5.1 sound missing

[Phototaker]

I can play a DVD using PowerDVD or VLC player & can hear that the disk contains surround sound. When I import the same disks file into AGK the program never seems to display the fact that the file contains 5.1 sound & presumably because of this AGK never creates a new file that has surround sound. I know that I must have AC3 codec's on my PC. How do I ensure that they are being used in the file conversions?

[unskinnyboy]

Is this a store bought DVD, or something you authored? If the latter, how did you author it?
What are you selecting as your input?
If it's the IFO, have you tried selecting one of the VOBs to see if that'll work?
How many input tracks do AutoGK show when you select the input source?
If it doesn't show the 5.1 track, what does it show? A screenshot of that part of the window would be nice.
Post a sample of the VOB so that we can verify that it really contains an AC3 5.1 track.

[Inspector.Gadget]

I can play a DVD using PowerDVD or VLC player & can hear that the disk contains surround sound. When I import the same disks file into AGK the program never seems to display the fact that the file contains 5.1 sound & presumably because of this AGK never creates a new file that has surround sound. I know that I must have AC3 codec's on my PC. How do I ensure that they are being used in the file conversions?

Are you sure you're actually using AC3 stream copy? MP3 doesn't support surround sound except in a limited, widely incompatible case called Aud-X which to my knowledge AGK doesn't use.

[Phototaker]

When I said surround sound I meant that sound also comes out of the rear speakers as well as the front. As I understand it AC3 can be either 2 channel stereo or 5.1 channels. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I also know that some disks have MP3 or MP3 surround but while I'm familiar with regular MP3 I know nothing about the latter.

Should a codec checking tool like GSpot be able to tell me just what flavor of audio a DVD contains, or does it report only on the video side of things?

AGK displays audio stream as 0 AC3 The file is from a commercial DVD.

[unskinnyboy]

Are you sure you're actually using AC3 stream copy? MP3 doesn't support surround sound except in a limited, widely incompatible case called Aud-X which to my knowledge AGK doesn't use.Where do you have MP3 surround sound on a DVD?

When I said surround sound I meant that sound also comes out of the rear speakers as well as the front. As I understand it AC3 can be either 2 channel stereo or 5.1 channels. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I also know that some disks have MP3 or MP3 surround but while I'm familiar with regular MP3 I know nothing about the latter.

Should a codec checking tool like GSpot be able to tell me just what flavor of audio a DVD contains, or does it report only on the video side of things?Yes, GSpot or MediaInfo should be able to report the audio stream(s) on the DVD.

AGK displays audio stream as 0 AC3 The file is from a commercial DVD.One of the questions I asked was what were you using as your input - IFO or the VOB directly? 0 AC3 is displayed when you select a VOB, so have you tried selecting the IFO?

How about the sample I asked for?

[Inspector.Gadget]

Where do you have MP3 surround sound on a DVD?

Since he's using AGK my first thought was that he encoded a DVD with 5.1 AC3 audio to an AVI with stereo MP3 audio instead of using stream copy and he didn't realize it.

[Phototaker]

I have been selection the VOB's because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I have now tried selecting the IFO file & audio input now displays as AC3 6 channel. I don't see anything nominated for the the output file., the field is blank. What am I supposed to put in this filed? I've tried Gspot & it sayas the input files in question are 6 channel.

[unskinnyboy]

Since he's using AGK my first thought was that he encoded a DVD with 5.1 AC3 audio to an AVI with stereo MP3 audio instead of using stream copy and he didn't realize it.I see what you mean, and come to think of it, that isn't such a wild notion either.

Phototaker, can you post GSpot screenshots of the VOB & the encoded AVI?

[Phototaker]

Since I'm not too good at posting the sort of things that you asked for I decided that it might be better to just recode an existing file using the ifo file. This I did & I'm pleased to report that when I play the file using PowerDvd I have 5.1 sound.

I'm still trying to work out why PowerDvd can play the file OK when VLC Player is only in stereo even though both played the original file in 5.1. The other think that I noticed is that the input screen said that I had 2 subtitle files to choose from but I was only allowed to select one of them. Even so neither will display in PowerDvd. I'll try it again with a smaller file

[Phototaker]

I selected a good 5 minute clip from a commercial DVD using DVDShrink, then test played it using PowerDVD, VLCPlayer to confirm that the clip had both 5.1 audio & subtitles. I then used AGK set to output same file using both the XVID & the DIVX codec.

The input file offered me 2 different subtitles but if I selected the first one & then I I tried to tick the second one the first one would no longer be ticked.

Both PowerDVD & VLC player had 5.1 audio, but neither had subtitles either burned in or on/off switchable ones. Is there a hidden option to do this that I could have missed?

Both Windows Media Player & DIVX Player would only play the file in stereo & had no subtitles.

I then tried the old DIVX converter but it wouldn't encode at all but produced a 5025 error, which a search of the DIVX site makes no mention of. Finally I tried the old Dr. Divx & it to created a file with 5.1 audio but no subtitles even though It had done so previously without problems.

Any ideas as to why the subtitles are missing?

[Inspector.Gadget]

If you want multiple subs with an AVI container, they must be external. For instance:
moviename.avi
moviename.en.srt
moviename.ru.idx

If you want multiple subs included in the file, you need the MKV container. And please, please switch to a modern encoding app like MeGUI, StaxRip, Ripbot, etc. AutoGK is better than the old DivX converter but Avimux GUI (what MeGUI uses) is a lot less buggy than Virtualdubmod (which AutoGK uses).

[Phototaker]

I didn't really want multiple subs. I just saw that the option was there & saw that the AGK manual suggests that you can choose more than one, even though the second one apparently uses a different codec. This means that I only had one sub title selected, but doesn't explain why I didn't get any in the final file either burned in or on/off switchable ones, and I still need to know what I did wrong?

[Inspector.Gadget]

OK, let's start from the top.

1) You don't hear surround audio from your surround speakers. One of a few things is happening:
A. Your DVD doesn't actually have surround sound. Unlikely.
B. You're re-encoding 5.1 AC3 to stereo MP3. I think you'd know if you were.
C. Your audio filter chain is downmixing to stereo on playback. Possible, and if you're using ffdshow or AC3filter make sure that isn't happening.
D. Your Windows audio renderer isn't passing 5.1 sound to your speakers. Reasonably likely. Make sure that your system is set up to output multichannel audio.
E. You're having a hardware problem with your speakers. Unless you're using a separate receiver, this is unlikely and you can easily check it by consulting the manual for the speakers.

2) You don't see subtitles in the final file.
A. You don't have a filter that supports your subtitles. PowerDVD definirely doesn't, VLC probably should. Use MPC or MPC-HC to double check; both can handle vobsub and/or SRT subtitles.
B. You're not using a renderer that supports subtitles. Possible. Try MPC or MPC-HC with the VMR9 renderless renderer.
C. Your output file does not contain subtitles or you haven't successfully switched them on. Most likely explanation. Use MediaInfo to find out whether it does.
D. Your subtitles are somehow broken. Unlikely if AGK did all the processing hands-off.

Please post the text output from MediaInfo: one "Text" view for your original VOB file, one "Text" view for your output AVI. Please use the "CODE" bbcode tag in your posts - one for each pasted text area - to avoid truncation of any values.

[yetanotherid]

I can play a DVD using PowerDVD or VLC player & can hear that the disk contains surround sound. When I import the same disks file into AGK the program never seems to display the fact that the file contains 5.1 sound & presumably because of this AGK never creates a new file that has surround sound. I know that I must have AC3 codec's on my PC. How do I ensure that they are being used in the file conversions?

You're hitting AGK's Advanced button and selecting the type of audio you want I assume?
Be aware that if you leave it in auto mode AG will pick a mode appropriate to the file size. I can't remember at what point it picks one and not the other, but if you're trying to squish a DVD down to 700MB and leave it in auto mode you'll probably get MP3 3ch audio. If you pick a much larger file size you'll get the original surround audio.

[Phototaker]

I don't know what I did but I now have AGK encoding both 5.1 audio & burnt in subtitles as well so I'm really pleased.

Your posting asked ' and if you're using ffdshow or AC3filter make sure that isn't happening.'. At the time of your posting I had no idea what that line was about, since I had never heard of ffdshow. I have since downloaded ffdshow & installed it thinking that it might be able to be used ti encode MPEG2 to H264 or a variety of other codecs. Is this correct? Am I on the correct track at all or doesn't this encode at all. Since I saw that my Sony Vegas 6 had an XVID codec listed I'm guessing that ffdshow might had added this codec? Is this correct? In any event I tried to encode my MPEG2 file to H264 only to get an error that the stats file could not be found & that I didn't have the codec installed. I'm not sure what a stats file is but I'm guessing that it might be some sort of log. This is rather confusing since Vegas listed it under installed codecs as does device manager. Maybe the encoder still needs to be set up correctly but even after opening it up I can't tell what I have to do to start encoding. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[BigDid]

I don't know what I did but I now have AGK encoding both 5.1 audio & burnt in subtitles as well so I'm really pleased.
Hi,

This is great but might lead to other problems if you can't track back :eek:

... I have since downloaded ffdshow & installed it thinking that it might be able to be used ti encode MPEG2 to H264 or a variety of other codecs. Is this correct? ...
I suppose you are adressing these multiples questions to Inspector.gadget so I will let him answer if he wishes.

Basically, ffdshow can be used as a (near) universal decoder for audio and video; see the audio and video decoding configuration and also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffdshow

It can also be configured for specific encoding needs; see the vfw configuration. I use it only for decoding so I cannot help you on the encoding questions...

Did

[Inspector.Gadget]

Phototaker, don't use ffdshow's VFW function to encode. VFW is deprecated. Use x264 or Xvid from the command line using GUIs like MeGUI, Staxrip, Avidemux, etc.

I haven't used Vegas, but for simple DVD -> x264/Xvid in AVI/MP4/MKV I'm quite sure it is overkill. While we're on this subject, you also shouldn't ever pay for consumer-grade encoding software, as the current best H.264 and MPEG-4 ASP encoders are both free software, as are most GUIs for them and Avisynth.

[yetanotherid]

I tried to encode my MPEG2 file to H264 only to get an error that the stats file could not be found & that I didn't have the codec installed. I'm not sure what a stats file is but I'm guessing that it might be some sort of log.

It's a file created when doing two-pass encoding. It stores the information created by the first pass to use for the actual encoding during the second pass.
If you're getting a message that the stats file can't be found it's probably because you're running the encoder's second pass without having run it's first pass to create the stats file. Or it's not setup properly and the stats file is being saved to a different place during the first pass than the encoder is expecting to find it during the second pass, or something like that....