AC3 and PCM

[Dougurasu]

Well, here's my problem. I use Premiere Pro 1.5 to do my video editing and my source files are on DVDs. But one half of my source files has PCM audio, which I can import just fine with Premiere Pro, but the ones with AC3 audio... well it just says it's importing those files, but nothing happens.

So... then I tried ripping them (I first use DVD decryptor for the decrypting and then VirtualDubMod for the selecting of the parts I want to use for editing and compress them with the Panasonic DV Codec) without audio, the video was imported immediately, and the only difference between the first set of source files and the other is (according to GSpot) that half of it is encoded in PCM and the other in AC3. And when I tried demuxing and then put AC3 in Premiere Pro, it didn't work. So I obviously concluded that it must be that.

If anyone could help me on how I should change the settings in either DVD decrypter or VirtualDubMod, please tell me. Also I do not want a seperate Audio and Video file due to the fact that I would then have to time everything and that just takes too much work. In any case, thanks very much for helping me in advance

[guns1inger]

Is it 2.0 or 5.1 AC3 ? If it 2.0, convert it to wav (PCM), and mux them back in place of the AC3 audio. You should then be able to import them into PP.

It is harder to do if you have 5.1 source.

[Dougurasu]

No, it's 2.0 luckily. How do you mux them back? Is that possible with VirtualDubMod? And if so, how do I proceed? And if not, which program should I use?

[guns1inger]

If you have AC3 filter installed, you should be able to convert to DV (using the Panasonic codec) with stereo audio, and load this straight into PP. If you want to mux it into the mpeg, you may have to use Muxman.

[Dougurasu]

Installing that AC3 filter didn't have any effect. It still just... does nothing when I try to import AVI video with AC3 sound. Isn't it just possible to use virtualdub to convert the AC3 sound to PCM when it's converting VOB to AVI? I checked the help file and it said go to "audio", but there just is no "audio" in the menu!

Does muxing like that still work if the entire video sequence is devided into four VOB files?

[guns1inger]

There should be an audio menu with a compression option. You can change the settings there. If you can't access this option, make sure audio processing is set to full processing mode.

[Dougurasu]

I can't find it in VirtualDubMod Oo Where should you find that? I did see that Video is set to Full Processing Mode. But in the upperbar where file edit and stuff like that is there is just no 'audio'...

[Steve Walsh]

in VirtualDubMod, it's in the Streams menu, Stream list option. you can add an audio track here, and right click on it to enable full processing mode, then conversion etc....
Good Luck.

[Dougurasu]

Ah, now at least I know where the audio stuff is... but I get an error message saying "No Audio decompressor could be found to decompress the audio format". Damned... nothing ever works first time round, does it? Oo

[guns1inger]

There is another one to try - AC3 ACM Decompressor (or similar) - should be in the codec section of the Tools area.

[Dougurasu]

Install that one and try again right? I'll try it.

Edit: It worked! Actually it was just that decompressor thing you recommended that did the trick, I didn't have to demux anything, I can now just import all the files that didn't work before, cause they DO work now! Thank you very much for your help!