no sound on svcd

[flatout]

i am new to this site and a new owner of a dvd player i have a alba 114 model and last night somebody lent me a super VCD it plays perfectly but with no sound? i have read quite a few reports about this on this site and no one seems to have a answer?

is there no way of playing these with sound?

it will play VCD with sound but not SVCD

somebody please put me out of my misery

cheers

[q1aqza]

Flatout,

I have the exact same problem. I bought the Alba 114 Monday evening and discovered I got no sound from my SVCDs. Most of them were XSVCDs with 48Khz audio so I made a couple of completely standard compliant SVCDs and still no sound. I assumed mine was faulty so I am planning to take it back at the weekend but now I have noticed that others are having similar probs.

It's not a big deal for me as I only create DVDs nowadays and I converted all my SVCDs to DVD, it's just the principle of the fact that it advertises as playing SVCD but doesn't seem to.

I think I will take it back and try another.

[q1aqza]

Update:

Finally managed to get through to the Alba helpline. At first the guy tried to fob me off saying that is doesn't play SVCDs. When I explained that it says it does in the manual and that various resellers advertise that it does, I was put on hold a few minutes. I was astounded at the answer I then received.

The guy said, quote "It will only play SVCD with the correct video and audio format, the video needs to be MPEG2 and the audio needs to be MP3". He actually said MPEG3 but I knew what he meant. Suppressing a laugh I explained to him that MP3 is not standard audio for SVCD and that they are in fact misleading people by advertising that the player can play SVCDs when really it can't if it needs MP3 audio. After a short disagreement about what was standard and what wasn't (he was still sure he was correct that MP3 audio is SVCD standard!) he finally conceded, "In that case you have good grounds for taking it back to where you bought it for a refund". That was a lot of help. I can't believe that Alba have actually misunderstood standard compliancy for the SVCD format, I guess the tech support staff think they can just baffle us with bullsh*t when really they know f all. I was tempted to recommend this site to him to educate him a little in what he was trying to bullsh*t me with.

Anyway, out of curiosity before I take it back and try another one I'll humour this guy and see if I can mux MP3 audio with my MPEG2 video file and see if it works.

[flatout]

cheers, mine was bought last year in september i think so i can't really take it back but i know what you mean about mis-leading people this is the first SVCD somebody has given me and i thought it would play considering it will play VCD no problem

hopefully somebody might come up with a way round this problem they usually do

thanks again

[q1aqza]

Isn't it still under warranty? It clearly states that it does play SVCD so I'm sure you could do something under the warranty if you wanted to.

I had a few private messages with Craig Tucker about this player (he has three of them) and a friend of his can play SVCDs fine on his. So I will try another one. If that fails I will probably live with it, as I said earlier SVCD is not really important to me.

Mind you I might drop a line to Trading Standards about it just for the heck of it

[q1aqza]

I took mine back at the weekend and swapped it for another 114. Same thing, won't play audio on SVCD. I'm wondering if Alba have changed something with more recent batches as it seems a lot of people do actually get them to play SVCD fine.

Anyway, I'm gonna stick with it as plays DVDs nicely and even plays DVDs made on Bulkpaq media - something my LG and Pioneer won't do !!.

[Scienide]

It will play the audio on a GENUINE original SVCD. i.e you payed for it from a real outlet and didnt burn it yourself.

Its the first measure against piracy that Alba took as SVCD seemed the most popular format for the pirates.

P.S. I also have one of these players and thats what they told me when i wrang the phone line and was accused of playing pirated discs, which i blatently denied lol

[poopyhead]

see if there's any info about your dvd player here: https://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers

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also, try using the VCD header trick...sometimes it works in getting players that don't normally play SVCDs to play them...

check it out here: http://www.vcdeasy.org/modules.php?name=_Guides&id=VcdTrick