having audio issues with ac3 and TMPGEnc DVD author no sound

[thesavages]

i have taken a divx using VirtualDub removed the mp3 file made into a wav (that played) using besweet changed into an ac3(that played) taking the video that is now in m2v form from tmpgenc plus. opened the author and had the video source the m2v and the audio as the ac3. the resulting dvd will not play on the computer dvd player not on my standalone dvd player( not Panasonic) i have seen people place the issue up before but it seems that there is no answer or that the person answers with the problem being the players not the dvd that resulted. i even placed the besweet ac3 into beslice and used the resulting fixed ac3, still no sound. i am sure that i would be able to make a dvd with wav but would like to use ac3 if i could ever figure out what went wrong. i used the divx to dvd guide and the authoring dvd guide the wav to ac3 guide ect...

[daamon]

I can't help directly, but I hope the following helps you narrow down where the problem may lie.

1. I capture video from a DV cam into DV AVI - where your source is Divx.
2. I use TMPGEnc to encode the video only to DVD compliant mpg2 - an m2v, same as yours.
3. I extract the audio from the AVI using VirtualDub (same as you) to .wav, and encode to AC3 using ffmpeg (and Baldricks GUI for it) - Where you use BeSweet. Note: I had trouble with BeSweet, so switched to ffmpeg. Found the latter much easier to use.
4. I use TMPGEnc DVD Author to create the VOB files from the m2v and the ac3. NOTE: The ac3 sound just passes through TDA - it can't be heard during edit / playback - but it is encoded into the VOB files.
5. Result: A DVD-R that plays on my stand-alone player, a Toshiba SD220e. Annoyingly, the ac3 doesn't play on WinDVD - don't know why.

I'm sure I've read somewhere on this site that some Pioneers (maybe others? Who knows?) have trouble with reading the ac3 output by BeSweet (due to the encoder it uses, not the actual software itself). I believe that this encoder is also used by ffmpeg. So probably can rule the encoding to ac3 out.

[thesavages]

thank you i'll try the other encode program.

[daamon]

I hope that works, but if it doesn't (by a process of elimination) it could be your source Divx.

Download either / both of GSpot and AVICodec (both found in the Tools). These will tell you what the audio is in the Divx. That may shed some light.

The other thing is, particularly if you're in Europe, is you could check to see whether your stand-alone DVD player accepts mp2 audio. This is similar in quality and bitrate to ac3 - it's just that (I believe) it doesn't allow for more than 2 channels, whereas ac3 allows 5.1 Dolby Digital.

Beyond that, it's beyond my limited knowledge. Maybe someone else can step in with mor know-how...?

Good luck...