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  1. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    I have a few files embedded with AAC audio. What are some tools to use for downgrading from higher channels (5.1) to only 2 for 360 playback? Greatly appreciated!
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    MeGUI is my favorite for this task.
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  3. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    Is it pretty straight forward? Downloading now...thanks for the reply.
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  4. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    Just finished downloading. Not sure what to do. Do you happen to have a quick guide to this?
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    I'm not sure where you are in the process or how much knowledge you already possess, but you'll need to demux the multi-channel audio stream out of the file, first.

    You've already downloaded and installed MeGUI. Now you'll need to install the Nero AAC codecs. Go to this link and follow the directions for the Nero AAC installation and just ignore the rest:
    http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/megui_install_config.cfm

    or this
    http://mewiki.project357.com/wiki/MeGUI/Installation

    Then, follow this link for a guide on how to convert DTS to AC3:
    http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/convert_dts_to_ac3.cfm

    The steps are going to be the same, except you are loading up your multi-channel .aac instead of the DTS. Select the LC-AAC (Nero) profile instead of the AC3 profile. Go into the 'Config' tab, change the 'Output Channels" to 'Downmix to Stereo' and change the Bitrate to 128kbps. You can Normalize if you'd like. I usually do.

    Queue it up and then run your job queue. You'll get back an .aac stream in an mp4 container that you can mux right back into your Xbox 360 compatible .mp4 file. MeGUI can seem a little overwhelming, but once you get the hang of it, it's smooth and easy.

    If it were me, I would remux both the 5.1 and the 2.0 streams back in, with the 2.0 stream first. It'll still be Xbox 360 compatible and you'll maintain the multi-channel in the same file if you ever change playback devices.
    Last edited by smitbret; 7th Nov 2011 at 18:56.
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  6. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    Thanks for all your help...I'm stuck at preprocessing pretty much. Been going for an hour and still going strong. The total length is 2hr 22mins though...this normal?
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  7. Originally Posted by tmac2085 View Post
    Thanks for all your help...I'm stuck at preprocessing pretty much. Been going for an hour and still going strong. The total length is 2hr 22mins though...this normal?
    not normal, unless your audio is like a few weeks long...

    are you doing other stuff with the computer, playing games, stealing CPU cycles away from the processing ?

    what did you use as input in the input box? Did you use the mp4 file or demuxed audio file ? Try the other (if you didn't demux, then try demuxing, e.g. with yamb, or if you did demux, then try the mp4 directly)
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  8. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    Not doing anything that would steal alot of CPU. In Audio input, I selected the mp4 video file. Audio output is mp4 as well with the Encoder Settings as Nero AAC.
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  9. did you setup the file paths for neroaac in the configuration for megui?

    does the mp4 play in mpc ? can you hear audio and how many channels ?
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  10. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    Plays fine in wmp. I've attached the settings for NeroAacEnc.
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  11. Not sure why it's hanging. Probably no logs either? Check the log tab

    You can do it with avidemux probably easier, but the aac encoder (faac) isn't as good as nero

    1) load video, if it says b-frames... blah blah blah, do you want to use that mode, say yes
    2) video sidebar => copy
    3) audio sidebar => AAC , also configure your bitrate e.g. 128kb/s
    4) audio filters => mixer => stereo
    5) format => mp4
    6) Ctrl+s to bring up save dialog box, enter name with extension e.g. "newvideo.mp4"

    This will create a new mp4, copying the video from the old mp4, and using a stereo aac track
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  12. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    megui actually does hang my cpu usage.

    Guess my laptop is too slow?
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    I've always had problems with MEGUI. However once you get it up and running it is probably the best gui and fastest audio conversion program. However, It wants to download all kind of other programs that it works with and in time the different versions of the programs would no longer work together. I always had to delete the program and re-install it and set it to not auto update.

    For me it was worth doing because it was quick and easy to use. Just drag and drop your audio into the Audio input box, set your specs and it usually converts in just a few minutes.

    Another program that works just about the same is XMediaRecode.
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    Originally Posted by tmac2085 View Post
    In Audio input, I selected the mp4 video file. Audio output is mp4 as well with the Encoder Settings as Nero AAC.
    Here's your likely issue.

    It sounds like you may be fairly new to video conversion.

    Are you familiar with containers vs. streams? Your original .mp4 file is a container (think of it like a tupperware bowl) that contains a video stream and an audio stream. You need to take your 5.1 channel .aac stream out of the .mp4 container. You can use the 'tools' tab of MeGui and select 'Extract HD Streams'. I prefer to use YAMB for my demux/remux tasks, but the principle and execution are nearly the same. Once you've done that, load just the audio stream into MeGUI and convert to 2 channel .aac. It usually takes about 10 minutes for my Phenom II x4 955 to convert a 2 hour audio stream to .aac. Once that's done. You can remux into a new .mp4 with MeGUI using the 'Tools' tab or YAMB again. Load the demuxed video stream and the new audio stream into your remuxing tool and out pops a new .mp4 file that should work well with your Xbox 360.

    Original file.mp4
    |
    Demux using MeGUI, YAMB, MP4Box, etc.
    |
    Results in 2 files - Audio stream (.aac, .ac3, .mp3, .dts) & Video stream (.h264, .avc, xvid, etc.)
    |
    Convert only the audio stream to .aac 2 channel
    |
    Remux the 2 streams (unchanged Video stream and new Audio stream)
    |
    New.mp4 that's Xbox 360 compatible

    If this is still not working for you and you need more concise directions, load your original .mp4 into a program called MediaInfo and post the results, here. Then we can all se exactly what your orignal .mp4 is made of and can get an idea of exactly what to do.

    You said that you had several files that needed this treatment. The cool thing about MeGUI is that you can set the conversions up in batch and just run them all at one time. Demux all of the files. Set up all the conversion jobs in the queue. Click 'Start'. Come back at a later time and they should all be ready for remuxing.
    Last edited by smitbret; 8th Nov 2011 at 11:44.
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    Originally Posted by poisondeathray View Post
    Not sure why it's hanging. Probably no logs either? Check the log tab

    You can do it with avidemux probably easier, but the aac encoder (faac) isn't as good as nero

    1) load video, if it says b-frames... blah blah blah, do you want to use that mode, say yes
    2) video sidebar => copy
    3) audio sidebar => AAC , also configure your bitrate e.g. 128kb/s
    4) audio filters => mixer => stereo
    5) format => mp4
    6) Ctrl+s to bring up save dialog box, enter name with extension e.g. "newvideo.mp4"

    This will create a new mp4, copying the video from the old mp4, and using a stereo aac track
    This looks like a pretty good method, too. Will avidemux work with HD streams?
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    Poidondeathray is right.... I f-ed with this issue for weeks before one of the wise ones (maybe poisondeathray) here pointed me to Avidemux.
    Works like a champ!
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  17. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by smitbret View Post
    Originally Posted by tmac2085 View Post
    In Audio input, I selected the mp4 video file. Audio output is mp4 as well with the Encoder Settings as Nero AAC.
    Here's your likely issue.

    It sounds like you may be fairly new to video conversion.

    Are you familiar with containers vs. streams? Your original .mp4 file is a container (think of it like a tupperware bowl) that contains a video stream and an audio stream. You need to take your 5.1 channel .aac stream out of the .mp4 container. You can use the 'tools' tab of MeGui and select 'Extract HD Streams'. I prefer to use YAMB for my demux/remux tasks, but the principle and execution are nearly the same. Once you've done that, load just the audio stream into MeGUI and convert to 2 channel .aac. It usually takes about 10 minutes for my Phenom II x4 955 to convert a 2 hour audio stream to .aac. Once that's done. You can remux into a new .mp4 with MeGUI using the 'Tools' tab or YAMB again. Load the demuxed video stream and the new audio stream into your remuxing tool and out pops a new .mp4 file that should work well with your Xbox 360.

    Original file.mp4
    |
    Demux using MeGUI, YAMB, MP4Box, etc.
    |
    Results in 2 files - Audio stream (.aac, .ac3, .mp3, .dts) & Video stream (.h264, .avc, xvid, etc.)
    |
    Convert only the audio stream to .aac 2 channel
    |
    Remux the 2 streams (unchanged Video stream and new Audio stream)
    |
    New.mp4 that's Xbox 360 compatible

    If this is still not working for you and you need more concise directions, load your original .mp4 into a program called MediaInfo and post the results, here. Then we can all se exactly what your orignal .mp4 is made of and can get an idea of exactly what to do.

    You said that you had several files that needed this treatment. The cool thing about MeGUI is that you can set the conversions up in batch and just run them all at one time. Demux all of the files. Set up all the conversion jobs in the queue. Click 'Start'. Come back at a later time and they should all be ready for remuxing.
    Thank you so much for taking the time to help with this issue. I am pretty new at this stuff. What is remux and demux? When extracting the audio from the mp4 file, what do you select in the options of YAMB? I attached a screen shot of the options I'm talking about. Again, thank you for the assistance.
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  18. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    This is the video I've been working on.
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  19. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    To be sure I'm on the same page. I extracted the audio file with YAMB and got a ADTS file in the process. Loaded it MeGUI (pic before w/ config setting)...and I should be ready to go...correct?
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  20. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    Apologies for all the posts...If the above is setup correctly...3 hours is alot for an audio file...
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    Looks good to me with one exception. Under the Config tab, I would set the 'Preferred Decoder' to NICaudio. Directshow seems to struggle for me on .aac encodes.
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    Or it might be ffdshow, I don't remember for sure. Try 'em both and see. Encoding audio isn't that intensive for modern CPUs, so if it's been more than about 5-7 minutes and you're not getting substantially faster than Real Time, abort and try the other decoder.
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  23. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    Tired them both and it still says around 1-2hrs to complete. My it's my laptop. Might try the other guys tutorial...thanks again smit
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    Originally Posted by tmac2085 View Post
    Tired them both and it still says around 1-2hrs to complete. My it's my laptop. Might try the other guys tutorial...thanks again smit
    I certainly would. Although it's strange that this is happening.
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  25. Member tmac2085's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by poisondeathray View Post
    Not sure why it's hanging. Probably no logs either? Check the log tab

    You can do it with avidemux probably easier, but the aac encoder (faac) isn't as good as nero

    1) load video, if it says b-frames... blah blah blah, do you want to use that mode, say yes
    2) video sidebar => copy
    3) audio sidebar => AAC , also configure your bitrate e.g. 128kb/s
    4) audio filters => mixer => stereo
    5) format => mp4
    6) Ctrl+s to bring up save dialog box, enter name with extension e.g. "newvideo.mp4"

    This will create a new mp4, copying the video from the old mp4, and using a stereo aac track
    Wow. Still says estimated time 80 mins. Maybe it's the laptop...pretty old.

    So I take it that I should just start the conversion before going to sleep...
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