Ulead dvd workshop 2 no longer accepts anykind of ac3 sound

[mazinz]

I was messing around with this and i wanted to give the heads up concerning this new version of workshop.

On past versions (the 1. somethings) you (without the ac3 powerpack offered later on) were able to kind of trick the program and this let you use ac3 sound instead of mpeg/lpcm.

You were able to do this by either having the ac3 already remuxed into your mpeg stream, or (in some rare cases) rename the ac3 sound to an .mpa and import it as a replacement audio.

Well with UDW 2.0 it appears they fixed it so this no longer holds true. Oh it will let you use an mpeg stream with the ac3 sound muxed in, however once your disc is done--go play it and you will notice it is completely silent. Upon a closer look, open the ifo files with ifo edit and behold, it doesn't even list an audio at all! So it seems this new version will just make a silent stream in place of the ac3.

I just find it funny that they advertise this as such a super improvement and they do not even offer the option to accept this standard audio stream. You figure they would have, after making it available for the 1. versions. It would have been safe to say with all the extras/improvements, this would have been one of them--guess not.

[masterpug]

you got it...surprised at that as well and many folks have no clue.

however, do you know if workshop 3 recently released has full native support for ac3? how can it call itself a dvd authoring program when it doesn't even accept the audio spec for dvd compliant stream?

[sihyp]

A big "fiasco" is what this release seems to be.
And about importing subtitles? I have no clue.
Version 3?... I didn't heard anything about

[mazinz]

i think he may have meant to say version 2, as that is the one that just came out

[masterpug]

oops..was talkin' 'bout ulead dvd movie factory 3.

[Craig Tucker]

I guess they want people to buy the AC3 plug-in

[KTH]

Craig, there is no AC3 upgrade to purchase for DVD Workshop 2. This version unlike version 1.x comes with AC3 support built in. You can encode mpeg audio or LPCM audio streams into AC3 2.0 out of the box. Also Mazinz are you using the free trial version of DVD Workshop 2? I believe I read that the trial version does not support AC3. You have to have either the full or upgrade retail versions of DVD Workshop 2 to use AC3.

[Craig Tucker]

Craig, there is no AC3 upgrade to purchase for DVD Workshop 2.

Did not know that, thanks for the info. So if mazinz does not have a crippled trial version this means things are actually worse. I do find it difficult to belive that there would be such a glaring ommision from the full version release of DVDWS2 though. I have used 1.3 in the past and found it to be pretty good at what it does. I used to mux the ac3 with the m2v in tmpgenc to get a 5.1 DD soundtrack. I never really understood what the point of the 5.1 plugin was when you could get 5.1 by simply muxing it wioth the video stream for free.

[Specialist]

To correct some apparent misconceptions in this thread, I've conducted tests here in my studio where I have multiple workstations.

1. Ulead DVD Workshop 2.0 *purchased* version fully supports stereo AC-3 audio(and the import of 5.1 AC-3);

2. Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3.0 *Disc Creator* version fully supports stereo AC-3 audio (and the import of 5.1 AC-3).

My test steps were as follows:

1. I opened Ulead DVD Workshop 2.0;

2. I clicked the NEW PROJECT button;

3. After the NEW PROJECT pop-up menu appeared, I typed a name for the new project and I clicked the OK button;

4. I clicked the CAPTURE step button and I specified a location for the file I would be copying from a DVD-RAM disc recorded in a Toshiba D-R1 DVD player/recorder using stereo AC-3 sound;

5. I clicked the EDIT step button and I clicked the IMPORT FROM DVD button;

6. After the BROWSE FOR FOLDER pop-up menu appeared, I browsed to the location of the DVD-RAM disc in my Panasonic SW-9571 DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM drive;

7. I noted the presence of a DVD-RTAV folder on the drive disc and I used my mouse to highlight the folder and I clicked the OK button;

8. The SELECT PLAYLIST pop-up menu appeared;

9. I used my mouse to highlight the term "ALL" and I clicked the NEXT button;

10. The SELECT SCENES TO CAPTURE pop-up menu appeared;

11. I highlighted the thumbnail representing the scene I wanted to capture and I noted the following properties read-out:

NTSC drop frame (29.97 fps)
MPEG files
24 Bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
Field Order B
(DVD-NTSC), 4 : 3
Video data rate: Constant (9000 kbps)
Audio data rate: 384 kbps
AC-3 Audio, 48 KHz, 2/0(L,R)

12. I clicked the FINISH button and I observed as the file was copied from the disc to the location on my hard disk specified earlier;

13. I observed the file's AC-3 audio was intact;

14. I followed the steps to burn the AC-3 MPEG file to another DVD disc;

15. The audio remained intact on the finished disc.

I then repeated the steps of this test using Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3.0 *Disc Creator* version and that program worked perfectly as well.

As I mentioned earlier, I have multiple workstations in my studio.

Some of these workstations have non-Ulead software installed.

I have noted that the presence of one non-Ulead application - in particular - can *break* the AC-3 functionality of Ulead DVD Workshop 2.0.

I have formed an opinion that this occurs due to what is commonly known on Microsoft Windows computers as "DLL HELL."

"DLL HELL" can occur when different programs offer MPEG encoding based on the same SDK (in this case the MainConcept SDK).

I searched the Ulead FTP site and found what would seem to be a solution for this issue.

The zipped file can be downloaded at the following link:

ftp.ulead.com/Silent/DVD Workshop/fix_Premiere conflict_Problem.zip

If you think the problems you've described in this thread might be caused by the presence of another non-Ulead program on your system, then you may wish to try the ZIP file solution.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Specialist]

By the way, the FREE trial version of Ulead DVD Workshop 2.0 does not support AC-3 - as explained at the bottom of the Web page at the following link:

http://www.ulead.com/dws/trial.htm

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net