Sound for MPG is Gone

[pastorsam]

OK.

I've done a bit of research. Here are the steps taken to make a clip of a scene from a DVD to use in one of my sermons via powerpoint and easy worship.

I chose a movie from my wife's chick flicks (the most painful step). The first one I saw was Tiptoe.

Put Tiptoe in and used DVD Shrink. Super fast and easy after a couple of minutes to learn how to just get a scene. Very cool program.

I then used vob2mpg to convert the output to a usable format for my presentation software. Again, very nice and friendly program. Stupid easy!!

It worked well on the machine i produced it on (HP Pavilion Media Center m8000n TV PC - 500 gig HD, 2 gig mem, Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 5200+). But, when I transfered the mpg to my laptop via a flashdrive, the audio didn't play.

SO...I know what you're thinking. CODEC. I downloaded GSpot and ran it on the file on my laptop. It said it was an mpg2 and that the codec was already installed.

NOW WHAT??? Please help. I gots to preach tomorrow!

[aedipuss]

when you were cutting out a clip did you select which audio stream to keep? try again and select only 1 audio stream, preferably ac3 2 or 6 channel. what you might have gotten was dts which doesn't play on everything.

[pastorsam]

I went back into dvd shrink and selected the following, but neither worked.

The options were:
Edit, Preferences, Stream Selection
Once there, I saw Audio Language and Coding Type
It was set on AC3 or LPCM

I changed that to All Types - No Luck...same problem
I changed that to AC3 - No Luck...same problem

Any other suggestions??

[aedipuss]

not the settings in preferences, but after you make your clip selection go over into the right pane, click the tab that says compression settings and uncheck all but one audio stream.

[pastorsam]

OH...

Well, there's only option there. It is AC3 5.1-ch English. And, it's selected.

Now a new problem. It went ahead and took the 3 different clips to the church computer and the audio played, but the video was stuttery/choppy and the audio was not synched with the video.

Now what? Is a compression problem?

The system we have at the church is not as beefy as the one I produced it on, but it is win xp, has a fast processor and 2 gig of memory. That's all I know. It does have something called "elecard" (??) for a codec I guess.

[aedipuss]

try playing it in different software video players. get vlc and mpc to start with. one of them may work ok.

[pastorsam]

If I use one of those as my default player, will the powerpoint play the video? Just curious if you know?

I believe PPT uses WMP to play vids.

[aedipuss]

you don't have to set it as default. open one of the players and load the file into it.

[45tripp]

What you're missing is a directshow ac3 decoder.
ac3filter or just ffdshow so you're covered in other scenarios as well (need to set it up, tell it what to decode and not).

You should probably (really) convert the audio anyway.
What do you want 5.1 ac3 for anyway?

Should probably convert the video too.
mpeg1 is nicely universal.

Yes powerpoint uses wmp.
But I believe you can use a vlc plugin in powerpoint.
search for powerpoint, vlc, activex

gl

[pastorsam]

ok 45tripp.

What specifically do I do with the ffdshow software? I don't even know how to answer the questions it asks in the installation.

If I use it on the computer I am producing a clip on, will the clip then work on other computers? OR, do I have to load the software on that computer? Or both computers?

Once the software is on my computer, then what? Does it do things to the audio and video automatically? Is it acting like a "plug-in?" Do I have to associate it with certain software?

Last night I actually got somewhere with the "Everybody Loves Raymond" Clip I wanted. Here's what I did.

1. I used dvdshrink to shrink the dvd. I tried the whole movie and the re-authoring tool. Both worked fine.

2. I used vob2mpg to convert the files to mpg.

3. I loaded the mpg into Windows Movie Maker (but it wouldn't import).

4. I downloaded Media Player Classic after reading some posts. It did something (codecs??), because Windows Movie Maker accepted the new mpg I made (steps 1 and 2 were repeated).

5. I used WMM to produce a very nice WMV of the clip.

It all worked great except the WMM produced a clip shorter than what I had edited. (I.E. - If I selected 2 min clip, it produced about a 1:48 clip). So I just kept guesstimating upwards until I got a clip the length I wanted...ending at the right part of the scene. This took way too much time, btw.

So again, please help. The clip did work in worship this morning. High quality, good sound, no skips, etc. But, there has to be a better way. I'm open to call you or anyone else willing to help...email...whatever.

Thanks.

[45tripp]

You'd need ffdshow on both computers.
When installing just check that "mpeg2" is checked in video decoding,
and "AC3" is checked in audio decoding.
That's all.
Try it.

i'd be interested in trying vlc in powerpoint, but right now I can't so we'll leave that.

Your method sounds fine.
What you want to do is cut the file with something else probably.
Why not just select the clip in shrink with re-author? Find the button with the arrows to set
start and end frames.
Then you can encode the whole segment without worrying, and with any tool you like.
Another encoding choice would be Super to go to mpeg1. You could load the vob directly.

gl