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  1. When I rip a DVD to MP4, when I play the file in Windows Media Player (Windows 8) I do not get any sound. If I change the file extension to .M4V, then i magically get sound. But, if i move that .M4V file to a Mac or another Windows PC, then i do not have sound.

    I am ripping DVDs with DVDFab. I have tried many many preselect settings using "devices" (Apple TV, iPod...) and formats (.MP4) and different combinations of settings in DVDFab.

    Note that if i Rip with DVDShrink and use Super to create a .MP4, then the sound works fine on all three computers.

    If i create my own home movies with Pinnacle Studio, then is also works.

    There is something I have wrong with DVDFab, but it is odd because i started out with the defaults and then have played with every setting that i thought might cause a problem. I also tried turning on/off things like the hardware acceleration (or what ever it was called in DVDFab.)

    In each case where I try different settings, most of the time, the .MP4 will have sound on the original PC as long as I change the extension to .M4V, but then will not work on the other two computers. Some of the DVDFab predefined devices automatically create .M4V and those, again, only have sound on the original PC, but not the Mac or Laptop.

    I tried was to output MP3 sound in the MP4 instead of AAC. In that case, the .MP4 did have sound on the original PC, but when i tried on the Mac, still no sound. (I didn't try this one case on the Windows laptop.

    Could it be that I need some Codec installed before ripping? (Although i think the Codec is just for playback...)

    I am wondering why the sound works (only on the original PC) when the file extension changes from .MP4 to .M4V? Could that be a clue as to what DVDFab is doing when it creates the file and is causing the other two computers to not play the sound? Could it be something to do with the Stereo vs Dolby? (I have it on the default Settings and tried other Sound output choices with no luck.)
    Last edited by hackerjunk; 5th Jun 2014 at 13:30.
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  2. Banned
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    Some of your problems may depend on your playback programs. For example, on the Mac, you'd be much better off to install the free VLC and use it than to use anything else that comes with your Mac. Windows Media Player is actually a pretty terrible program and I've wondered if Microsoft actually tried if they could make it worse than it already is. VLC and other free programs are far superior playback options under Windows too.

    Having an MP4 with MP3 audio is highly unusual. While this is technically OK, the reality may be that unless the audio is AC3 or AAC that anything that comes with the Mac will not play it correctly. Apple sort of wrote the spec on MP4 and they have made changes to it over time that are not always fully supported. In fact, a lot of people erroneously still believe that AC3 audio is not allowed with MP4, but that actually got changed quite some time ago to be allowed, yet some playback devices/software programs still don't support it.

    What you did to make it "work" makes no sense to me that it actually solved your problem so I would blame WMP for being a POS and say, again, that if you use better playback programs on all your computers, it will actually solve your problem in a better way that won't require renaming.
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  3. Thanks for the quick response.

    Yes, it occurred to me to just change the Player application, but it is strange that when I create MP4's with DVDShrink/Super, they work fine on other computer players, but not with DVDFab. Plus, if I go to my Dad's house, for example, I would have to start telling him that he needs to install a new app. He is very against change. The MP4 should be able to work since "other" MP4's work... I blame the ripper for doing something wrong/non-standard.

    I would use DVDShrink/Super, but DVDFab works more often, so I would prefer to use it...or I might have to try a new application to rip if I can't figure out the problem.

    Thanks again for the advice, but I will hold out hope that somebody knows the solution to fixing DVDFab to produce a MP4 that works "everywhere"...or I will have to try a different ripper/converter since I know it can be done.
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