multiAVCHD - author Blu-ray/AVCHD (Blu-ray players, camcoders, Viera TV) + (HD) DVD

[detroit1]

I was trying to put an m2ts file into multiavchd and it was not going to keep the LPCM. It took a long time and when it finished, the file had no audio; just video

here is what it was saying in the multiavchd


[17:07:04] Detected video: ID#4113:V_MPEG-2 1920x1080, fps=29.970
[17:07:04] Encoding [LPCM] audio to AC3...
[17:07:04] eac3to refused to convert audio!
[17:07:04] Trying to demux audio...
[17:18:46] Parsing to NicAudio/aften (avisynth)...
[17:18:48] DELETE EXCEPTION: Should not touch file! (c:\multiavchd\_temp\multitemp-20140312\beating heart today show audio.m2ts.t2.ac3.mpa)
[17:18:48] Encoding to AC3 (second try)...
[17:18:48] All tries to demux/encode audio failed!
[17:18:48] Total of 2 tracks found in this file.
[17:18:48] Creating clip and playlist info (tsMuxeR)...

[detroit1]

I also notice now that either multiavchd will pass thru the lpcm or it will fail to demux and when it finishes, the file will have no audio, just video

so now it is all or nothing.

I am using the latest version

[von Suppé]

So there's no video with pcm at all that MultiAVCHD has demuxed and transcoded to AC3?

[mariner]

A heads up to anyone using the subtitle creator in multiAVCHD (and that goes for easySUP and goSUP), the default font Trebuchet MS doesn't support music notes (♪) and probably other symbols.
You may want to go with Arial Bold or Tahoma instead.

Really?

[detroit1]

the last couple files I have tried with LPCM that failed ended up with no audio on the file at all. the eac failed to convert

then the files that worked passed thru and ended up with lpcm

[detroit1]

Ok I tried another file with LPCM 5.1 that converted to ac3

here is the before mediainfo

Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 600 MiB
Duration : 3mn 53s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 21.5 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 35.5 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=24
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 3mn 53s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 13.8 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 20.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.221
Stream size : 383 MiB (64%)
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Muxing mode : Blu-ray
Codec ID : 128
Duration : 3mn 53s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 6 912 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits
Stream size : 193 MiB (32%)

[detroit1]

and here is the after media info after MULTIAVCHD. It is now only in ac3



Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 405 MiB
Duration : 3mn 53s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 14.6 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 35.5 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=24
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 3mn 53s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 13.6 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 20.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.219
Stream size : 378 MiB (93%)
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 3mn 53s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 10.7 MiB (3%)

[von Suppé]

the eac failed to convert

I wonder if that is because the audiostream could not be demuxed.

I don't know what the problem is (if any) with the last file you posted. Both MultiAVCHD and the older tsMuxer it uses, have issues. I think a lot of people would like the creator of the tool to update it, but as I understand the forums didn't hear from him for a long time. Let's hope he is okay.

With media that don't work I'm afraid you have to do things manually. This can be quite some work though.

[detroit1]

keep in mind that some files pass thru the LPCM 5.1 fine and others don't. I can't figure out any explanation for this
I have mostly 29.97 frame rate files . This doesn't make any sense

[von Suppé]

Yes, things can appear quite "not logical" sometimes. Of course there is a logical reason to the issue but sometimes we just don't know.
Now this is a leap in the dark, but can't you try to replace the tsmuxer.exe in MultiAVCHD's tool folder with the most recent one? Just a thought, don't really expect it to work... :(

[detroit1]

can you explain how to replace the tsmuxer in the folder?
that sounds like a good idea

[Music Fan]

Just download the last TSMuxer version, drag&drop it where the old one is (C:\multiAVCHD\tools on my pc) and accept the replacement. But copy first the old one, you may need to put it there again.

[detroit1]

I did replace the tsmuxer in the avchd tools but when I tried a file, it did the same thing eac refused to convert and the when it finished, the file had no audio
I tried another file with lpcm 5.1 just now and that file passe thru quickly with no problem

I thought replacing the tsmuxer was a great idea but it did not change anything

I would love to try other methods as well

[Music Fan]

As a last resort, I believe you can replace the problematic title (without audio or with compressed audio while you don't want the sound to be compressed) with BDedit ;
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/BDedit
I don't know how it works but I know it can do many things and you could maybe find some tutorials.

[von Suppé]

As far as MultiAVCHD handling things automatically concerned, I'm running out of options to.
The only way for some media is do demuxing, transcoding and maybe remuxing again manually. There are great, free tools at your disposal but you have to put in some effort.
Of course in each step there will always be issues and it takes time to get the hang of things.

[molntuss]

Where do you adjust the placement of added subtitles in multiAVCHD?

Everything worked perfectly for me adding a set of subtitles (.srt) but when I view the blu-ray in my Oppo the subtitles are too low. I can just barely see the upper tip of the the second line. I basically need to move them up a whole line.

Apologies of this has been covered extensively. I honestly tried to search to find out about this my best but I felt like I was looking for a needle in a haystack.

Thanks in advance.

[Music Fan]

I never tried to create sup from srt with multiAVCHD but all I can say is that Subtitle Edit does it very well ;
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=162721
Open your srt, chose export, Blu-ray sup, try some settings, especially bottom margin and line height, then click on export all lines and open the sup in multiAVCHD as external subtitle or mux it into ts with TSMuxer and open the ts in multiAVCHD.

[von Suppé]

Where do you adjust the placement of added subtitles in multiAVCHD?

... I was looking for a needle in a haystack.

Did you take a look @ the Subtitles & Audio tab?

There you can adjust about everything for text-based subs and preview the result in a window.

[molntuss]

Did you take a look @ the Subtitles & Audio tab?

There you can adjust about everything for text-based subs and preview the result in a window.

Thanks for responding.

Yeah, I might be blind, but I only see sizing and a slider for horizontal alignment... Nothing for vertical alignment. Is it possible?

EDIT: I found it. It's called Offset, right next to font size. It's default to 45 and when I set it to 100 it worked.

[von Suppé]

A lot of tv-sets have overscan. The picture is zoomed into for a few percent and projected. At least with old analog tv's this can be quite significant.
If your tv is a modern flatscreen maybe there is this option to disable overscan and see the full picture. Also various auto "zoom" or "screenfill" functions of widescreen tv's can have a negative effect.

[Ghitulescu]

Usually overscan is a property of analogue.
From another thread I've learned that there are TVs that can display the underscan, which I knew it wouldn't be possible with analogue sources even if digitally transferred (via HDMI).
There is no overscan/underscan in HDTV as we have it (only analogue HDTV has). However, even with authored BD/AVCHD discs it may that the overscan is available, for instance when one watches the movie on a SD TV (via VideoOut or SCART).
And finally the last issue is with Philips HDTVs that are cinema-enabled - these are wider than 16:9 thus the mattes are anyway not displayed, with the subtitles if placed downthere.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Not strictly true...

I have four LG TV's and not one of them allows you to disable over-scan (or 'Just Scan' as LG likes to call it) when watching std-def TV channels. Their 'Just Scan' option is only accessible when watching a high-def TV channels.

Fortunately, the HDMI inputs don't suffer from this limitation, unless the attached devices signals other-wise...

[xzerst]

Results of using MultiAVCHD 4.1 to play blu-rays on the Panasonic DMP-BDT230:

AVCHD Strict- Will not play automatically. Have to select the Videos icon tab to see the BDMV folder and navigate to streams folder. Choose m2ts file and the movie plays fine. Fast forward and rewind works but skip function doesn't.

AVCHD Disc- CORRECTION: Will not play automatically. Only plays automatically if I feed an m2ts file manually into tsmuxer and create avchd disc as output and burn to disc.

Blu-ray Disc- Does not work at all. I get incompatible disc error.

When I convert the m2ts movie file in the streams folder to mkv using mkvmerge and burn it to a dvd disc using IMGburn write file to disc (no folders) option, the movie won't play automatically. It will play by choosing the videos icon tab, select the mkv movie file and choose play.

By the way, all encoding with MultiAVCHD 4.1 done using Windows 8.1 operating system. Yes it works fine on Windows 8.1

[von Suppé]

Did you try other media? I created tons of BD for a.o. different Panasonic players without problems. Maybe it´s Windows 8

[xzerst]

Did you try other media? I created tons of BD for a.o. different Panasonic players without problems. Maybe it´s Windows 8

Verbatim, Optical Quantum, and Windata media has the same problem with Blu-ray disc. Even on Windows 7 the same results. The problem has to be the firmware updates ( I've downloaded two of them). At the same time they all work with AVCHD disc. Better yet if I burn an mkv as a plain old data disc (no folders of any kind) and load it into the Panasonic player, it sees it and I select it and play it that way.

[von Suppé]

And did you check if the created BD works on another standalone player?

[xzerst]

And did you check if the created BD works on another standalone player?
I only have one standalone player.

[von Suppé]

I remember having bad disks without knowing it. Drove me nuts until I tried another player. So, first thing I would make sure is if the discs play ok in other standalones. Maybe a friend's or whatever?
A disk playing fine on a pc doesn't tell much about a standalone's behaviour.

[Acerjen]

Anyone know if MultiAVCHD will be updated to support 3D ISO, so that the output directory is not twice the size of the original. I know Deank has other projects, so i was wondering if this one will no longer be updated. Thanks. Later.


Acerjen

[DoctorM]

Frozen, re-author mode, after import, Size: 155916 MiB (152.262 GiB).
Anyone else see this weirdness? I assume its a BDJava thing.
I do not select the "output with Playstation 3" option during import. Should I be? Even if I won't be using it on one?

[Ghitulescu]

Usually overscan is a property of analogue.
From another thread I've learned that there are TVs that can display the underscan, which I knew it wouldn't be possible with analogue sources even if digitally transferred (via HDMI).

Not strictly true...

I have four LG TV's and not one of them allows you to disable over-scan (or 'Just Scan' as LG likes to call it) when watching std-def TV channels. Their 'Just Scan' option is only accessible when watching a high-def TV channels.
That was exactly my point, but someone from Oz kept saying that his LG TV (and therefore many of the modern TVs) can override the overscan. Since I do not have any LG TV I can only pass this info without testing it myself.
Results of using MultiAVCHD 4.1 to play blu-rays on the Panasonic DMP-BDT230:

AVCHD Strict- Will not play automatically. Have to select the Videos icon tab to see the BDMV folder and navigate to streams folder. Choose m2ts file and the movie plays fine. Fast forward and rewind works but skip function doesn't.

AVCHD Disc- CORRECTION: Will not play automatically. Only plays automatically if I feed an m2ts file manually into tsmuxer and create avchd disc as output and burn to disc.

Blu-ray Disc- Does not work at all. I get incompatible disc error.

When I convert the m2ts movie file in the streams folder to mkv using mkvmerge and burn it to a dvd disc using IMGburn write file to disc (no folders) option, the movie won't play automatically. It will play by choosing the videos icon tab, select the mkv movie file and choose play.

By the way, all encoding with MultiAVCHD 4.1 done using Windows 8.1 operating system. Yes it works fine on Windows 8.1
Maybe a look here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=151690) will help you, at least Panasonic seems to consistently refuse certain HDTV discs.

[DoctorM]

Still playing around with fonts for goSUP and easySUP. Arial Bold is proving too fat. (Btw, the default bottom offset of 45 is pretty low on the screen. Currently testing around 75 as being closer to what commercial discs use).

Can anyone think of a reason why Arial is not available to me as an option?
I can select Arial Narrow, Arial Bold, Arial Black Italic & Arial Rounded MT Bold.
Just not plain old Arial. I see it under just about every other program, just not MultAVHD's components.

Edit:
75 bottom offset was indeed ideal and much closer to what you'd see commercially.

ALSO, whatever that weird thing was with the font, I cheated my way around it.
For anyone else:

1) Open goSUP.
2) Set your options, and select Arial Bold (or Arial Narrow if you want).
3) Close goSUP.
4) Go to your multiAVCHD folder and open the goSUP.ini file.
5) Remove the word after Arial (bold or narrow). Save and close the file.
6) Reopen goSUP. It will now show the font as Arial, and it WILL use it correctly when you build your subtitles.

[von Suppé]

Strange. Arial is in MultiAVCHD's list. Did you try re-installing it?

[Taurus]

Can anyone think of a reason why Arial is not available to me as an option?
I can select Arial Narrow, Arial Bold, Arial Black Italic & Arial Rounded MT Bold.
Just not plain old Arial. I see it under just about every other program, just not MultAVHD's components.
Same here...
Win Xp 32bit

[DoctorM]

Might be an XP thing. Mind you, by tomorrow none of should be running that...

[buffalofloyd]

I sooooo wish this program was still being improved and updated. Been using it for a couple years now about. I have so many issues adding mkv files and re-encoding audio from them and getting my output to include the subtitles. I usually have to demux and remux to m2ts files, add chapter files manually and only then I have limited success. Now for some reason my pgs subs are not playing on m2ts videos.

I am putting Game of Thrones on a disc for my Uncle. All my files are encoded from the full Blu-Rays with HD audio, english subtitles, and chapters to mkv's. Adding these files directly to multiAVCHD will not pick up the subtitles upon final output, you cannot extract and add them as external either, I get a fail to demux error. Selecting DTS-HD to AC3 for the audio does nothing either, or DTS to AC3, even after I select 'Core Only' under properties.

So I remux to m2ts, which is a real hassle because you can't just drag and drop the mkv's into tsmuxer and remux because it says certain tracks are not recognized, like always its the PGS subs or True-HD audio for some reason. Therefore I have to demux to video, audio, PGS, and chapters and then add all but the chapter files one by one into ts muxer which only then recognizes the files and remux to m2ts. 10 episodes per season and having to do this for each episode rots.

After all that is said and done I can re-encode the audio successfully to whatever I want, except stereo. I still have absolutely no idea how to re-encode to stereo, is it even possible? Selecting 'downmix to stereo for Viera mode' does nothing in the way of converting multi-channel audio to stereo. It's not a huge deal but I haven't been able to do it in any sort of way. Probably missing something...

The subtitles are what is really tricky. I made 2 subtitle tracks for this particular show, the first is the non-english forced PGS file and the second is the full english PGS file. This is how they are stored within my mkv files. So upon playback through XBMC or MPC or whatever, the non-english playback by default. When remuxing these into a m2ts file it seems they lose that forced flag or default flag. If I convert straight away with no subtitle options checked they are not showing up on output to BD. I can extract and add as external and they still wont show up. I can hard burn in the subs just fine if I want to by transcoding and selecting 'hard burn first external sub' and that works but that would conflict with the full subs and the full subs aren't showing up anyway. Selecting 'force display of first subtitle track will not work either because not all episodes have non-english dialogue.

These problems are seriously frustrating and I'm probably missing some things but when I can get this program to work the way I want it is truly fantastic and great, however, getting to the results I'm after is a serious challenge sometimes. If anyone else has any of these issues please chime in because I feel like I'm the only one and I'm somewhat savvy with this tool, or at least I though I was. I still have to see if this is applies to some other movies or TV shows I have.

Really, for free this tool can't be beat and I sound like I'm whining, and I am a bit, but I'm grateful to have it. So, still a kudos to dean, wherever the hell you are lol ;)

[DoctorM]

Has development stopped? It's been nearly 2 years since an update? Is that right?

[buffalofloyd]

Has development stopped? It's been nearly 2 years since an update? Is that right?

Last update was July 2012 I believe, so yeah... my money is on this being a completely dead tool, which is a crying shame. If I had the brains or know-how to create a tool like this I would. I think this is the only one of it's kind too, that's free anyway.

[DoctorM]

Making menus today for an AVCHD project. Source is BD derived .MPLS's (and the .M2TS files they link).
I'm finding that some of the pages of the menu don't work. (It's slide menu, but just flip pages because of strict AVCHD.)

The first try had 5 titles in the menu, the 5th menu page just won't appear. The screen shows whatever was last on the screen (going forward or backward). I can click forward and back through it, even play the clip, but the image for the page just isn't there.

On my PC, the menu page's .m2ts is there and appears to be intact. Playing the .MPLS file associated with it only gives a blank screen though.

On my second build I added a sixth title. Now the first and last page do this.

Any suggestions?

Edit: Since the first title card should have been identical between the two projects, I copied to working 80010.m2ts over the broken one and now the .MPLS works. So it is definitely a problem in the .m2ts file, no where else. I shame I can't do that for the last page.

Edit 2: I did a work around. Created two more versions. One with the last title first and one with the first title last. I then copied a couple .m2ts from these into the first folder in a way that the first and last titles now show the card for the wraparound title.
It's not as pretty but it works.

Another question. Is there a way to hide a title's last chapter in the menu? In a lot of cases the last chapter tends to be the very end and doesn't need to be selectable in the chapter menu. Don't say 'just delete the last chapter'. :-)

[Music Fan]

Is there a way to hide a title's last chapter in the menu?
I don't know if there is a simple solution but here is something you could try (not sure it will work) : export your project twice ;
-the first with all chapters
-the second with nearly all chapters (all except the last for each title).
Then, mix both projects :
-keep the titles and mpls files with all chapters from the first export
-keep the menus with nearly all chapters from the second export.

[DoctorM]

I don't know if there is a simple solution but here is something you could try (not sure it will work) : export your project twice ;
-the first with all chapters
-the second with nearly all chapters (all except the last for each title).
Then, mix both projects :
-keep the titles and mpls files with all chapters from the first export
-keep the menus with nearly all chapters from the second export.

Good idea thanks.

[Music Fan]

Good idea thanks.
You're welcome. If you try this, please let us know if it works.

[DoctorM]

Will do. I just skipped the chapter menus on this project because I wanted to finish.

[DoctorM]

Attempting my first use of multiAVCHD's transcoder right now. I'm surprised to see the maxrate set to 20000 and vbvbuffer 25000.

My target is 23800 making it higher than the vbv_maxrate. What gives? Is there someplace to tweak this so it gives maxrate/bufsize of the BD standard of 40k/30k?

Edit 2: Researching this, the best settings for BD compliant/compatibility would probably be: HQ (a tweaked version of --preset slow, any more is a bit extreme), 4 Ref Frames, 3 B Frames, Level 4.1 and UNtick Long GOP (unless you are compressing to a very small size(?)).

I'm open to further suggestions. The Long GOP option seems a bit vague.

Edit 3: Attempted again with Level 4.1 which gives vbv_maxrate=24000 vbv_bufsize=30000. At least the maxrate is larger than the target, but what gives?

Edit 4: Okay, here is a work around.
Under settings there is a section for x264.
Fill in those lines with: --bluray-compat --open-gop --slices 4 --vbv-bufsize 30000 --vbv-maxrate 40000

This is of course for BD output. You can change as you need to. The lines entered in this section are put at the end of the command line for x264 which makes them supersede any previous ones.
You still need to set the transscode options as in Edit 2 above.

For AVCHD (BD5 and BD9) use: --bluray-compat --open-gop --slices 4 --vbv-bufsize 14000 --vbv-maxrate 14000
Use a lower maxrate if you have more than one audio track.

Happy encoding.

[DoctorM]

A heads up for a weirdness I saw though. The source audio track was DD 5.1 @ 640kbps. Even though no settings were set to encode the audio either under the title properties or the "Subtitles and Audio" tab, it got butchered down to 128kbps. Eek.
Will just reprocess swapping the track, but it was definitely unexpected.

[QBhd]

I actually never liked encoding with MultiAVCHD... I personally just encoded in MeGUI and then added the AVCHD folders tsMuxer creates. It is more work, but at least you have more control over every step.

QB

[DoctorM]

I originally planned manually recoding, but after researching it and finding that in_time, out_time and chapters needed to be manually edited, I decided making multiAVCHD work was easier.

Btw, during my encoding tests, I DID swap out the x264.exe files with the most current ones (a couple years more recent) and found no problems.

[buffalofloyd]

A heads up for a weirdness I saw though. The source audio track was DD 5.1 @ 640kbps. Even though no settings were set to encode the audio either under the title properties or the "Subtitles and Audio" tab, it got butchered down to 128kbps. Eek.
Will just reprocess swapping the track, but it was definitely unexpected.

I've had this happen many many times when creating blu-rays, I wish I remembered what my solution was but I don't think I ever figured it out actually. So, I'm no help really but I feel your pain and you're not alone lol

[DoctorM]

It's funny since it re-encoded the audio when it wasn't supposed to, and the one time I tried to force a re-encode from DTS MA to AC3 640kbps, it wouldn't. I ended up encoding in Eac3to and using multiavchd to mux it.

Btw, a word about the strangeness of discs getting bigger on output I previously reported. It seems to occur in instances where more than one playlist calls the same m2ts asset.
If you make any change to one of the playlists (even if you make the same change to both instances), multiAVCHD will create a duplicate of the m2ts (one for each playlist).

If you DON'T make any changes to the playlists, it might still make a mess. I've seen it turn a series of mpls's that represent individual deleted scenes and a play all to all be identical play all playlists.
I don't know if this is always the case, but the few things I've messed with have done this.

I love this program, but there are still some quirks. Awesome author guy, where are you!?

[detroit1]

recently, every disc I make with multiavch is not playing on blu-ray players other than my playstation. I have OPPO 103, I tried on a Panasonic BD80, also just tried at the store on newer Sony and LG and they will say avchd on the tv screen but then they don't play and you can't eject the disc either until you turn the unit off and on again
this also happened to me with my OPPO 103
I have never seen anything like this before as I have made many many discs using multiavchd. I also uninstalled the program and re-installed but have not used it since re-installling
I burned a Memorex BD-RE , HP DVD +R, TDK +R; all failed when playing on blu-ray players.
all discs work fine on the computers and are recognized right away; also work on my playstion but not anywhere else