Question using virtual dub

[shashgo]

I read and reread the manual on virualdub but i didnt find any idea there on my question, hopefully somone here knows

i have an avi file on my computer. If I play i in my windows media player 10, it plays fine, both audio and video. I tried to convert it to mpeg-1 format using Virtualdub. The file loaded, it automatically loaded the same file for both video and audio conversion. On the radio buttons on the right bottom of the virtual dub screen, the bottom most button (audio and video) was selected. I pressed start. After the whole file was encoded, i tried playing it in windows media player 10, video was okay, but audio was absent. How come?

[mats.hogberg]

Que? Virtualdub only encodes to AVI. If you're talking about TMPGEnc, there's many cases when a video plays fine, but TMPGEnc can't handle the audio type as input.
A wild guess: It's AC3 audio in the AVI. Get AC3 ACM codec to allow TMPGEnc to read the file properly.
Alternatively, load the AVI in Goldwave, save audio as wav.
Load AVI in TMPGEnc, use the wav as audio source.

/Mats

[shashgo]

errrr. sorry i meant using tmpgenc. I use tmpgenc to encode several different avi files i have and then burn them to vcd using vcdeasy. all of the vcds ive burnt except this one play fine.

mats:
if youre saying im missing an audio codec, then how come i can play the original avi file in my player properly but not the encoded one?

I downloaded the ac3acm codec but how do i install it. There is no ac3acm.inf file, there is a ac3acm setup file and an ac3asm.acm file, but there is no install option when i right click on either of them

Also, how does gspot tell you what codecs are needed? i didnt understand the tutorial for gspt. It says something under video codec and something under audio codec but what does that tell you? I loaded the file that had the audio problems into gspot, and gspot said codecs installed under both video and audio but i couldnt hear the file when i played it.

[redwudz]

If you have a problem installing AC3 ACM Decompressor, it may be with the way it was downloaded. You can try using: 'Save target as' instead. Then unzip it and right click on the AC3ACM.inf and you should see 'install'. If not, you have a download problem.

Gspot tells you the codecs that your system is trying to use to open that type of file. Sometimes the codec is corrupted and Gspot may say you have the right codecs, but you still can't open the file. If you have this, uninstall the codec and re-install.

One good method for codec testing is to use VLC media player. It has it's own codecs, so if it will play the file and your system codecs won't, then your system codecs are likely corrupted. Codec packs can cause this, another good reason to avoid them like a plague.

[mats.hogberg]

how come i can play the original avi file in my player properly but not the encoded one?

You can play both. The problem is that TMPGEnc failed to read the audio in the AVI and encoded complete silence.

/Mats

[shashgo]

mats ]

so if i saying that tmpgenc failed to read the audio in the file while encoding, then how do i ensure that tmpgenc is able to read the audio?

And if youre saying its because of a missing codec, then how do you know which codec is missing, how did you know that i might need the ac3 codec?

[mats.hogberg]

how do i ensure that tmpgenc is able to read the audio?

Using GSpot to see what audio you have in the AVI, and using your experience. Lacking experience, encode just a short clip (a minute or so) and take a look/hear if all's well.

then how do you know which codec is missing, how did you know that i might need the ac3 codec?

Making an educated guess, based on experience. Again, use GSpot to determine what kind of audio we're dealing with.

/Mats