Please Help with converting AC3 in an AVI to an AVI with MPEG-1/MPEG-2

[twin1701]

OK I have a new freeview (DVB-T) box, that has a USB slot for watching movies. This is great for me, as I can just pop my movies, tv shows wtc on a usb stick, or even a external hard drive and watch on the tv.

One HUGE issue though, is the player (Sumvision Solaris) does not play AC3 audio, so any AVI encoded with this has no sound. I read somewhere that I need to convert the sound in the file, using winAVI, now I have that program, 1st conversion, just created an identical file (AC3 again), next conversion (where I de-checked AC3) created an AVI with no sound. Please tell me there is an easy way to re encode an avi file to a different sound format and a little advice on what im doing on that program, as 35mins to convert to find its not worked is such a pain

My lack of understanding is at the mercy to your expertise, pleas help

[guns1inger]

WinAVI - the answer to a question that starts with "Name the top 5 worst conversion tools you can use"

Open your AVI in AVI Demux (free). Keep the video portion set to Copy, and change the Audio to MP3. Click Configure and make sure it is et to 128 kbps and CBR. Click OK.

Click on File -> Save ->Save video. Enter your filename, with .avi on the end. Create you new file. No re-encoding of the video will take place, only the audio will be changed. Should only take a few minutes.

Test play and see if it works.

[twin1701]

Hi thanks for this, seems to be exactly what I'm after. I ran a copy, as per your instructions on a 346mb file and it went perfectly, it plays fine and the codec has changed.

However, when I tried a file 1.36GB (and I tried two different films), I came up with this problem....

First it asked me "Do you want to unpack bitstream?" I just clicked yes (but second attempt I clicked no) on both attempts it led me to the following error message

"ERROR

The number of channels is greater than what the selected audio codec can do. Either change codecor use mixer filter to have less channels"

I click OK, then...

"INFO

Error Initializing audio filters"

So no joy, I'll be honest I'm not that technical, so I don't understand what its saying passed it won'r work and I also don't understand the unpack bitstream bit either.

The programs seem perfect, just would like to get this working for all my files...

Thanks again, in advance!

[AlanHK]

Hi thanks for this, seems to be exactly what I'm after. I ran a copy, as per your instructions on a 346mb file and it went perfectly, it plays fine and the codec has changed.

However, when I tried a file 1.36GB (and I tried two different films), I came up with this problem....

First it asked me "Do you want to unpack bitstream?" I just clicked yes

Let it do that.

(but second attempt I clicked no) on both attempts it led me to the following error message

"ERROR

The number of channels is greater than what the selected audio codec can do. Either change codecor use mixer filter to have less channels"

So did you use the mixer filter as it told you?

MP3 can only be stereo, 2 channels. AC3 could be 5 or 6 channels, so you have to downmix.

Click the Audio "Filters" button then you see "Mixer". Default is "No change". Select "Stereo", then "OK".

[twin1701]

Thanks for this, I didn't want to mess about with the filters as I didn't know what i was doing to be honest

Working now perfectly for all my AC3 encoded files. Problem solved and thanks to both of you for the support