Damn it! Problems with audio

[Bullworth]

OK, I was ripping this anime DVD Key, the Metal Idol and everyting seemed to go OK until I started reviewing the file and it was missing the first 30 mins audio and video. I used SmartRipper the first few times and nothing worked. I then used DVD Decrypter which ripped the DVD no problem but now the audio file won't work. I used DVD2AVI and the resulting WAV gave me the error message Not a valid waveform-audio file in Winamp and Buffer not large enough in Media Player. I also tried using Graphedit to decode the audio and I get the same problem. This is the first time this has happened. Has anyone had a similar experience or can anyone give me any ideas on what else to try with any of the programs as far as settings go?

[Bullworth]

OK, this is strange. I tried opening the file in QuickTime and it played no problem at all. Any other media encoder just won't accept it. This is not a file association problem because all WAVs are associated to Winamp.

[stanwebber]

try opening the .wav in avisynth i.e. WAVSource("yourfile.wav"). the avisource & audiodub statements may or may not be required. what video/audio encoders are you using?

[Bullworth]

Sorry Stan but you'll have to clarify that for me. I haven't even encoded the audio/video at all. With all the gory details here is what happens.
I rip the DVD with SmartRipper using the settings recommended in Sefy's guide. Everything comes out with no problems reported. When I load the vob's in DVD2AVI it skips the first vob and start at the second one. In this case the audio is fine but obviously missing the audio/video from the first vob. I then used DVD Decrypter also using Sefy's guide and everything is ripped OK. In this case all vob's load OK but I then get the corrupted WAV file. I have no idea what could be going on. I just ripped another DVD yerterday with the same settings and everything went without a hitch. What I ended up doing with the problem DVD was using vStrip to rip the audio from the VOBs separately into WAVs and then merging them. While the audio is acceptable the volume is rather low and I have to merge the WAVs with another utility and there is a click or static where the files merge. Is there any utility that would allow me to rip just the audio portion into one WAV file?

[Sefy]

When you used DVD2AVI, did you make sure you are decoding the correct Audio Track ? cuse it does not support for example DTS and doesn't create a WAV file for it.

You can also use Smart Ripper to create the WAV file, and if the volume is too low you can amplify it using TMPGEnc while encoding, or using a program like Cool Edit.