ac3 to wav conversion

[69moons]

I am trying to convert a divx avi file to mpg1 so that I can make a vcd with it.

I am having problems with the audio. I can play the movie fine and Windows Media Player reports that it is using the "Morgan Stream Switcher" to decode the audio. Yet when I go to extract the audio with VirtualDub, I get an error saying that "The requested audio compression is not compatible with the input format......" Checking the guides and such here I deduced that maybe the audio was encoded with the AC3 codec so I tried the following suggestions from this website.

I changed the environmental settings on TMPGEnc and upped the priority level of Directshow to 1 and 2. This worked partially. After encoding, the sound was in sync with the video but it was full of static. Well, that just won't do.

Then I tried to use GraphEdit to extract a wave file from the source video. But when I tried to add the Directshow filter, nothing happened. I pushed "Graph" from the main window and clicked "Add a filter" from the drop down menu, but nothing happens. I am not presented with any filter choices nor has any additional boxes been added to the flow chart. Where are the filters? Is it because I don't have a DVD player installed?

So then I tried using Besweet with the GUI. I followed the instructions posted on the guides at doom9 but when it goes to transcode the ms-dos window just keeps reporting a bitstream problem and keeps trying to resync. Eventually, windows reports an error and closes down the Besweet program. The same result occurs whether I use Besweet, azid 1 or 2, whether I try to convert to wave or to mp2.

First of all, could someone tell me if I my assumption about this movie using the AC3 audio codec is correct? And if so, what am I doing wrong?

[jledhead]

when you extract with virtual dub, have you tried direct stream copy and also full processing mode with no compression (PCM)????

[69moons]

I extracted the ac3 file by using the direct stream mode, not the full processing mode as the guides here instruct. The compression option is not available when extracting in the direct stream mode. Should I have used full processing mode instead?

I have, since posting my problem been able to encode the movie in question by using headache to convert the extracted ac3 file to wav, however I would still like to know why neither Besweet nor Graph worked for me.

Also, I had a problem with the headache conversion as well. When checking the option in headache to convert the file to 44100 khz at the same time as transcoding the ac3 file to wav, SSRC crashed. I am wondering if maybe this was the reason Besweet and azid did not work for me because I also tried to downcode the sampling rate to 44100 when trying to convert with those programs as well.

So, in order to get it all to work, I converted to wav with no change in the sampling rate and then forced TMPGEnc to encode with a 44100khz rate for the audio. This seemed to work.