Will a VCD with 48000Hz audio play OK?

[p_l]

For months I've been getting tinny audio when encoding from a DV source (with audio @ 48000Hz) to VCD with TMPGEnc's standard VCD template (with audio @ 44000Hz). Now I've "unlocked" TMPGEnc's templates and have encoded with standard VCD video specs, but with audio @ 48000Hz. Eureka, clear audio!

But when I try to burn, Nero of course warns me that it's uncompliant. So, should I let Nero reecode, or can I turn off standard compliance and burn anyway? If I do the latter, will it play OK in most stand-alone DVD players?

Thanks in advance.

[kayfam]

p_l,
Sounds like to me your using TMPGEnc's internal converter to resample the audio down to 44,000Hz. My suggestion would would be to download and use ssrc as your frequency converter. TMPGEnc's built in converter does a lousy job and the developers know it, thats why they made accomodations for external encoders. You can download it from here: http://shibatch.sourceforge.net or from http://www.doom9.org/.
As for the VCD that you created with 48khz audio it may or may not play since it's out of spec and that more than likely will depend on player to player. A safe bet would be to re-encode the file using ssrc or better yet demultiplex your MPEG file and load up the .mp1 file in HeadAC3he or BeSweetGUI and downsample it to 44khz. Then all you'll have to do is remultiplex it. The latter method would be a lot fast than reconverting the whole file. You can find HeadAC3he here: http://darkav.de.vu/ or the BeSweetGUI here: http://dspguru.doom9.net

[p_l]

Thanks for your informative reply. Are these external audio encoders more or less the same as the tooLame plugin? When I tried tooLame a while ago, it had no effect -the audio was still tinny and distorted. It is only now that I've unlocked TMPGEnc's templates and encoded the audio at 48KHz that I've had success. As you say, though, the question remains whether it'll play on most stand-alone DVD players. Any thoughts?

If your player supports 48Khz, leave it and burn with Nero uncompliant.

[p_l]

Thanks. This brings up an interesting question: How can you know if a player supports 48KHz audio, short of actually trying it out for yourself?
I couldn't find any info on this at the DVD player compatibility guide.

[kayfam]

D_Head,

If your player supports 48Khz, leave it and burn with Nero uncompliant.

Now that's a really smart answer. Why didn't I think of that?. Sorry but maybe p_l's next player won't play it or maybe a friend borrows the disc and it won't play. I was talking about making a compliant disc!!
p_l,
TooLame isn't a frequency converter,SSRC is. The problem is in the way the built in converter for TMPGEnc handles the resampling of the audio. Thats why I suggested using SSRC. If you look in options/enviromental settings in TMPGEnc you'll see an option for "Sample Frequency Converter". This is where you would enable the SSRC plug-in. Why not give it a try? I assure you that you'll be happier with the results and you'll have a disc that will play on everthing (well almost everything).

[Big_Jit]

Just try it!

If I rip a DVD I never Convert the Audio Frequency from 48 to 44.1

It's a waste of time and quality and the discs always play anyway...

[kayfam]

Doesn't anyone actually read?. I never said not to try it. The point I was trying to make was how to make a fully compliant VCD. Now I know for a fact that most DVD players will play an SVCD with 48Khz audio with no problem, but for VCD that's another story. There is a reason why standards are in place. Better yet why not tell p_l to make up his own standard? Well hell I'll just invent my own. Ok enough of that rant! The only sure way to guarantee universal playback is to stick to the standards. Sure they can be bent and stretched (I know I've done it enough times), but for someone just starting out lets get him going in the right direction before having him experiment. When he's had a few successes then he can move on to trying to make XVCD or other types. I'm not trying to offend anyone here so don't take this as a personal attack. I'm just trying to clarify my original post.

[p_l]

Well, I'm lucky, because my RCA RC5240P does support 48KHz audio, but I would rather burn a compliant VCD so that it can be distrubuted with fewer compatibility uncertainties, so I tried kayfam's suggestion for SSRC, and it works great! Now in thinking about this further, I also figured I could extract the DV audio and resample it down to 41KHz in VirtualDub, then use that as my audio source in TMPGEnc, but I'm much happier using the SSRC frequency converter because it's an automated process now that I've got it enabled in TMPGEnc, and it sounds great!

So I'd like to thank everyone for your suggestions, but especially kayfam. His is such a good suggestion that I think it should be included in the FAQ. I'm sure a lot more people could benefit from this really helpful tip. It solves a problem that had been annoying me for months. Thanks again, kayfam! I'm still learning, too!

[fonoop]

Just to let you know that 48000Hz audio on my Panasonic RV31U-K plays in sync with the video, its just alot deeper that normal. So, women sound like men and men sound like....Satan.

[p_l]

Good to know, thanks! So, I guess kayfam's SSRC suggestion is really the best way to go.

[Nico...]

Yes, and this is not not so true to say there is a lost of quality... when you use 48000 you are far beyond of human ears capabilities! So 44,1 is the way to go because you will have more place for your video!
And yes SSRC is the best... and toolame (or SCMPX) for MPEG-I layer 2 conversion.

[yossisht]

A bit confused here
I am getting my DV source with 12bit or 16bit 44.1 KHz audio sampling rate.
If I want to burn VCD / SVCD / CVD that will be the most compliant to DVD Stand alone players.
Should I or shouldn't I convert the audio to 48 KHz sampling rate?

Also,

I did not find how to add the SSRC to be used as the Audio converter when using TMPGenc

Adam,
Thank you for your reply but still there is some confusion...
If the SVCD CVD VCD uses the 44KHz sampling rate but DVD's sampling rate is 48KHz and I want to create a CVD or VCD to be the most compliant on DVD players?!? shouldn't I convert from 44.1 to 48KHz to ge t clloser to DVD player comatibility?

[ian follow]

Sticking to standard is always good thing to do. So I agree totally with kayfam. Closer to standard - less problems.

Ian

[adam]

Nico, the sampling frequency should have no effect on filesize. If it does then it is just a little quirk in the encoder and will never amount to more than a few kilobytes anyway. Its true that the human ear cannot distinguish betwen 48kHz and 44100kHz, but you have to realize that the downsampling itself can decrease quality. Anytime you transcode something you can potentially lose quality. I do agree with you though, I don't think 48kHz is necessarily higher quality than 44100kHZ, at least not enough that you'd ever notice it.

yossisht: Vcds, CVDs, and Svcds use 44100kHZ. So if you want the most compliant disks then always use 44100. If your source is already 44100kHZ then there is absolutely no reason to convert to 48kHz unless you are burning on dvd media, as the dvd standard requires 48kHz.

To add ssrc, or any other frequency rate converter, go to Option/Environmental setting/external tool and under sampling frequency converter check the box and point it to your ssrc.exe.

[reman]

And yes SSRC is the best... and toolame (or SCMPX) for MPEG-I layer 2 conversion.

What would be used for layer 3?

[adam]

toolame for mp2
lame for mp3

[reman]

Just a reminder...CD's are made with 44k so dont worry about quality. 44k sounds great. BTW: If the source audio is crap then as the saying goes, crap in = crap out.

Good luck
reman

[DJRumpy]

P_L, the option to change the audio encoder is documented already.

http://www.vcdhelp.com/tmpgenc.htm#problems

Look in the newbie section under TMPGenc Problems.

[p_l]

DJRumpy,
I followed your link and that section, to which I had been before of course, only mentions using External Audio Encoders, such as tooLame, but nothing about Sampling Frequency Converters, for example SSRC. So my suggestion stands to include this useful info, and that would be the ideal location to include it.

[yossisht]

Adam,
Thank you for your reply but still there is some confusion...
If the SVCD CVD VCD uses the 44.1KHz sampling rate but DVD's sampling rate is 48KHz and I want to create a CVD or VCD to be the most compliant on DVD players?!? shouldn't I convert from 44.1 to 48KHz to ge t clloser to DVD player comatibility?

[adam]

yossisht, if your source is 44100kHz then either you convert to 48kHZ now or later. You are going to have to copy the video track from your disk and remultiplex it as a dvd anyway, its not any trouble to just resample your audio at that time. So you can resample now and have a non-standard disk up until the time you re-author on dvd media, or you can make it compliant now and then resample when that time comes. Either way the quality will be the same and the amount of work and time involved will be the same.

To me the logical thing to do is to resample later otherwise you may end up with a movie that is unplayable until you get around to authoring it as a dvd.

[reman]

No...the DVD player expects a DVD to have 48 but a VCD to have 44. Unless you are making a DVD R use 44 OR if you are making an SVCD you can use 44 or 48.

www.kvcd.com has a template for making DVD compliant videos so that in the future you could reburn onto a DVDR.

Good Luck
reman

[yossisht]

Thak you Adam and Reman for yor replies.
That answer my Q.

[uncleclancy]

Is there another program to encode 44100 to 48000. when I use tmpg it demultiplexes so i end up with a mp2 soung file but when i try to encode it to 48000 it wont even open the file and crashes the program

[throwingks]

Open Mpg in Virtualdub. Click File/Save Wav... Save as a temp.wav. Open temp.wav in Goldwave. You can convert to anything. Have been using it for years. Then use tmpgenc to convert new wav to mp2 with toolame and ssrc. Then Multiplex it with original video.

[p_l]

Actually, in Virtualdub, if you select Full Processing Mode for Audio, you can then select Conversion there too.

[DJRumpy]

Most of the audio tools out there will convert frequency. BeSweet, TooLame, Headac3he. They should all work fine with TMPGenc. SSRC is not the only option. I use BeSweet for my AC3 files, and HeadAche for quick conversions.

[Executioner]

What about DVD2AVI? I usually let this program downsample to 44.1 even though it takes longer for DVD2AVI to complete. I then take the WAV file and normalize it with a db gain of +15 as suggested with one of the guides. I wind up with a VCD that I don't have to crank up the volume to half way or more to hear.

Would using BSweet or SSRC be better than the method above?

[kayfam]

Executioner,
In answer to your question yes and yes. DVD2AVI is a great tool, but is slow as hell when converting audio. Myself I prefer using Headac3he for converting ac3 files, but BeSweet is a good alternative. As for ssrc it's a great frequency converter when used in conjuction with TMPGEnc.