Cannot get sound with the converted file

[rustyleaf]

Hello

I really hope someone out there can help me. I want to be able to watch movies I've downloaded from the Net, burnt on CD's with Toast Titanium, on my little multiregion DVD player.
The trouble is the DVD will only recognize movies which are in the mpeg-1 or mpeg-2 formats. No other format will do apparantly. So this is why I want to use ffmpegx.
So the problem I'm having is that I convert a movie from .wmv format, for instance, into mpeg-1 or -2 and it has actually worked but with a snag - the sound has gone!! Also, when I double-click on the converted movie icon on desktop, instead of the movie appearing which it should do, I get this window saying " Quicktime couldn't open *file name* it's not a file quicktime understands".

I've looked at your "How To" section and I've tried all various means of trying to get it to finally work but still with no luck at all. I'm wondering if it's still something I'm doing wrong or whether maybe it's the product itself - could it be faulty somewhere?
I understand that the audio for mpeg-1 and mpeg-2's should be MP2 as opposed to MP3 say, but the funny thing is MP3 is the only audio that the software seems to accept. When I experimented with the other audio options in the drop-down menu the encoding always failed. Halfway through the "progress" process it makes this noise and the red word "failed" appears.

I've gone with the appropriate bitrate size of 224 for mpeg-2's as suggested, I've chosen the size of my movies to accomodate with the original size of the inital movie I wanna convert, usually it's standard 320 x 240, I even go with the suggesated Hz 44100 sampling for mpeg-2.
I try to stick with the movie info of the original movie needed converting. I've experimented until I've experimented a hole in the ground, and now I'm getting really frustrated! As I said, it actually works but I'm just not getting that sound for some reason.

I've gone through the installation proceedure correctly, also. I've downloaded all those necessary components, I put ffmpegx in my Applications folder as suggested then rebooted my computer etc, etc... Something's missing somwhere but I don't know what. Could I be missing some components or codecs regarding the audio aspect?
I'd really appreciate anyone happening by this plight of mine to offer any help or ideas with this if they're able to, I'd love to get this working properly in the end.

Hope to hear from someone soon, then.

Russ

[Case]

Try not to copy the settings from the source movie, but trust the settings that the preset puts in, unless you know exactly how you may deviate from those settings. VCD/SVCD/DVD has very strict video sizes, audio sampling rate, et cetera. If you make up your own settings, chances are your player won't accept your converted files.

VCD has MPEG-1 video, size 352x288 (PAL) or 352x240 (NTSC), mp2 audio at 44.1 kHz. Burn disc images to CD-R.
SVCD has MPEG-2 video, size 480x576 (PAL) or 480x480(NTSC), mp2 audio at 44.1 kHz. Burn disc image files to CD-R.
DVD has MPEG-2 video, size 720x576 (PAL) or 720x480(NTSC), mp2/ac3/pcm audio at 48.0 kHz. Burn VIDEO_TS to DVD-R.

A wrong sampling rate may be a reason for some players to not output sound.
None of these three formats have square pixels, meaning the video size will be "stretched" to full screen on playback.

[rustyleaf]

Hi

Thanks for the swift reply and I tried your suggestions but unfortunately it still isn't working. For some reason the ffmpegx has trouble reading any other audio codec except MP3. I set it to MP2 for mpegs but it keeps saying "failed" in the ffmpegx progress window. I look at the information for the progress and it says unable to read the file.

Also, is it true I need to have an audio file, seperate from its video equivalent, as an individual file in itself and somehow merge the two? Something about muxing is it? Not too good with the techincal jargon I'm afraid which isn't helping doing my head in with all this

I actually tried this method in ffmpegx and it still doesn't seem to be cutting any slack. Any other way I can extract the audio aspect of the file from the video? Could this be why I can't get sound.[/code]

[Case]

1. WMV is one of the worst file formats when it comes to converting on Mac OS X. There are several versions of WMV, and only a few can be succesfully converted.
2. ffmpegX can use one of three decoders: MPlayer, ffmpeg and QuickTime, some of which may be unavailable for some conversions. Maybe only one of them can succesfully decode your source file. The VCD/SVCD/DVD mpeg2enc presets can use any one of the decoders, the VCD/SVCD/DVD ffmpeg presets can use ffmpeg or QuickTime, but not mplayer. These are selectable in the Options tab. De-selecting the decoder(s) reverts the program to decoding with ffmpeg, afaik.
3. Try the Play button. MPlayer will play the source file. If you get no audio there, then conversion using Decode with mplayer will likely fail. If it plays fine, try a preset which allows decoding with mplayer.

Also, is it true I need to have an audio file, seperate from its video equivalent, as an individual file in itself and somehow merge the two? Something about muxing is it?

This process should happen behind the scenes. ffmpegX converts the video and audio separately (mpv/m1v/m2v + mp2/mpa/m1a), then muxes them to one .mpg file.