Getting AC3 and mp2-Audio from XviD

[Thrasher0815]

Hi there!

I was checking lots of guides and tools lately to help me with my following problem:

I have a XviD movie with AC3 sound and I wanna create a DVD. Since I don't have Dolby Equipment neither on computers nor on my standalone player, i want to convert it to Stereo sound, but not without leaving the 5.1 track on for other ppl.

Additionally, since it's a foreign movie (Spanish/Català), I wanna create subtitles for the original language, German and English.

So, to sum everything up:
- Conversion Xvid -> m2v
- Extraction of AC3 from avi file
- Conversion (Downmix) AC3 -> mp2
- Subtitle creation

- DVD authoring with
- one m2v movie track
- two audio tracks (AC3 5.1, mp2 Stereo)
- three subtitle files (Spanish, German, English)
- DVD Menu with Audio and Subtitle selection

I found a guide showing how to extract an AC3-File from the avi using VirtualDub (save WAV) and BeSweet. Additionally, a guide on how to create multi-audio VOBs with IFOedit.

That's what I did:
OK: I saved the WAV, renamed it to AC3, converted it with BeSweet and got a nice sounding mp2 file.
Failed: When i try to convert AC3 -> AC3 with it (to use normalization) it finishes after 1 sec without creating a new file.

OK: I converted the AVI to m2v using TMPGEnc and got a working (but fast playing) mpeg video without sound.

OK: I created a new DVD track with IFOedit, containing the m2v-file and the two audio files, ac3 and mp2.

Failed: The finished VOBs have two audio tracks, but the AC3 is just static and the mp2 is silent
Failed: When I tried to create a new DVD in DVD-Lab Pro containing the two audio tracks, it warned me that the AC3 file is missing a proper header and that the mp2-file has a corrupt PCM-Header!

Any hints on how to get that done properly? Once I have working VOBs with sound, i can load them in Subtitle Creator, create srt-files and include them in IFOedit too, right?

thank you for your time and help (and for a great site in general btw)

Robert

[Abond]

I have a XviD movie with AC3 sound and I wanna create a DVD. Since I don't have Dolby Equipment neither on computers nor on my standalone player, i want to convert it to Stereo sound, but not without leaving the 5.1 track on for other ppl.

Your equipment would downmix 5.1 to 2.0 ac3 better than you can make it in software.

I found a guide showing how to extract an AC3-File from the avi using VirtualDub (save WAV) and BeSweet. Additionally, a guide on how to create multi-audio VOBs with IFOedit.

That's what I did:
OK: I saved the WAV, renamed it to AC3, converted it with BeSweet and got a nice sounding mp2 file.
Failed: When i try to convert AC3 -> AC3 with it (to use normalization) it finishes after 1 sec without creating a new file.

You make it wrong IMO.
I would install VDubMod. Load the orig file. Streams->Stream list. Now you see the audio track. Click Demux and save 5.1 ac3. If you realy insist to have additional 2.0 track, then right-click on the audio track, select Full Processing and click Save WAV. If VDubMod report that it can not find proper decoder for ac3, download and install ac3 ACM Decompressor. This would give you real wav file (big file size). Then I would load it in QuEnc and output a 2.0 ac3 at 128 kbps. In advanced settings select No Video.

OK: I converted the AVI to m2v using TMPGEnc and got a working (but fast playing) mpeg video without sound.

Can you explain "fast playing"? Everything is moving faster? Check the frames per second (fps) of the original and the converted file using GSpot.
Have you used a template in TMPG? If yes, which one and why ?

Failed: The finished VOBs have two audio tracks, but the AC3 is just static and the mp2 is silent
Failed: When I tried to create a new DVD in DVD-Lab Pro containing the two audio tracks, it warned me that the AC3 file is missing a proper header and that the mp2-file has a corrupt PCM-Header!

Reading again how you did the ac3 with VDub it seems you have an ac3 file with wav header - so it is right the ac3 is missing the proper header. About mp2 I have no idea.
I would suggest to multiplex the m2v and ac3 files to a mpg with ImagoMPEGMuxer and use this mpg for subtitle creation and synchronisation with Subtitle workshop. Then you can convert the subtitles to .sup format with subtitle creator.
Once you have m2v, ac3 and three sup files create the DVD with muxman. If some of the streams do not fit DVD compliance, muxman would reject them.

[Thrasher0815]

thank you a LOT for your help.
The method with renaming wav to ac3 didn't sound right to me either, but i wanted to follow the guide, so...

Now i saved the AC3 with VDubMod and converted it to mp2 using BeSweet, since i can mix down LFE to LR with - 4db and so on... Probably my DVD player can do better, but the speakers on the tv can't

The video is in the process of transcoding with TMPGEnc now (i just created new PAL DVD, keep aspect... and we'll see if the audio works when it's done.

i was playing the m2v file from last try with mediaplayer and it was playing as it was in fast forward. It was working OK when i created the vob though.

keeping my fingers crossed
Robert