Having trouble with an avi file

[bLuE_71]

I have a chappell show season two episode 2 on avi and i'm trying to get it to burn to a dvd but the file will not convert to anything. It plays fine with sound using vlc but in quicktime it won't play. I've tried to convert it divx doctor, BitVice MPEG2 Encoder, and Mpeg2 Works. When its encoded with those it doesn't have sound. What can I do?!?!

[tgpo]

What codec is the video?

[bLuE_71]

How do I tell?

[tgpo]

Open it in Quicktime, if you get an error just click okay. Press apple+J , which will bring up the movie properties. CHange the left drop down menu to video track and the right drop down menu to format. Tell us what it says by Data Format.

Or:

Open the file in VLC. Press apple+I. Expand the streams by clicking the triangles on the left. The one that has a type of video is the one you want. Tell us what codec it lists.

[bLuE_71]

It says 3ivx D4 4.5.1

[tgpo]

Do you have the 3ivx codec installed?

[WiseWeasel]

My guess is that the audio is in AC3 format. It's becoming more common to find AVI files with AC3 audio, and QT can't decode that. It's displaying 3ivx format for the video because you have the 3ivx codec installed, and it claims all Divx files for itself. I believe ffmpegX or mencoderX or something might be able to convert to DVD format with the ac3 audio intact, hopefully without reencoding to anything else. Anyone have any ideas about this?

[bLuE_71]

Alright well how would I go about doing that? Thanks for your help to guys!

[terryj]

Search for any of my million posts about converting with ffmpegx,
ffmpegx, .avi, etc.
Yes, as WW said more and more, especially USEnet,
.avi's are coming up with AC3 audio. Making
a new MPEG-4 [.AVI] from the .avi source in ffmpegx
with .mp3 audio takes care of the problem.

[WiseWeasel]

If you want to make a DVD, DO NOT convert the audio to MP3. AC3 is the DVD audio format, and so you need to keep it if possible, to avoid losing audio quality needlessly. I'm not sure how to go about getting the AC3 audio track out of the AVI container intact, but maybe someone else can clue you in. You might try asking in the ffmpegX forum on this site, to see if anyone there knows anything about this. Alternatively, I think mplayer (the command-line open-source utility) can handle extracting the audio like this:

mplayer -vo null -nogui -dumpaudio -dumpfile soundtrack.ac3 filename.avi

There's also the avidemux utility, which might be able to do what you need. I might see about making a simple interface for it.

[WiseWeasel]

OK, Avidemux looks like a bloody mess, I'd suggest sticking with mplayer for extracting the ac3 soundtrack.

[SERBIAN]

Check this thread on my /MPEG2 Works/ forum...

[WiseWeasel]

Hey, nice tip there, Serbian. You might have to trash the 3ivx component as well, as it's very greedy, and might prevent QT from loading the AVI correctly. Does that AC3 component also allow QT to play back VOBs with sound?
[Edit] OK, I just tried it and it doesn't, damn. Guess it only works for AVI files. [/Edit]

[thoughton]

ffmpegx can extract the ac3. It also plays very nicely with the insanity ac3 codec (no longer need to switch to mplayer to decode avis with ac3! weeeeeee!)

[babgolis]

VLC & mplayer play avi with ac3 just fine with better video than divx codec + ac3 codec. I prefer to make backup divx with ac3 audio as I can get full surround sound on my set-top rj-1500 divx player with no loss of quality. File sizes are slightly larger as ac3 is generally 196 kbps I believe.