WINAVI Video Converter. Can't get sound working!

[nick_gr]

I try to convert an AVI movie to DVD, but the output has no sound at all!!!

I looked in WINAVI's official site, and they say that if I have no sound, I should check for AC3Filter adjustments in Videohelp.com

But didnt find anythin...

Help me please!

[redwudz]

WinAVI pointing to our site for help. That is funny. They are not very popular with many of us because of their continual attempted spamming of our site.

But, first drop the AVI into Gspot 2.60 and see what kind of sound and video formats it has. They may be referring to AC3 Filter or AC3 ACM Decompressor. These are both available in 'Tools'. They normally need no 'adjustments'.

What format are you converting the file to? If it's to a DVD, you likely just need to extract the audio. AC3 audio can be used as is in a DVD if it has the proper specifications. And then you just need to re-encode the video to MPEG-2. There are plenty of encoders and programs that can do that better than WinAVI. You've already seen how helpful their official site is.

If you still want a all-in-one converter, take a look at ConvertXToDVD.

[nick_gr]

All I wanna do is convert DivX (.avi) files to DVD (.vob). WITH subtitles + Chapters in menu.

ConvertXtoDVD works great but does not support chapters in menu.
I can only use it with DVD Lab so that I can add menus but I have to add subtitles too because it wont keep subtitles added by ConvertXToDVD if authored again with DVD Lab.

TMPGEnc Auth does not support subtitles...
DVD2SVCD messes up with NTSC output...
The Film Machine with CCE 2.70 keeps givin me audio that's oout of sync...
WINAVI does not give me sound at all...

Am I stupid or what?

[Ai Haibara]

But, first drop the AVI into Gspot 2.60 and see what kind of sound and video formats it has.

We need to know more information about the AVI, such as the audio and video codecs used within it, to better understand why it may be giving you problems.

[nick_gr]

here!

[redwudz]

Thanks for the Gspot screenshot. That appears to be a wide screen Divx 5 with MP3 CBR audio. It's in NTSC film format. And you have a MP3 codec installed. I have no idea why WinAVI wouldn't open it or convert it. I would try re-installing the program.

There seems nothing unusual about the file. You definitely don't need a AC3 codec. Have you used WinAVI successfully before with other similar videos?

[mats.hogberg]

I can only use it with DVD Lab so that I can add menus but I have to add subtitles too because it wont keep subtitles added by ConvertXToDVD if authored again with DVD Lab.

Isn't this exactly what you want?

/Mats

[guns1inger]

Any process that includes starting up WinAVI as a key part of it is flawed beyond redemption.

If you want subtitles without effort, use ConvertXtoDVD, and live without the chapter menu.

If you want a DVD with chapter menus and subtitles, encode properly (tmpgenc, procoder express or cce basic are all good encoders, as is the free HCenc), then author in DLP.

Don't mix toys with real tools - they just don't play well together.

[nick_gr]

@mats.hogberg: yes, BUT ConvertXtoDVD can only create .vob files. And it ALWAYS creates 5 .vob files. When I open these files with DVD Lab Pro, it has to join them together which takes ages... Is there any way to make ConvertXtoDVD produce a single .vob with the whole movie?


@guns1inger: I agree but my movie is NTSC and so far no standalone encoder managed to encode my movie without sound sync problems... I wish I could just use CCE...

[guns1inger]

NTSC has nothing to do with your sync problems.

ConvertXtoDVD creates a compliant DVD. The DVD spec limits the size of a VOB to a maximum of 1000MB. This is why commercial movies don't have one big VOB file.

You can always use VOB2Mpeg or Rejig to extract the entire mpeg from the VOBs.

You have a simnple choice.

1. Do it the easy way, and accept that you can't have everything you want, but it's quick and easy.

2. Do it the right way, and get everything you want, but it takes longer and is a little harder at first.

or

3. Your current half-assed way which is making things slower and more complex than it ever needs to be.

[nick_gr]

Lol, I agree, but believe me, I don't choose the way! The way is chosen by itself. Nothin else works. Thats why I stuck up with ConvertXToDVD and dvd-lab pro!

NTSC has nothing to do with your sync problems.

Then why CCE 2.70 messes up?
video and audio produced with CCE is never synchronized! (see GSpot screenshot above for the details of the .avi Im tryin to encode)

[mats.hogberg]

You can't just take a 23.976 AVI and tell the encoder to spit out a 25 fps mpg. It will go out of sync.
Again, avoid doing frame rate changes. I dare say 99.2% of all PAL DVD players will play NTSC DVD.
If you're serious about converting, then:
Extract audio
Patch the AVI to 25 fps
Make the extracted audio 23.976/25 shorter (Goldwave / Timewarp function)
Encode AVI to m2v (video only)
Encode audio to AC3
Author.

/Mats

[guns1inger]

At a guess because of the way you encoded it. FWIW, here is what I would do if I was converting this;

1. Load the avi into FitCD - two blocks of border, NTSC anamorphic output, LanczosResize, CCE output. Save the avi synth script.

2. Make sure avisynth is installed, and load this script into CCE. Untick 'For DVD'. Multipass VBR, 3 passes. Set the bitrate. Untick Audio. Aspect Ratio 16:9, Pulldown 2:3. Under Picture Quality, set DC Precision to 9, scan order to Zig Zag, and tick Progessive Frame. Encode.

3. Load the avi into virtualdubmod. Click on Streams->Stream List. Right-click and select Full processing Mode. Right-click and select Compression. Select Uncompressed PCM. Click OK. Click Save Wav, and choose a location.

4. Use ffmpeggui to convert the wav file to AC3 @ 224 kbps (hope you took this into account when you calculated your video bitrate)

5. Author in DVD Lab Pro, compile and test.

If, after doing this, you don't have audio sync, frankly, you have done something wrong. Until I got my Divx certified player I used this process, pretty much step for step (OK, I used Sound Forge to convert the audio, and added a few tricks to the avisynth script), and it never failed.

/edit : I was about to add that changing framerates will cause sync problems when mats. beat me to it. Great call.

[nick_gr]

thank you for your guides!

I think thats too much work, too many parameters and too much time for a single movie.

Why I can't just make WINAVI work with sound? It's the best solution for me...

[steveryan]

How can it be the best solution if it doesn't work?

[nick_gr]

Because I suppose there's one little thing I have to change for it to work... WINAVI works well for lots of people.

As you can see from mats.hogberg's and guns1inger's little guides above, there's a lot of work if I dont want to use WINAVI or any other all-in-one converter.

ConvertXtoDVD works too but dvd lab gave me an error about a .vob's framerate. After that it joined all vobs together and worked well... dont know why.

[guns1inger]

In my experience, WinAVI works very occasionally for some people, and works poorly for all. That is, for the few it doesn't crash on, it produces crap output anyway.

If you follow my process, it will take about 10 minutes to set up, and you will get properly encoded DVDs of a quality WinAVI can't even dream of matching. And it will be encoded correctly, so your other post could also be wrapped up.

[nick_gr]

OK! I'm convinced! bye bye winavi!

why uses NTSC anamorphic in FitCD? I understand it may play in 99.2% of dvd players but I still want to do it pal!

please help me in the other post about the aspect ratios! I really need help!
thanks

[mats.hogberg]

why uses NTSC anamorphic in FitCD?

Beacuse that's the best way to encode this AVI to DVD.

/Mats

[nick_gr]

So u insist that I do an NTSC dvd?

[mats.hogberg]

Yes, if you're not satisfied with what convertx2dvd accomplishes, and don't want to do a real TV system conversion "by hand".

/Mats

[nick_gr]

i need some definitions.

here's the new gspot screenshot for this video.


Are the following FitCD settings ok?




a. Will this work with PAL checked or shall I leave it unchecked for NTSC?
b. If I check PAL (for destination) will I have audio sync problems again?
c. Why untick audio at CinemaCraft and use another prog to get the audio?
d. Can I change the multipass number in CinemaCraft of it will mess everything up?
e. You said "Use ffmpeggui to convert the wav file to AC3 @ 224 kbps".
How come 224 kbps?


Sorry for troublin you... THANKS for helpin guys.

[guns1inger]

The problem with NTSC to PAL conversion is that you have to change the frame resolution, the frame rate, and the audio playback length and pitch. All of this can, if not done right, result in jerky video and out of sync audio. There is no simple one-click NTSC to PAL conversion that works well. There are complicated methods involving encoding hybrid mpegs than altering pulldown flags. These methods work, but you will need to learn a lot more and be willing to jump through a few hoops to get it working.

It is mych simpler to encode it and play it back as NTSC.

As for FitCD,

1. ticking PAL only tells it to resize for PAL conversion. It has nothing at all to do with any other part of the encoding. FitCD creates scripts for correctly resizing the video frame. Period.

2. See first paragraphs for reasons not to convert to PAL.

3. the multi-pass number is the number of encoding passes that CCE will do. Each pass will take the same amount of time, so two passes is twice as long as one pass, three passes is three times as long as one pass etc. You also need to take into account that CCE does not include it's analysis pass in that count, so choosing three is effectively 4 passes. If your video is longer than around 70 miniutes, CBR will not provide enough quality. Multi-pass VBR will give you much better quality by better allocating the bitrate to the video. I find setting the number of passes in CCE to 2 (or better,

3) CCE only does mp2 output, and isn't very good at it. It will also crash and burn on VBR mp3 audio. I never encode audio with it.

4) gives the best output. More passes does nothing but eat time.

5) 192 kbps is about the lowest you can safely go with AC3 for two channels. 256 kbps is the sweet spot for two channels. Give you have a pretty crappy mp3 source, 224 is a good compromise between quality and space. Use 192 if you want, 224 is just a suggestion.

[nick_gr]

Great help guns! Thanks a mil!
One more thing I need to know about CinemaCraft.
Whats the difference between Elementary mode and System mode?
I know that with System mode, a single mpg with sound is created.

With Elementary mode, it creates the video file and the separate audio file...

Why do elementary mode? An mpg is fine... no multiplexing etc.. right?

[guns1inger]

Most good quality authoring tools prefer to recieve elementary streams and to do the muxing themselves. Some will accept a system stream, but demux and remux anyway, so you save nothing. If you don't use CCE to encode audio, then you only need the video stream as you will be authoring with an audio stream prepared elsewhere.

[nick_gr]

Weird things happen...
I tried to encode the 23.976fps movie by checkin 23.976 at CinemaCraft and the movie plays in stills. playin-freezin-playin freezin...

I checked 25 instead of 23.976 in CinemaCraft, and movie turned out well...

Does this make sense?

Why I use "2 blocks of border" in FitCD? are these borders on left'n'right be visible when played on tv?