Converting AC3 w/ TMPEGnc

[jkaufman]

I've been using TMPGEnc for my encoding needs for quite some time now and have been extremely pleased with the results. That is until I ran across some AC3 XVID's. It not only wouldn't convert, it locked up the program. I had all the current codecs but couldn't seem to encode. I was reading the posts on virtualdub and decided to try. the first 2 avi files (on 2 CD's) I converted seemed just fine, but the last one (one file) started out OK, but in the later part of the movie it seemed to go out of sync a bit. Is there anything I can do to avoid this problem? Is it always the best bet to convert the audio to a wav file under all circumstances?

Thanks,

[yoda313]

You can use authoring programs like tmpgenc dvd author that will accept ac3 files seperately. That way you can strip out the ac3 file and convert just the video file with the regular tmpgenc. Then load the converted mpg file into tda and load the ac3 file.

[jkaufman]

I always use TDA for authoring but am not sure how you would strip the audio and marry it to the video. Is there a guide on this that you know of?

[maca]

If the video and audio are in the same folder and have the same name (except for the extension, of course) TDA will automatically find the sound and sync it with the video. If you have it in a different location for some reason, simply notice that when you load video into TDA, you'll see a line telling you the video source, and another telling you the audio source. Just browse for the audio and put it in. The method yoda gives is the one I always use; I never bother with audio in the encoding stage. Just strip it out and encode the video; it's faster and easier.

[yoda313]

EDIT - I know there's a way to save a ac3 in virtualdub but I can't seem to remember how right now. Check the guides. I'm sure there's something there.