PLEASE help - this not a newb - AC3's all of sudden no play

[rastoma]

I am very familiar with extracting wav files, resampling, editing, etc. and converting them to AC3 for DVD creation.

I just setup a dedicated machine for video/audio encoding (P4 1.8, 512, 2 x 40 hd's), and I can't get AC3 files to play!!!

I have installed the same files and codecs that I have on my machine that I've used for months that work fine. But when I take a good wav file and run it through besweet (using both besweetgui and ac3machine) I get an AC3 that has no sound. I've went ahead and created a DVD just to play on the standalone to test and it has no sound either.

I get no errors in besweet and the original wav plays fine before. I've used Goldwave to extract the audio, resampled to 48k and resaved wav (like I have SO many times successfully) and the resulting wav plays fine. But when it converts to an AC3 like I said it makes the appropriate sized file but it has no sound to it.

It seems I have all the necessary codecs installed as the videos I'm converting play fine originally and they reencode successfully as far as video is concerned.

WHAT could be causing this?

Thank you.

[Coluph]

Good question...I'm having the same problem with BeSweetGUI...I'm at a loss as to what causes this as well..


I did try using ffmpeggui, I think the link is https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=434#comments and it seems to work ok... I did find that I completely deleted BeSweet and Reinstalled (just uncompressed it) and the problem seemed to go away for a little while but then came back.

[daamon]

I second Coluph - Exactly the same for me. To the point where ffmpegGUI is the one I use all the time to get to AC3.

It uses the same encoding algorithm (or whatever it's called) as BeSweet, so you get the same output, but with a simpler and more reliable interface.

Good luck.

[Poppa_Meth]

I believe there is a problem with the way BeSweet writes the headers in the AC3 files. makes them come out not totally compliant. most equipment plays it fine anyway but some doesn't, especially older Pioneer equipment. Though BeSweet uses the same encoder as FFMPEG GUI does the latter program has fixed the problem while BeSweer still has it.

[rastoma]

i haven't tried it yet but it sounds like i'll need to get ffmpeg too.

but i don't understand why it works perfectly on 2 different machines I have and one brand new install it does not.