AC3 audio not recognised by TMPGEnc (/DVD Author)

[EpiMann]

Just producing my first DVD and now I have a problem with one video clip including AC3 (2 channels) audio. This video clip is vob and I have about 20 similar ones that work just like a charm (In fact TMPGEnc DVD Author tells that there's no audio with those but it accepts them).

I don't know why TMPGEnc DVD Author is not accepting this one and only telling me that: "Could not initialize decoder".

I have had similar error message with SVCD clips but was able to bypass them by demuxing and muxing those files. When I tried this method to this video clip with TMPGEnc, it didn't recognise the audio stream also.

With VideoPack I was able to demux that file but I don't know how I'm going to mux that file again since VideoPack is not accepting .ac3 anymore.

Is there some missing audio codec that causes my TMPGEnc softwares to fail audio recognising and how I'm able to mux ac3 and m2v files together?

Thanks for your answers in advance!

[EpiMann]

Just to give a little more information about the problem.

I've tried to produce that DVD anyway on DVD+RW disc and it doesn't play any sound on standalone DVD player.

Even if that audio is standard: 192kbps, 48khz, AC3, 2 channels

I suppose that TMPGenc DVD Author removed this because it didn't recognise any audio? On Windows Media Player the audio plays just fine from those .vob files but any other software fails to recognise that audio.

Previously I did have AC3 codec installed on my system but it seems that some uninstallation removed those codecs?

What codec should I install in order to get my system to understand AC3 audio? (TMPGEnc, TMPGEnc DVD Author, Ulead DVD MF2 etc.)?

Thanks again!

[feenix]

Well, for a start , Tmpgenc Author doesn't require the m2v and ac3 files to be muliplexed. Load the m2v in the video source and the ac3 in the audio source. See if Tmpgenc Author rejects the ac3 file then?

Don't really know what to suggest otherwise. I would have thought you have some sort of ac3 decoder installed or else WMP would not play it!

[EpiMann]

I tried to bring audio and video separately but that didn't help. Audio is still unknown. Same with TMPGEnc and Ulead DVD MF2.

I can't understand either that how the Windows Media Player is able to play that AC3 if wouldn't have decoder for that.

Little a bit mystery I would say.

[EpiMann]

It seems that dvd-lab can recognise the audio stream also. In addition I tried different AC3 source for TMPGEnc DVD Author and it did recognise the audio.

It seems that the problem is not a missing codec but there's something wrong with my source files. I have 19 different vobs ripped(?) from same DVD but the first file is the only one that TMPGEnc DVD Author processes correctly (and recognise the audio). Other clips have same kind of audio but this software doesn't like it for some reason.

Should I handle these files with some vob software; for example vobedit to mux those vobs back together? Do you think that it would help?

[feenix]

A real shot in the dark here but I know Tmpgenc Author will not accept ac3 files that have been extracted from an avi by virtualdub (puts a wav header on I believe). The way round this is to 'fix' the ac3 with Besplit (can't remember exactly how to do this but a forum search will give you the answers).

It's possible that the vob's that you have were authored by software that ignores the header whereas Tmpgenc doesn't.

maybe worth a try

[petethemeat]

Epiman

I had the same problem. I found some thing that worked great. Take AC3 file run HeadAC3he http://<a class="contentlink" href="https://www.videohelp.com/tools.php?tool=93" target=...hp?tool=93</a> through it. You get another ac3 file does matter. Use this file. Then it should work and only took 3 min to fix.

[jamesbond1960]

Above commet is correct. AC3 Fix will rewrite the header of the ac3 and TMPGEnc does in fact recognised ac3 files.......