AVI to MPEG-1,2 does not produce Audio

[willshakespeare]

Hi All,

After successfully creating my first proper DVD, and having it work perfectly, using TMPGenc DVD Author, I then went onto my second project... I started Encoding within TMPGenc, but noticed the preview was all wrong, so Stopped the encoding. I got some sort of pointer error, and clicked OK, which trashed TMPGenc. I re-opened TMPGenc, and tried again with the same avi... but it keeps crashing with some error about "ntdll.dll" and a reference at 7DE5678A0 or something (I made up this number, but the actualy number is very similar).
ANyway, I tried rebooting, deleteing the TMPGenc files, and downloading a new version, in case something because corrupt, but still the same error. I then tried using TMPGenc XPress 3.0, and this is a great tool... but the resulting mpg file, even though is shows Audio at 256 kb and 48KHz during the encoding and on the Settings pages, does NOT have any audio when I try to play it in Win DVD.
So I try again with some other avi, and again no audio.
If I run the "preview" in TMPGenc, it has a button to mute the preview, but this button does nothing.
So, I tried to output only to WAV format, just to hear if there is video... nothing!
But... if I play the avi, the audio is fine.

What's happening???

I wonder if I may have trashed one of the codecs when I stopped that original batch job which had the sstrange preview? And this is why TMPGenc has trouble with ntdll.dll?

What can I do?

Has anyone had similar trouble?

Will

[willshakespeare]

Oh, I forgot to mention... this now happens on all my avis, including the one I encoded successfully before this problem:

I can play avi's audio and visual, file.
If i try to encode, I get perfect video, but no audio.

[willshakespeare]

Right... I've used VDub to separate out a .wav file, and in TMPGenc XPress I used the wav file as source audio, and the avi as source for video...
Now I have a preview with both audio and video... problem is that the whole thing starts out in sync, but then goes out of sync as it moves further along.
So, in line iwth this idea I copie dthe avi to a different location and used the 2nd avi as Audio source, so I would have 2 separate sources for video and audio... the resulting output preview is video only, even though the "properties" say:
MPEG file (MPEG-2 Video, 720x576, 25 fps, CBR (Constant bitrate), 1600 kbps / MPEG-1 Audio Layer II, 48000 Hz, Stereo, 256 kbps)

I#m stumped. It seems to be where the audio from the avi is decoded that the problem lies. But there are no erros (unless I use TMPGenc, NOT XPress, and then I get the ntdll.dll error every time I try to open this particular avi... but not on any others).

I'd appreciate any help.

I could try uninstalling TMPGenc, but I never "installed" it in the first place... just unzipped it and double-click the exe file. I can uninstall XPress, but then I installed that after the problem, so I wonder if there is some central TMPGenc engine that is having trouble.

I have installed Vegas temporarily to try that, but I get erors when it opens, and when I preview a file and try to save as MPEG-2, again no audio.

But VDub "sees" the audio fine.

Any ideas?

Will

[willshakespeare]

Ahhhh (sound of relief!)

Finally!

I've cracked it! Though I managed to break TMPGenc encoder in the proces... It doesn't seem to be able to get audio from an avi file...

Anyway, I didscovered a few things!

1. If you take the audio out of the avi using VDub to make a wav, and then use TMPGenc to bring the avi and wav together into an m2v and mp2 file... it works!

2. If you add you avi files to WinDVD, and then click Tools -> Output to File, you can encode the avi to mpeg-2 without needing further plug-ins, etc., and you can add many, many avi's (first 8 of Alias season 2 from TV, for example) to one mpeg file, then split the eps into Chapters when you author...

3. The resulting mpeg files from WinDVD do not "Squash" like if using avi directly.

4. I can use either DVD Author or WinDVD Creator to make great looking menus, though only WinDVD Creator allows a music file to be added to the menu.

5. Either way, I can create a 3 hours long DVD in approximately 4 hours from avi files to finished DVD with animated menus and everything, with just WInDVD Creator, which means I don't need any illegal software because WinDVD Creator came iwth my motherboard, and is therefore legal!! Fantastic!!

Well, thanks for all your help! You have all given me stuff to think about along the way!

There does seem to be a lack of WinDVD Creator 2 information in the How To areas, and in the forums... so to give back, I will produce a simple tutorial on it... if anyone is interested?

Take it easy all! And thanks!

Will S

[oldfart13]

...and you didn't try programs like VSO DivX2DVD because...?

[oldfart13]

...and you didn't try WinAVI because...?

[jimmalenko]

... and you bumped this post because ... ?

[oldfart13]

Because people try to do things the hard way and if the post just ends, then noobs don't know any better than the way that is posted. Then you have to spend weeks telling them again in other postings when all they had do was a simple search...

[willshakespeare]

Well, for starters, I have a valid copy of WinDVD Creator, which came iwth my motherboard, and second, I did spend sveral hours searching for help, but many times short answers which help a specific user's setup (kind of like yours) are posted, with no explanation as to why it would be a good solution.

I had a look at DivX2DVD, but it did nothing that the tools I had couldn't do. But for someone who does not want to create nice customised menus, go for it. But it's not free anymore.

As to WinAVI, again, I already had tools, so why would I have tried something else? As it is I tried a few other tools, and they just confused matters.

With my current setup, I burned 5 DVDs last weekend in a single day. It may be a noob tool, but WinDVD Creator 2 works well, and is quick.

To add to this post, the audio works fine. This was my first attempt, and for some reason it just had trouble. Eventually I got it working, and I use a combination of WinDVD Creator 2 and DVD Author to create my DVDs. The trick with WinDVD Creator is to load your tracks (however many), and then save as an MPEG file (step 2 in my last post above). It converts them to several choices, from PAL and NTSC DVD EP to PAL and NTSC HQ.

As to point 3, this still happens sometimes. You have to find out if the original file is NTSC or PAL. The problem happens when converting between the 2. Sometimes, I have to save as HQ, and this produces a good 10-15 GB mpeg-2 file with audio. I then load it up into WinDVD Creator 2 again, and follow Step 2 above to Output to an EP or SP (depending on how many movies/episodes I want to fit on 1 DVD), and the resulting video and size is perfect. No problems yet. Full surround, Dolby, and such.

Though, I did try one of my DVDs on my next-door neighbours DVD player, and the sound was normal stereo (but fine), but the picture quality was very poor - too bright and cr4ppie. But on my DVD player, which is a £40 cheap multi-region machine it was smooth, and clear, with great sound. Not sure why.

Also, I trie dto burn a DVD of Danny the Dog to PAL, but as PAL is 25 fps, and NTSC is 29.5 fps I found the resulting video was noticeably "choppy". I thought I was going to have an epileptic fit! SO I returned to my PC and created an NTSC job, and it was smooth as a baby's bottom.

So good luck to all you "noobs" out there!

Will