is h.264 and suround sound possible?

[wififun]

I normally have used xvid, with passthrough for the audio to get the dolby digital 5.1 and sometimes dts soundtracks from my movies as I prep them for my video jukebox. Now with the quality setting I have dialed in for h.264, is there a way to get the surround sound tracks in this format. It does not seem to be working. At least when playing back with mplayer on my Myth box like I always have, the tuner does not show DD, or DTS with these movie files. The xvid avi's work fine, but not the 264 mp4 files.

[extract]

Sorry, H.264 in the .MP4 format requires AAC audio and although 5.1 surround is supported by QuickTime in AAC, convertion from AC3 5.1 to AAC 5.1 is not supported in FFMPEGX or any other encoder in MacOS X, so you'll only get a mixdown to 2.0.

[Utumno]

Sorry, H.264 in the .MP4 format requires AAC audio and although 5.1 surround is supported by QuickTime in AAC, convertion from AC3 5.1 to AAC 5.1 is not supported in FFMPEGX or any other encoder in MacOS X, so you'll only get a mixdown to 2.0.

Is this actually true ? I recall having good results out of FAAC doing 5.1 at the command line on Linux following instructions here and I can't believe FAAC on OS X is markedly different to FAAC on Linux, when they're compiled from the same source

That said, I don't know if ffmpegX does the extra channel mapping on the command line when the "5.1" option is selected on the AAC options.

I'd be very interested in this, as this would allow me to switch to H.264/AAC over XviD/AC3, much like the original poster. I simply won't put up with 2.0 mixed-down sound when streaming DVD video to my set-top box.

Ut.

[extract]

Sorry AC 5.1 -> AAC 5.1 is not implimented in ffmpegX, the 5.1 sound is mixed-down to 2.0. Let's hope it gets implimented!

[Utumno]

Hopefully major4 is watching this and will be able to sort 5.1 AAC for a future release then. Major, if you're watching, any idea if/when this feature could be implemented in ffmpegX ?

On another note, HandBrake can produce AVC/AC-3 AVI files straight from encrypted content and although these files won't play in my QuickTime Player (which is weird, I suspect something may be up with my QT installation, I have a perfectly good AC-3 QT component installed) they play just great in VLC with surround sound.

Using ffmpegX to create an AVI with AVC/H.264 video plus AC-3 passthrough audio from a DVD should be really easy. So, to the original poster, this may be a useful way of shrinking your filesize while maintaining surround-sound and quality. Once 5.1 AAC comes through, your filesizes will only get smaller.

Ut.

[extract]

Hopefully major4 is watching this and will be able to sort 5.1 AAC for a future release then. Major, if you're watching, any idea if/when this feature could be implemented in ffmpegX ?

On another note, HandBrake can produce AVC/AC-3 AVI files straight from encrypted content and although these files won't play in my QuickTime Player (which is weird, I suspect something may be up with my QT installation, I have a perfectly good AC-3 QT component installed) they play just great in VLC with surround sound.

Using ffmpegX to create an AVI with AVC/H.264 video plus AC-3 passthrough audio from a DVD should be really easy. So, to the original poster, this may be a useful way of shrinking your filesize while maintaining surround-sound and quality. Once 5.1 AAC comes through, your filesizes will only get smaller.

Ut.

QT cannot play H.264 in an AVI file, because it is a highly non-standard implimentation. For the same reason Major has removed the H.264 encoding for AVI in ffmpegX.

[Utumno]

Hopefully major4 is watching this and will be able to sort 5.1 AAC for a future release then. Major, if you're watching, any idea if/when this feature could be implemented in ffmpegX ?

On another note, HandBrake can produce AVC/AC-3 AVI files straight from encrypted content and although these files won't play in my QuickTime Player (which is weird, I suspect something may be up with my QT installation, I have a perfectly good AC-3 QT component installed) they play just great in VLC with surround sound.

Using ffmpegX to create an AVI with AVC/H.264 video plus AC-3 passthrough audio from a DVD should be really easy. So, to the original poster, this may be a useful way of shrinking your filesize while maintaining surround-sound and quality. Once 5.1 AAC comes through, your filesizes will only get smaller.

Ut.

QT cannot play H.264 in an AVI file, because it is a highly non-standard implimentation. For the same reason Major has removed the H.264 encoding for AVI in ffmpegX.

Great information, thanks. But please Major, add 5.1 AAC support in ffmpegX for MP4/H.264 files soon so I can ditch XviD/AC3

Ut.