mp4 (x264) with AAC audio to AVCHD?

[mpholic]

Hello, thanks for reading my post.

I am trying to convert a mp4 (x264) video with AAC audio to AVCHD so that I can burn it to a disc and play it on my Blu-ray player.

I tried the current version of AVCHDcoder but apparently there is a bug converting AAC to AC3. The trouble reportedly resides in Faad.exe and is yet to be fixed. I understand that AVCHDcoder is a GUI and uses existing tools to automate the necessary steps.

While we are waiting for the AVCHDcoder to be updated (hopefully) could I possibly receive some guidance on doing this manually?

I did a little research and if I understand it correctly the audio needs to seperated (demux?) from the video converted and then rejoined (remux?).

Could someone in the know outline the steps (and which tools to use) that AVCHD uses to perform it's magic?

I beleive all the tools I need reside in the tools directory along with the other programs installed manually with AVCHDcoder.

If all this is unnecessary and there is another GUI which does mp4 to AVCHD conversion I would appreciate that info also.

Please excuse my ignorance I'm just barely keeping my head above water with some of these things.

Thank You very much

[PuzZLeR]

Did you ever try multiAVCHD?

But if it's only an AAC -> AC3 conversion, there are several free apps for this. You can always encode the video separately, such as with MeGUI using the Blu-ray or AVCHD profile.

You don't have to encode the video if you don't want to, but if it's not complaint you will have to cross your fingers that your player will accept it.

[mpholic]

No, I haven't tried multiAVCHD. I thought that was used solely for reauthoring Blu ray files.

I was under the impression (maybe mistakenly so) that a x264 file was not compatible with bluray players .

I thought (once again I am probably wrong since I am very new to all this) the x264 needed to be converted to m2ts and the audio to AC3.

Not so? Does the disc need a particular file structure to be playable on a bluray player?

Is there some sort of tutorial on how to create avcHD content playable on bluray players? Once again I am new to all this. I have done DVD backups and reburning and Xvid/Divx conversion for portable players but that's it.

Thanks

[poisondeathray]

No, I haven't tried multiAVCHD. I thought that was used solely for reauthoring Blu ray files.

It can do basically everything avchdcoder can, but a bit more like simple menus. It can re-encode to make compliant settings as well, and author the structure of your disc

I was under the impression (maybe mistakenly so) that a x264 file was not compatible with bluray players .

x264 is an encoder that produces h.264 streams; it may or may not be compatible once authored, depending on settings used, resolution, fps and a few other parameters

It can be fully compatible with blu-ray, if you use the proper settings and blu-ray restrictions. Both multiavchd and avchdcoder can re-encode to compatible settings. If your file already uses compliant settings, it doesn't need to be re-encoded and you would lose no quality.

If you want more detail on the specific settings (but multiavchd and avchdcoder simplify the process, so you don't need to know the little details):
http://sites.google.com/site/x264bluray/
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=154533

I thought (once again I am probably wrong since I am very new to all this) the x264 needed to be converted to m2ts and the audio to AC3.

That's right. But .m2ts is a transport stream. It can carry video & audio streams, including h.264 video streams encoded by x264

Not so? Does the disc need a particular file structure to be playable on a bluray player?

Yes, a transport stream, plus other auxillary files are needed to play on a blu-ray player

Is there some sort of tutorial on how to create avcHD content playable on bluray players? Once again I am new to all this. I have done DVD backups and reburning and Xvid/Divx conversion for portable players but that's it.

There are tutorials with screenshots on multiavchd author's homepage

[mpholic]

Thank you very much.

Should I uninstall AVCHDcoder before installing multiAVCHD. I'm wondering if there will be any conflicts or duplication of files used by the GUIs.

Thanks

[PuzZLeR]

Never installed AVCHDcoder, but I see no reason to uninstall it for multiAVCHD. I would doubt that they share any common system files. They have their "junk" under their own hoods.

Just to add to Poisondeathray's comments, since, as you say, you are new to this.

One of the three video formats that blu-ray uses is indeed the H.264 standard, and x264 is one of many H.264 encoders, and the only free one that I know of worth using.

But just because the video stream comes out H.264 doesn't mean it's compliant. You need to set many parameters, such as resolution, b-frames, nal-hrd, etc, etc.

As well M2TS is the transport stream container blu-ray uses and it's similar to TS and is also similar to MKV, AVI, MP4, TS, etc. in that it can contain video and audio. But yes, it needs to be in a blu-ray structure with other files for it to play as blu-ray video on disc.

Mercifully, you don't have to do all this yourself. There are existing profiles for encoding to H.264 blu-ray compatibility and several authoring tools that can mux your streams into the M2TS container and its disc structure.

As for audio, an A/52 standard AC3 stream will be fully blu-ray compliant. However, you can keep other formats if the source has them, such as LPCM, DTS, etc. They are listed on this site, at the top left corner when clicking on "WHAT IS" then "Blu-ray".

Note: MP3 as is usually associated with DivX/Xvid of your past, AAC which is with alot of H.264 video, and FLAC which is lossless all are not blu-ray compliant.

[mpholic]

OK, I understand a little bit more now.I may or may not need to do video convdersion. But I definitely need to convert the audio.Do I need to seperate the streams (called demux?) to accomplish the audio conversion? If so, is there is a program that stands out from the rest for this? I tried using MeGui (the demuxing tool from the tools list) and when I load the mp4 into the program it shows the audio stream but most of the choices and actions are greyed out. There wasn't an active button for demuxing. I didn't import many of the presets since I am only going to use this for 1 or 2 different operations repeatably.What about virtualDub, if I remember correctly it has the abilty to encode just one stream and let the other pass through. Is there a specific plug in for aac to ac3?Would this be easier if I converted the AAC to Wav and then the Wav to AC3? Would this maintain all 6 channels?Thanks

[poisondeathray]

You can do the audio yourself if you want, but multiavchd will convert to ac3 for you as well, that would be easier

There are a dozen ways to do the conversion if you wanted to do it separately

[mpholic]

Doh! you told me that in a earlier post and I tried MEGUI instead. I'll try multiAVCHD now.

Thanks

[mpholic]

Success (sort of)

multiAVCHD seems to have worked very well. I used it to burn DVD-RW in strict AVCHD mode. The resulting disc plays on both of my Blu-ray players. The video seems to be every bit as good as the original. The audio sounds great with one notable problem. The audio channels seemed to be misplaced. For one the center channel information is coming out of the left main. The information coming from the center channel seems to be either the left or right main information.

Both Blu-ray players (Panasonic DMP-BD55 and Toshiba BDX2000) report the disc as being a DVD not AVCHD. I looked at the file structure of the disc on my PC and it is definitely not DVD. One setup I have a optical cable running from the Blu-ray player to the receiver and it is doing the decoding. The other setup has the Blu-ray player doing the audio decoding and I am using the 7.1 analog output into my other receiver. Both setups seemed to be producing the same results.

I have yet to hear the original audio stream to determine whether the fault lies in the original or whether something was screwed up in the transcoding.

Is there some way to reorder the audio channels once I figure out what goes where?

Thanks for all your help, it would have taken me a lot longer to get to this point.

[poisondeathray]

The convention for 5.1 channel mapping is different for AAC than AC3 , see here at the bottom:
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/GetChannel

You can re-map the channels either with avisynth, an audio editor, eac3to etc...

Here are some instructions from a previous thread
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/304699-AAC-to-AC3-Wrong-Channel-Order

[mpholic]

OK, for some reason I can't seem to properly remap my ac3 audio channels.

First thing I tried was running an avs script through virtualdub. I added soundout to avisynth and used the following script

 
Audio = DirectShowSource("d:\fix\00000.m2ts")
ch1 = getChannel(Audio,1)
ch2 = getChannel(Audio,2)
ch3 = getChannel(Audio,3)
ch4 = getChannel(Audio,4)
ch5 = getChannel(Audio,5)
ch6 = getChannel(Audio,6)
mergeChannels(ch2,ch3,ch1,ch4,ch5,ch6)
SoundOut()

The m2ts file is the file from the AVCHD dic that I burned using multiAVCHD. This operation produced the error "getchannel cannot find channel 4" Using MediaInfo on the m2ts file shows it has 6 AC3 channels.

I then tried using the same script except I substituted buzz3.mp4 for 00000.m2ts. Buzz3.mp4 is the original file from which I created the disc. buzz3.mp4 is a x264 video with 6 channel AAC audio. This got me as far as opening the Soundout GUI box from which I select auto channel mapping and save as AC3 format. This produced an AC3 file which I verified with mediainfo.

My next step was to try and mux the AC3 file with the original .mp4 file. Once again I used VirtualDub and an avs script file.

 
Audio = DirectShowSource("d:\fix\ts3.ac3")
Video = DirectShowSource("d:\fix\buzz3.mp4")
AudioDubEx(Video,Audio)

I right clicked on the script file chose play and selected virtualdub.exe. This opened virtualdub and the script was listed in the title bar. I clicked the output play button and the video began with the titlebar now showing "dub in progress". I let it run through hoping the AC3 stream would replace the AAC stream. When it was done the original .mp4 file seemed unaltered. Mediainfo still reported it as having a AAC audio stream. Virtualdub didn't offer me the option of renaming or saving as a new file.

I replaced buzz3.mp4 with 00000.m2ts thinking maybe I could add the remapped AC3 file to the .m2ts container. When I did this and selected the output play button in VirtualDub the video was out of sync with the audio while the dub was in progress.

Where to go from here? Why Avisynth say there is no channel 4 in the .m2ts? How do I remux the remapped AC3 file to the video properly?

I was under the impression I could demux the AC3 out of the m2ts container, remap it and mux it back in. That apparentl isn't so or I haven't found the correct tool.

Eac3to as I read the description can't remux m2ts. Should I demux the AAC from the mp4 remap it and remux the mp4 and then reuse multiAVCHD? If so, what tool to use to demux and mux?

Honestly, at this point I am more than a little lost. I was hoping it was just a matter of remapping the channels.

Thanks

[poisondeathray]

Do the audio in a separate step, to replace the audio use yamb (mp4box), not vdub.

When you open avs file in vdub, it decompresses everything (uncompressed) ,also you should specify audio=false for the video. (Actually you shouldn't even use directshowsource) - so don't even use vdub for this

Use NicAC3Source for AC3 in avisynth , you may have other filters (might be downmixing) if you use directshowsource it's unreliable. (Other alternatives ffaudiosource, bassaudiosource)

For eac3to you can extract the aac audio and convert to ac3 mapping the channels. Midders gave instructions in that thread. There are also various GUIs for eac3to, but most of them are complicated to use

All the methods listed should work.

The foolproof method is manually do it with an audio editor and visually SEE where the tracks are , and listen to each one to map them

[mpholic]

WOW! What a dolt. I think I missed the easiest solution. I can't believe I didn't go back and look at the audio section of multiAVCHD. It seems to have a remapping window. I am going to give it a try and if it works beat my head against the wall for wasting a whole day.

Thanks

[mpholic]

It worked! multiAVCHD does indeed have the abilty to remap audio channels. Based on the info at the bottom of the page provided by your link

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/GetChannel


I compared AAC mapping to AC3 mapping. The chart showed the front left channel and front center channel reversed. Using multiAVCHD I swapped these channel numbers. That solved the problem I initially noticed when I played the first disc I burned.

I checked the other speakers and noticed the only sound coming from the rear right speaker was a low rumbling which led me to beleive it was reproducing the LFE channel. The chart unfortunately showed AAC and AC3 having no difference in the rear channels or LFE channel. I went back and reviewed the multiAVCHD log and noticed there was not a direct conversion from AAC to AC3 (never assume anything I guess). The conversion was AAC > PCM > AC3. Looking at the chart again there was indeed a difference between AC3 and WAV that showed right and LFE being reversed. I don't know if PCM and WAV are the same thing but it was enough to make me run multiAVCHD a third time where I reversed right rear and LFE (in addition to FR and center). Now everything is where it belongs.

I am really VERY impressed with multiAVCHD at this point.

Thanks once again for all your help.

[poisondeathray]

Thanks for updating , I never knew about that channel mapping in multiavchd but it's good to know it's available

Glad it all worked out for you