No audio in WinDVD

[harryk]

I ripped a DVD to disk using DVDDecrypter (in File mode), and then demuxed it using PGCDemux. Not really sure yet what I'm about, but following someone else's (bluedha) instructions so that ultimately I can add subtitles. [Ultimately where I'm trying to get to is using WinDVD or something similar as my external player within SubtitleCreator.]

I then downloaded a trial copy of WinDVD to see if I could play the demuxed video. When I select the ".m2v" file from WinDVD, the video is great. But I don't get any audio.

If I try to open the whole folder (which does include an audio file as well), I get the error message "The Selected folder does not have valid DVD contet." It seems like the problem must be something simple. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

[guns1inger]

.m2v is a video elementary stream - it contains only the video data, and no audio. Depending on the disc you ripped, DVD Decrypter might not be up to cracking the protection on it's own. Try running the ripped disc through the latest FixVTS and playing the output of that. If it still fails, rip the disc again using ripit4me.

[drwho]

By any chance you not using WinDVD v.8?
It's kind of beta release and few codecs do not register upon installation.

[harryk]

Thanks for the responses. Some brief reply:
drwho: no, this is WinDVD 7
guns1inger: I will take a look at the alternate tools you mention; but I'm not sure yet that's the problem. See below.

To make the situation clearer:
- PGCDemux created four files: AudioFile_81.ac3, AudioFile_A0.wav, Celltimes.txt, VideoFile.m2v.
- If I point WinDVD at the .wav file, it plays the audio correctly, but there is no video
- If I point WinDVD at the .m2v file it plays the video correctly, but there is no audio
- If I point WinDVD at the .ac3 file, it plays audio only, no video; but it seems to be audio for a special extra feature, not the film
- If I point WinDVD at the folder, it complains "The Selected folder does not have valid DVD content."

How do I get it to handle both audio and video together at the same time?

[guns1inger]

You really don't understand how all this fits together, do you ?

.wav is uncompressed audio only. There is no video in a wav file.
.m2v is a video stream only. It contains no audio
.ac3 is a Dolby Digitial encoded audio file. It contains no video

So far, each of these files behaves as you would expect it to behave.

What doesn't seem to work is whatever process you are using to actually create a DVD. Perhaps if you listed that process and tools, we might be able to work out what is wrong.

[harryk]

Well, you are right that I know very little about the format of DVDs. All I have done so far is
- run DVDDecrypter on an existing DVD (which happens to be in Japanese); this created a whole directory full of files, the principle (or controlling) one, I am told is VTS_01_0.IFO
- run PGCDemux on VTS_01_0.IFO; this created another set of files, including the audio (.wav) and video (.m2v) as separate files (which separately work beautifully).

Right now I'm just trying to figure out how to play the resulting files with WinDVD (I also tried unsuccessfully to get it to play the original VTS_01_0.IFO file; it accepts it without complaint, but does nothing).
Ultimately what I want to do is add English subtitles to the video.

[guns1inger]

All you really need are the .ac3, if the original had dolby encoded audio, the.m2v file, and the subtitles. I assume you have those in a suitable format.

How did you intend to add the subtitles ?
Did you hope to keep the original menus, or were you planning to make your own ?
If you were going to make your own, with what ?

[harryk]

I was planning to use SubtitleCreator to create new subtitles of my own. Menus will probably be an additional problem for me, because the existing CD has no subtitles in any language.
But first I wanted to make sure I could just play the demuxed files in something like WinDVD.

[harryk]

Excuse me. I meant to say Subtitle Workshop (not Creator). Still having this problem, that I can't figure out how to get both audio (.wav) and video (.m2v) to play at the same time in Subtitle Workshop, WinDVD, Windows Media Player.