h.264/MP4 w/AC3?

[climbs]

Pretty specific opinion question here....I want to back up my DVD collection. I will be playing them to PS3/XBOX. I want to end up with files between 1.5gb to 2.0gb. I want quality to be high and I want to maintain the AC3 steam. I have used several products already and have liked them but each has a set back. I have used the following:

Xvid4psp - lot of flexability for encoding, etc but no AC3 passthrough when encoding to MP4/h.264

Handbreak - same...it appears that AC3 passthrough is an option but I can't get it to work.

Divx7 converter - Used it -easy h.264 w/AC3 passthrough however the file size comes out so small (700mb) that I am assuming the video quality is not so hot?

I am also aware of ripbot264 and Fairusewizard. I have not used either of these.

So.......What do you folks use to encode to h.264/mp4 with some options, and AC3 passthrough?

Thanks for any responses

[poisondeathray]

Both xvid4psp and ripbot264 have a "copy audio" option, and profiles compatible for PS3/Xbox360

[climbs]

I will have to look at ripbot264 however xvid4psp says it has a copy feature. Correct me if I am wrong but when I have the ps3/xbox preset and then select copy it says it is not compatible. Is this a mp4 thing or xvid4psp? Have you had success with this option? I will try it..

[poisondeathray]

ac3 was recently added to .mp4 specs (it was not allowed before), so xvid4psp might not have a new muxer yet or this functionality. I doubt PS3 will allow ac3 in mp4 playback, even with newest firmware

In fact, very few players will allow ac3 playback in .mp4 container. Using the newest mp4muxer, you can put ac3 into .mp4

[climbs]

To be specific....in xvid4psp when "copy" is selected for audio when the ps3/xbox profile is used it says "Stream contein parameter incompatible with format mp4 PS3 or XBOX - AC3" I think I have encoded this like this and the sound was steam was not audible post encode.

Is there a setting that I am missing to make this work? I like xivid4psp quite a bit so if I can make this work.....happy day.

[climbs]

Actually Ps3 does the AC3 already. With the new divx7 codec (h.264) I have been successful at passing it through and playing it on the PS3????

[poisondeathray]

But does the ps3 play the ac3 in .mp4 container? if it does, just use mp4 muxer to mux the video & audio. e.g. you can use DGIndex to separate the AC3 track, and use any encoder you want, then remux them.

[guns1inger]

Use the m2ts container instead of mp4 if you want AC3 from Xvid4PSP - at least until the author adds this feature in. You can always repackage at a later date without re-encoding.

[FulciLives]

I agree with guns1inger. The M2TS format allows for H.264 video with AC-3 audio and the PS3 natively supports M2TS.

So there is no reason to use MP4 when M2TS is really what you need.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[yoda313]

I agree with guns1inger. The M2TS format allows for H.264 video with AC-3 audio and the PS3 natively supports M2TS.

So there is no reason to use MP4 when M2TS is really what you need.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

@fulcilives - That is probably true but I think the reason the original poster was interested in mp4 was this statement:

I will be playing them to PS3/XBOX

My guess is like many users here they figure mp4 is needed for interchangeability between the platforms. However as you and I have found out even "compatible" settings for both systems in the mp4 realm aren't a guarentee it will play on both systems. Unless of course you use tversity to stream to either console.

But I would say the bluray reencoding to m2ts would probably be the best. This would naturally eliminate the 360 as a disc based or usb harddrive playback device since it has no m2ts support.

[climbs]

Thanks for your input. I would like to use the output file on both the PS3 and XBOX, but I also want to maintain quality in the audio. So for now I will use the M2TS container. A few follow up questions. First is anyone aware of any encoding program free/pay that will encode to the MP4/h.264 container and allow the passthrough? Am I asking for an overkill in trying to maintain the AC3? It seems like it sounds better to me but who knows?

Will the audio encoded to AAC maintaining same channels at the same bitrate as orriginal AC3 bitrate yield the same audio? This does convert it from true Dolby digital to AAC.

[yoda313]

Will the audio encoded to AAC maintaining same channels at the same bitrate as orriginal AC3 bitrate yield the same audio?

I can't answer this specifically but I do have a related question to ask you - does your amplifier have aac decoding? If you try 5.1 aac make sure your amplifier can actually decode this. I have a pre-hdmi digital amp and I can only get stereo out of a aac5.1 encode over my ps3's fiber optic output to my amp. I'm sure newer models support aac surround sound buy my amp is at least six or seven years old and before bluray was mainstream in any sense of the imagination.

I really don't know how to pass the original audio to the mp4 container.

But please be aware that m2ts will not play on the 360 (only the ps3) unless you stream it from a computer.

[FulciLives]

Right now nobody really knows how to make MP4 with AC-3 audio. If you want H.264 video with AC-3 audio then you need to use the M2TS file format. Again this will work on the PS3 but not the XboX 360.

So when you have 5.1 AC-3 it only makes sense to use M2TS.

Now if you have a source with AC-3 but it only 2.0 AC-3 and you want PS3/XboX 360 playback then you can go ahead and convert it to 2.0 AAC-LC without a noticeable loss in quality. I've heard that 128kbps AAC-LC is sufficient but I normally use 256kbps just to be safe

Technically there will be a loss in quality when going from AC-3 to AAC-LC but with a high enough bitrate for the AAC-LC the loss should be imperceivable to the human ear.

I should point out though that the XboX 360 is a real pain-in-the-ass when it comes to encoding MP4 files. I've used a program that has a MP4 profile for PS3/XBOX 360 and sometimes the resulting MP4 works on the XboX 360 and sometimes it does not ... but it always will play on the PS3. I've pretty much given up hope on worrying about XboX 360 compatibility. Just ain't worth it. It's too crippled a device.

You might want to check this thread out ---> https://forum.videohelp.com/topic358929.html

That thread is about the Western Digital Media player. This fantastic device has a MSRP of $129.99 US Dollars but can sometimes be bought for as little as $99.99 and it has all the playback capabilities of the PS3 but does more in that it has better subtitle support and can do MKV files and FLAC files etc.

The only drawback is that it has no networking. You have to use an external USB HDD but even there it beats the PS3 in that you can use an external HDD formated to NTFS whereas PS3 (and XboX 360) only support FAT-32 formatted external hard drives.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[poisondeathray]

I posted this earlier, but mp4muxer 0.9.3 supports AC3 in .mp4.

No GUI that encodes video that I know of uses mp4muxer, most are based on an older mp4box build that doesn't support ac3 in .mp4, so you have to do it manually, this extra step will just take a few extra minutes

For software, very few players will work with ac3 in .mp4, e.g. kmplayer will work but only recognize it as stereo. Mediainfo will identify it as 6ch. I doubt ps3 will play it at all

[FulciLives]

I posted this earlier, but mp4muxer 0.9.3 supports AC3 in .mp4.

No GUI that encodes video that I know of uses mp4muxer, most are based on an older mp4box build that doesn't support ac3 in .mp4, so you have to do it manually, this extra step will just take a few extra minutes

For software, very few players will work with ac3 in .mp4, e.g. kmplayer will work. I doubt ps3 will play it

Interesting. However for the PS3 I still say that M2TS is the better option.

Now if the PS3 and XboX 360 allow MP4 with AC-3 in the future ... something I suppose that could happen with firmware upgrades ... then you can always demux the H.264 video and AC-3 audio from the M2TS and remux into a MP4 file. Such a procedure would include no re-encoding nor transcoding so there would be no loss in quality.

Right now though I would advise against doing MP4 with AC-3 as the only hardware I know of that supports this is the Apple TV device.

I should have pointed out before that the Western Digital Media player does support M2TS files.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[poisondeathray]

I completely agree with you fulci, for this scenario, m2ts is the better option. I was answering climbs' question about passthru, as he asked it again. To reiterate: yes it is possible, but hardly any support for playback at this time.

[climbs]

Thanks all. I understand your points and advice. I guess I am just surprised that in the new divx7 container h.264 and AC3 passthrough work....it really does. It plays on PS3. So I guess I was just hoping that if the divx7(weak) converter could do this that maybe we could get it in the mp4 container. So it is either M2TS for now or MP4/h.264 with a high bitrate on the AAC.

[woody350ep]

So, I was trying this in M2TS and MP4 for PS3, and both times I tried to add the DVD VOB files and it goes all the way through the black bar scan thing, and then it said that the files were not supported. What is the deal with that? I added them via the DVD button and added the whole Video_TS folder. When I ripped it from DVD Fab, I ripped just the main movie, but ripped both the 2 ch and AC3 audio tracks.

Any ideas?