mp3 to wav to ac3 - won't work on my dvd player :(

[handsy]

I have an xvid .avi file with .mp3 sound in. I have opened the file in Goldwave and saved the audio as .wav.
I've then used Besweet to convert .wav to .ac3. I've checked that the .ac3 works by playing it in Windows Media Player, and "Yes" it works.

So far so good.

I then burn the video with my newly created audio .ac3 file and what happens ? I'll tell you what happens..........the video plays, but there is no audio, even though the player lights up the Dolby Digital symbol !
My player is a Pioneer 626.

Do I need to put the .ac3 through besliced to mod the headers, or is this a problem with my player, or is there something else I've missed ?

Any help appreciated.

[FulciLives]

I have an xvid .avi file with .mp3 sound in. I have opened the file in Goldwave and saved the audio as .wav.
I've then used Besweet to convert .wav to .ac3. I've checked that the .ac3 works by playing it in Windows Media Player, and "Yes" it works.

So far so good.

I then burn the video with my newly created audio .ac3 file and what happens ? I'll tell you what happens..........the video plays, but there is no audio, even though the player lights up the Dolby Digital symbol !
My player is a Pioneer 626.

Do I need to put the .ac3 through besliced to mod the headers, or is this a problem with my player, or is there something else I've missed ?

Any help appreciated.

Sorry to tell you this but it is "well known" that PIONEER DVD players do not like AC-3 files created by BeSweet. In fairness the problem does seem to be BeSweet but then again most other brands don't seem to have the problems here that Pioneer does (although a friend of mine does have a Samsung DVD player that also doesn't like BeSweet AC-3).

As far as PIONEER DVD players go you can try MP2 audio and see if that works. A 2 channel stereo WAV converted to 224kbps or better yet 256kbps MP2 can sound nearly as good as AC-3 and although not all NTSC DVD players support MP2 if your PIONEER does (mine does) then that might be the better solution.

You can also use PCM audio but the problem there is that it takes up SO much space leaving less room for the video ... so you have to end up using a lower bitrate for the video making it more compressed.

Unfortunately BeSweet is the only freeware AC-3 encoder that I know of however I recently found out that SONIC MyDVD Version 5.0 Deluxe or SONIC MyDVD Version 5.0 Studio Deluxe are authoring programs that can convert PCM or MP2 to AC-3 and the Studio Deluxe version (the best version of the MyDVD version 5.0 software) is only $99 so you might want to consider that. Just about any other AC-3 encoder will cost you an arm and a leg!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[handsy]

Thanks for the quick reply......looks like I chose the wrong DVD player then
I'll hunt around for a new AC3 encoder methinks

[moshano]

I had the same problem with my Onkyo DV-S555. The ac3 from BeSweet wouldn't play on it. I now encode the ac3 with Sonic Foundry Soft and works great. It's a rather old program, but does the job nice and the interface is light-years away from the Besweet one (don't know about the encoding quality, though).

[BJ_M]

did you remember to convert it to 48khz sample rate also ?