Weird AC-3 file decodes to WAV as silence but plays OK on computer

[DRP]

Please help me with a very strange AC-3 file I have that doesn't play on my PVR, but plays fine everywhere else. I can't figure out what's wrong with it and I can't convert it to anything else either. The file is part of a muxxed MPEG-4 video file. It plays perfectly fine in Media Player Classic on a computer. It also plays on one of my PVR machines, but crucially does not play on another, nor directly when plugged into the back of the TV. It also does not decode when burnt to DVD and played through a MPEG-4 compliant DVD player. The video part plays fine, but there is no sound or else the sound is complete silence when decoded.

I've demuxxed the AC-3 file and opened it in DVD-lab which reports nothing wrong with it. I've demuxxed and remuxxed the files in VirtualDub several times and it makes no difference. I've tried extracting the decoded audio using GoldWave and it comes out as complete silence (two flat lines). I've tried everything I know of to figure out what's wrong with it and now need expert help to go any further.

To be clear, the file plays perfectly normally just like any other on a computer through a software player. It's just that the audio does not play at all (or it is completely silent - I can't tell the difference) when played through a hardware player such as TV, PVR or DVD player all with nominal MPEG-4 capability and support. I've never come across this problem before and don't know how to analyse or transcode this AC-3 audio file into something else that will play normally. All transcoding options I have require the AC-3 to be decoded out to LPCM or WAV first, but doing that yields nothing but complete silence.

Please help. Any advice is gratefully received.

[pandy]

try ffmpeg:

@ffmpeg -i %1 -vn -c:a pcm_s32le -y %1_32.wav

[El Heggunte]

What does MediaInfo say about that AC3 file?

[DRP]

What does MediaInfo say about that AC3 file?

Nothing that looks out of the ordinary to me.

General
Complete name                            : D:\Tools\95.ac3
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
File size                                : 342 MiB
Duration                                 : 2h 4mn
Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant
Overall bit rate                         : 384 Kbps

Audio
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension                           : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Duration                                 : 2h 4mn
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 384 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 342 MiB (100%)

[DRP]

try ffmpeg:

@ffmpeg -i %1 -vn -c:a pcm_s32le -y %1_32.wav

Doing this produced a helluva lot of this:

, 3072 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (ac3 -> pcm_s32le)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
    Last message repeated 11 times
[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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[ac3 @ 02c5b160] Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
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size=   18948kB time=00:00:50.52 bitrate=3072.0kbits/s
video:0kB audio:18948kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing
 overhead: 0.000526%
Received signal 2: terminating.

c:\Program Files\FFMPEG Addon>

I terminated it because it was going on like this forever. Is this normal?

[poisondeathray]

Not normal.

Run it through delaycut , check for errors

If you can "hear" it in a media player then you can re-encode the audio for certain. It's just a matter of finding a proper method

[pandy]

Try http://www.ac3filter.net/wiki/AC3Filter_tools#valdec - curious what will be reported.

[hello_hello]

All transcoding options I have require the AC-3 to be decoded out to LPCM or WAV first, but doing that yields nothing but complete silence.

Please help. Any advice is gratefully received.

Obviously there's something "odd" with the audio but it can be decoded, so hopefully it's just a matter of finding a method of converting it where it's decoded correctly. Or one where it can at least be decoded to a wave file properly for you to re-encode. I'd just try a few different GUI's dedicated to re-encoding audio (or video and audio). TAudioConverter, or MeGUI.... off the top of my head, but there's probably a fair list of audio converters in the software section.

[rickydavao]

Reminds me of some mkv files I had once ... when I re-encoded the audio, it would always cut to silence exactly halfway through the resulting audio file. The only program I found that would re-encode the full audio was Avidemux ... set video to copy, and then adjusted audio parameters to what was needed, then saved the file as MKV and extracted the audio afterwards. Not ideal, but at least it worked.

[DRP]

Not normal.

Run it through delaycut , check for errors

If you can "hear" it in a media player then you can re-encode the audio for certain. It's just a matter of finding a proper method

The original and the "fixed" files are identical bit for bit. delaycut appears to have done nothing and found no errors.

[DRP]

Try http://www.ac3filter.net/wiki/AC3Filter_tools#valdec - curious what will be reported.

This program seems to be able to decode the AC-3 file (as in play it, just like PowerDVD, MPC & PotPlayer all can too), but when I tried to use it to decode the file to WAV by using the -w switch, it just instantly crashes with no explanation or warning.

[poisondeathray]

Did you try vdub file=>save wav ?

How about eac3to ?

Does it play in VLC ? If you can "hear" audio, you can convert with VLC too

You said it works in MPC, but was that in a container or native AC3 ? What splitter and decoder are being used in MPC ? You should be able to create a directshow graph using the same filters as MPC

[DRP]

Did you try vdub file=>save wav ?

Just tried it and I don't really know what it's done. It's output a file with a WAV extension of exactly the same size as the AC3 file (342MB) which when opened in GoldWave, is attempted to decompress and then the output is shown as a completey black wavform screen with nothing in it at all. Safe to say I think it hasn't worked. Playing the WAV file that came out reveals it to still be the same AC3 file and it plays just the same in MPC as the AC3 file. VDub appears to have done nothing other than change the extension.

How about eac3to ?

This is what happens when I try to use eac3to to extract it to a WAV file...

libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
libav Warning: new rematrixing strategy not present in block 0
^C

ad infinitum

Does it play in VLC ? If you can "hear" audio, you can convert with VLC too

You said it works in MPC, but was that in a container or native AC3 ?

Both. It plays fine as a muxxed AVI or as a native AC3 file stripped out of the AVI.

What splitter and decoder are being used in MPC ? You should be able to create a directshow graph using the same filters as MPC

CLSID: {3D446B6F-71DE-4437-BE15-8CE47174340F}
Filter: AC3 Audio Decoder

- Connected to:

CLSID: {D51BD5A1-7548-11CF-A520-0080C77EF58A}
Filter: Wave Parser
Pin: output

- Connection media type:

Audio: Dolby AC3 48000Hz stereo 384Kbps

AM_MEDIA_TYPE: 
majortype: MEDIATYPE_Audio {73647561-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
subtype: Unknown GUID Name {00002000-0000-0010-8000-00AA00389B71}
formattype: FORMAT_WaveFormatEx {05589F81-C356-11CE-BF01-00AA0055595A}
bFixedSizeSamples: 1
bTemporalCompression: 0
lSampleSize: 1
cbFormat: 18

WAVEFORMATEX:
wFormatTag: 0x2000
nChannels: 2
nSamplesPerSec: 48000
nAvgBytesPerSec: 48000
nBlockAlign: 1
wBitsPerSample: 0
cbSize: 0 (extra bytes)

pbFormat:
0000: 00 20 02 00 80 bb 00 00 80 bb 00 00 01 00 00 00 . ..€»..€»......
0010: 00 00                                           ..

I'm uploading the AC3 file to DropBox to share so hopefully someone can have a play and figure out what's wrong with it for me.
File for testing purposes

[sneaker]

Did you try vdub file=>save wav ?

Just tried it and I don't really know what it's done. It's output a file with a WAV extension of exactly the same size as the AC3 file (342MB) which when opened in GoldWave, is attempted to decompress and then the output is shown as a completey black wavform screen with nothing in it at all. Safe to say I think it hasn't worked. Playing the WAV file that came out reveals it to still be the same AC3 file and it plays just the same in MPC as the AC3 file. VDub appears to have done nothing other than change the extension.

Set "Audio"->"Full processing mode" before you save to wave.

[DarrellS]

I ran into a file like this about a month ago. Not sure what it was. Maybe a trailer. I finally gave up and deleted the file since it wasn't very important. Good Luck !

[sneaker]

I'm uploading the AC3 file to DropBox to share so hopefully someone can have a play and figure out what's wrong with it for me.
File for testing purposes

Converting via ffmpeg or eac3to seems to work fine here, only problem is all the warnings slowing the process down considerably. If you disable warnings it's much faster:
ffmpeg -loglevel error -i 95.ac3 output.wav

[dphirschler]

Last time I got silence when I thought EVERYTHING I did I was 100% sure was correct (which was driving me crazy), it turned out to be hardware level DRM. In other words, my spdif audio would play through my PC, but would not play if I was capturing or recording. I wound up installing a third party sound driver which ignored the DRM (content protection). The other option was to connect my pro DAT recorder inline which strips the DRM. This may not be your issue, but it is worth considering.

Darryl

[jagabo]

VirtualDub in Audio -> Full Processing mode exported a WAV file with uncompressed PCM that played normally. Audacity with the ffmpeg source plugin had no problems with the AC3 file. VLC was able to convert it to uncompressed WAV.

[DRP]

Did you try vdub file=>save wav ?

Just tried it and I don't really know what it's done. It's output a file with a WAV extension of exactly the same size as the AC3 file (342MB) which when opened in GoldWave, is attempted to decompress and then the output is shown as a completey black wavform screen with nothing in it at all. Safe to say I think it hasn't worked. Playing the WAV file that came out reveals it to still be the same AC3 file and it plays just the same in MPC as the AC3 file. VDub appears to have done nothing other than change the extension.

Set "Audio"->"Full processing mode" before you save to wave.

12

[DRP]

VirtualDub in Audio -> Full Processing mode exported a WAV file with uncompressed PCM that played normally. Audacity with the ffmpeg source plugin had no problems with the AC3 file. VLC was able to convert it to uncompressed WAV.

VLC here just did exactly the same as VDub. Produced a non-real WAV file of the exact same size as the original AC3 file.

[jagabo]

VLC here just did exactly the same as VDub. Produced a non-real WAV file of the exact same size as the original AC3 file.

It produced a 1.4 GB uncompressed PCM file for me.

[DRP]

I'm uploading the AC3 file to DropBox to share so hopefully someone can have a play and figure out what's wrong with it for me.
File for testing purposes

Converting via ffmpeg or eac3to seems to work fine here, only problem is all the warnings slowing the process down considerably. If you disable warnings it's much faster:
ffmpeg -loglevel error -i 95.ac3 output.wav

Ding ding ding!! We have a winner! You sir, are a dead-set legend.