Encoding AC3 to WMA Without losing 5.1 Surround (please help)

[RabidSmurf]

Hi Everyone,

Admittedly I am pretty new this world but I have learned a tonne. The problem I am having now is that I need to convert the AC3 audio files extracted from a Matroska 1080p HD movie to WMA so that I can combine with a re-encoded .WMV (XBOX360 playback).

I have tried WMNicEnc - This works however I can only encode to 2 channel stereo (not good enough) when attempting to encode using 5.1 CBR it gives an error:

FAILED(hr=0xc00d0bc6) in converter.Initial(EncParams.szIn, FALSE, EncParams.szOut, EncParams.pProfile, FALSE, TRUE,TRUE, FALSE, -1)

I have tried using DVBPortla WMVMuxer (Which seemed extremely promising) - This reports the AC3 file as having 6 channels and a sample rate of 48000 (seems right), but when trying to encode to WMA 5.1 it throws an error (2 channel works):

Conversion Aborted.
Please check that you have selected the correct profile for conversion

I have tried every profile they all throw the same error.

Can anyone either, help me fix these issues, or provide another method for converting AC3 to WMA without losing the 5.1 Surround?

Thanks in advance,

Kevin

[poisondeathray]

WMNicEnc works if you convert the AC3 to WAV first

Use an avisynth script e.g.

DirectShowSource("file.wav", video=false)

Tested & working for 6-channel AC3 => 6-channel WAV => 6-channel WMA

Cheers

[RabidSmurf]

Thanks for the help

Newb question, how do I convert to 6 channel wav?

[RabidSmurf]

Just an update,

I used besweet to encode to 6 channel wav (wasn't really sure if it was working because audio playback seemed to be silent, but then i only have 2 channel on my pc).

Using WMNicEnc to re-encode to 5.1 channel .wma, I will let you all know the final results.

Thanks again for the great advice

[dazza101]

Just an update,

I used besweet to encode to 6 channel wav (wasn't really sure if it was working because audio playback seemed to be silent, but then i only have 2 channel on my pc).

Using WMNicEnc to re-encode to 5.1 channel .wma, I will let you all know the final results.

Thanks again for the great advice

You can rip 5.1wma direct from MKV using WMNieEnc. You need to change you settings in "combined community codec pack" to match the output setings of WMNicEnc.

Set to 3/0/2+LFE 5.1 channels.

I had the same error and this sorted it

You need an avs file for your MKV to load into WMNicEnc.

This gives you a 5.1wma that can be muxed to your WMV using windows media stream editor.

Found this on net, found parts useful

.html]617133-mkv-wmv-tutorial-5-1-a[1].html