck editing the original files with a lossless application before converting.

[JimmyTheSaint]

OK, I can try editing the audio down to one track. But first, does GK provide settings that will prevent it from producing multiple audio tracks?

[CWR03]

But first, does GK provide settings that will prevent it from producing multiple audio tracks?
Just don't add multiple audio tracks. :)

The audio encoding/muxing window has two tabs for audio input - it will only add one if you use only the first tab that opens.

[JimmyTheSaint]

Just don't add multiple audio tracks. :)

The audio encoding/muxing window has two tabs for audio input - it will only add one if you use only the first tab that opens.

D'OH!

I guess I was always thinking I needed to add the same audio track in both places in order to get stereo. Obviously that's moronic, but I only see that now. Premiere still refused to import, but this time it specified incompatible audio rate, which is easily fixed. My main app, TMPGEnc DVD Author imported and played back the clip with one audio track just fine. Thanks for the help.