DVD-R burned movie - no audio?

[miltie]

i just bought a dvd-r movie burned. the audio is not audible on my sony dvd player.

this player has played ALL other dvd-r's of old shows that i've bought or burned myself. the audio also doesn't play on one computer/power dvd. however, this dvd-r audio DOES plays on the computer's vlc player,,,sony portable dvd player. one problem though is that the audio plays on the right side only.

on the sony dvd player that doesn't play the audio, when i hit the "audio" button it says "others" where it normally should say "english". i encoded the dvd-r movie to divx and the audio is fine, though again it's on the right side only.

**computers are homexp/vlc/power dvd. sony dvd player, sony portable dvd player.

any suggestions? thx

[manono]

Why didn't you tell us the kind of audio it is? Open a VOB in MediaInfo or GSpot and find out. Maybe it's MP2 audio which isn't compliant for NTSC DVDs although many (most?) players play it.

any suggestions?
Don't buy someone's home-made garbage over the internet?

[Ghitulescu]

I think it's "not mandatory" not "not compliant". :).

Audio may also be MP3 (if wrongly made), as manono already said, MP2 must be the audio format if MPEG was selected as the audio format. That VLC and other programms have no issues with the DVDR is that the PC is much more tolerant, while a DVDplayer must comply with some standards.

It is anyway illegal to sell copies if one doesn't hold the copyright and ancillary rights, and sometimes also the buyer may have some problems. Don't do it next time.

[miltie]

Why didn't you tell us the kind of audio it is? Open a VOB in MediaInfo or GSpot and find out. Maybe it's MP2 audio which isn't compliant for NTSC DVDs although many (most?) players play it.

Don't buy someone's home-made garbage over the internet?

here's the info i copied
container and general info

MPEG-PS: 1.024MiB, 13s 756ms
1 video strea: MPEG Video
1 audio stream: AC-3

First video stream
********************************************
First audio stream
256Kbps, 48 KHz, 16 bit, 2 channels, AC-3(DVD-Video)

btw, this "garbage" is a very very very very(enuf very's) RARE movie that gets no play ANYWHERE. it's not like i had a choice or i'd have done it myself.

[manono]

I think it's "not mandatory" not "not compliant". :).
Maybe you're correct. I had thought it wasn't allowed at all for NTSC audio, but apparently MPEG audio is allowed, even though it's hardly ever used:
MPEG audio is multi-channel digital audio, using lossy compression from original PCM format with sample rate of 48 kHz at 16 or 20 bits. Both MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 formats are supported. The variable bit rate is 32 kbps to 912 kbps, with 384 being the normal average rate. MPEG-1 is limited to 384 kbps. Channel combinations are (front/surround): 1/0, 2/0, 2/1, 2/2, 3/0, 3/1, 3/2, and 5/2. The LFE channel is optional with all combinations. The 7.1 channel format adds left-center and right-center channels, but is rare for home use. MPEG-2 surround channels are in an extension stream matrixed onto the MPEG-1 stereo channels, which makes MPEG-2 audio backwards compatible with MPEG-1 hardware (an MPEG-1 system will only see the two stereo channels.) MPEG Layer 3 (MP3) and MPEG-2 AAC (also known as NBC or unmatrix) are not supported by the DVD-Video standard. MPEG audio is not used much on DVDs, although some inexpensive DVD recording software programs use MPEG audio, even on NTSC discs, which goes against the DVD standard and is not supported by all NTSC players.
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.6.2

But miltie's audio is AC3 and shows 2 channels even though the players that play it have the sound coming from only one channel. I'm not sure what to suggest, short of demuxing the DVD, redoing the audio entirely, and then remuxing it.

[miltie]

i'm having the guy redo the dvd.

amongst other things, he stretched the dvd to fill the screen. it is a 4:3 movie that he stretched to widescreen. i do not know what he is using to copy the video, but is there anything i can tell him about the audio tweaks?

[Guest]

@miltie

Does this guy own the copyright for the movie or is he licensed to distribute it? Please provide a link to the source.

[manono]

amongst other things, he stretched the dvd to fill the screen. it is a 4:3 movie that he stretched to widescreen. i do not know what he is using to copy the video, but is there anything i can tell him about the audio tweaks?

Hehe, maybe have him actually test the thing before sending it off to you?

What's his source? A VHS tape? He's just capturing it using a DVD recorder? So he's incompetent and then sells this crap? Too bad for you. I have a similar problem myself. Friends send me VHS tapes originally from retail stores. But the shop owners bought only one copy of the film and then duplicated them with VCRs and sold the copies. This is very bad for quality, which is none too good for VHS to begin with. Or I get a DVD some incompetent made by running a VHS tape through a DVD recorder at the lowest quality setting. So I'm left with substandard VHS tapes and DVDs to try and make something with. It's frustrating and infuriating.

As neuron2 asks, is this film in the public domain?