Is 5.1 surround sound possible with SVCD

[adam]

Its just a bin and cue image. If you use Nero then click file/burn image. Tell it to show all files then load the cue. Hit ok if any screens pop up and then just burn it.

If you have any problems with Nero use CDRwin, Fireburner, or if you need a free alternative use CDRAO. In all of them just load the cue and hit start.

[[L]egion]

Well this will be my first post about this topic. I've read many of the other threads concerning 5.1 and SVCDs. Adam you seem to have posted in all of them. First off I downloaded your image file Adam and burned to test on my own home theatre system. I am having a problem though. The audio stops midway saying "surround left" and the cd stops playing. It's as if it is incomplete. The FLeft, Center, and FRight work. However the little bit of the surround left that is said seem to come fromt the FLeft speaker.
Now on a slightyly different note I found a webpage that is a guide for encoding multichannel-mpg in linux. I thought many ppl would like to see it. Now I'm not sure where to get the programs for doing this as I have not yet tried it, but here is the url:
http://lea.hamradio.si/~s51kq/V-SVCD-AU.HTM
A link at the bottom of the page will lead you to another guide. This one contains a multichannel-mpg file for testing. This second guide may be better. Im not sure as I havent had the chance to read them both over yet.

I think this was mentioned in another thread or maybe it was this one; but it was about disguising a multichannel format in the svcd header so DVD Players will play it thinking it is MPG-II. I'm not sure if this is at all possible. Another option that I have thought of is essentially a dvd on a cd. Have the same layout as a DVD but on a CD using SVCD. Perhpas using the resolution of a DVD format video though. Again I'm not sure if a DVD Player will read this at all (it could just depend on the brand of DVD Player). That wraps that up. =)

[BJ_M]

..........BTW: It seems to very important to use a high quality coaxial cable with the proper impedance of 75 Ohms like RG69. While it is always a good idea to use good cables I found on various other occassions that not all digital connections are created equal. Poor or cheap cables (especially optical ones) will seriously degrade the reliability and fidelity of the audio. When I use a 50 Ohm RG58 cable I get VERY BRIEF audio dropouts onee a minute. The disc itself is burnt at 4x on a 8x TEAC SCSI writer for safety.

One practical piece of advice for working with DVD2SVCD. Since I find it neccessary to use the highest audio data rate of 384 kbps available for encoding ...............

Kick ass!

Digital audio cable is accually 110ohms if its AES/EBU and 75 ohms if its SP/DIF

rg58 - though not great is avaiable in both 50ohm and 75 ohm versions but 50 is more common as it is used for networking (but your right - dont use it).

rg59 double braded low cap cable can be very good with proper connectors

rg6 is better yet ...

but for super quality use Belden 8281 variations or Canare cable for all your video or Audio cannetions with canare true 75 or 110 ohm terminations ...

Dolby digital AC3 files can be encoded to a max bitrate of 640

BTW -

I multiplexed ac3 files with a sample mpeg2 video SVCD file with manzinita transport multiplexer and then converted the transport stream to a program stream and this plays fine as a svcd with 5:1 --

[ralfbeckers]

Dolby digital AC3 files can be encoded to a max bitrate of 640

That is correct. However, I have yet to find a DVD that uses more than 384 kHz. That's why I wrote 884. I'm not sure about Sony's Superbit DVDs or D-Theater which may use higher bit rates.

Please tell us more about AC-3 on SVCD. Where can I get that program page. I can preserve the AC-3 audio without transcoding, this would be heaven.

Ralf

[ViperXT]

Many dd 5.1 discs use a bitrate of 448 kb/s. 384 is the lower bitrate used for 5.1

[TheRyno]

Hey there forum,

I first heard about VCDs about 3 years ago when I moved on a college campus. Then my CD burner choked and my computer started to suck. Last thing I remember getting was The Beach (awful, by the way). In the years past I've seen via my friends the advent of SVCDs which are pretty fricken cool. Now I have a sweet setup with HDTv and surround sound and the decision of whether or not to get a dvd writer with my upcoming new computer lies in the question of whether or not I can do one of two things
a) Copy a DVD or a blank DVD verbatim (picture/surround sound intact). Sounds fairly easy with some kind of decryption program, but nobody's ever heard of doing that.
b) Incorporate, somehow, surround sound into a SVCD.

B) Seems to have been proven extremely difficult if not impossible to do by this thread. I know a fair bit about the audio/video aspect of it all...but when it comes to incorporating that into my computer I'm a dummy. I have no idea what AC3 is or how MP2 falls into place with this. What I've gotten out of it so far: you need to capture dolby digital into an mpeg 2 file, then incorporate that into an SVCD, then get a receiver and dvd player that will recognize them...which seem to be hard to find? Can someone go over a step by step way to do it maybe?

The other thing I thought of was--if you CAN, in fact get multichannel sound put into a WAV file, then that would lead me to believe you could get each chapter's audio from a dvd into seperate tracks on simply an audio CD (much like DVD-Audio/SACD)...THEN simply obtain a dvdrip or SVCD of the movie in question. Put the audio CD in one DVD player, send that to the receiver, put the SVCD in another DVD player, send that to the TV and hit play at the same time Is that wack?

Thanks for any help you can provide me with.

I just spent all my money on a HDTV and surround sound and I'll be consarned if I cannot download movies that let me take advantage of them

[ralfbeckers]

B) Seems to have been proven extremely difficult if not impossible to do by this thread. I know a fair bit about the audio/video aspect of it all...but when it comes to incorporating that into my computer I'm a dummy. I have no idea what AC3 is or how MP2 falls into place with this. What I've gotten out of it so far: you need to capture dolby digital into an mpeg 2 file, then incorporate that into an SVCD, then get a receiver and dvd player that will recognize them...which seem to be hard to find? Can someone go over a step by step way to do it maybe?

Hi Ryno,

It is not hard to do at all. (And frankly I don't know why not more people try it for themnselves.) On this webpage there useful software link page named Tools. Go there. Find the link to the DVD2SVCD package. Download the package and all necessary DLLs for your computer. It is pretty well written over there so you should have no trouble installing the package. Additionally, get the free demo version of the Cinema Craft Encoder CCE. Then treat yourself with one of the guides from the DVD2SVCD webpage. I never read the English language ones but the German ones are quite good.

Caution: The CCE demo version will put its logo permanetly in the movie. If you have a CRT based HDTV you will run the risk of burn-in on the tubes after years of excessive SVCD viewing. And since you now enjoy a TV set that can properly scale anamorphic video to 16:9 you are going to make anamorphic SVCDs, too, which will always keep the logo visible.

What the DVD2SVCD package does is harness the power of a whole bunch of third party programs into one user interface. There are like 10 different tabs on which you set values for the dubbing process. On the audio tab you select 5.1 because by default this is off. Make sure you have a directory with around 15 megs of discspace, better yet, a dedicated harddisk. Once you hit rip and convert and took a good night sleep you will find a whole bunch of files in that directory. The youngest ones will be one or two CUE files which you are supposed to open with your CD writing program and write to a CD. I never used that way but rather burned the MPG files with Nero 5.5's SCVD template. I believe this yields the same end product .

Once everything is ready, you have to find yourself a DVD player that EIHTER has the capability to output the complete MPEG II multi channel stream in raw digital to an appropriate receiver OR you find a DVD player with an integrated MPEG II multi channel decoder to output the 5.1 audio via 6 RCA cables. I have seen a cheap DVD player with the MPEG multi channel logo and multi channel outputs yesterday at Walmart for around 125 Dollars. As you know there are no means to test hardware at Walmart so I'm not digging into this player any further.

A word of advice. As Adam said in here earlier the trade off is between significantly reduced digital video bandwidth (as 5.1 needs the highes audio bit rate possible) and a limited hardware base that can play such discs. Before you back up all your DVDs to 5.1 SVCDs make sure that your home theatre can handle MPEG multi channel.

Good luck,
Ralf

BJM wrote

I multiplexed ac3 files with a sample mpeg2 video SVCD file with manzinita transport multiplexer and then converted the transport stream to a program stream and this plays fine as a svcd with 5:1 --

Are you telling us you are playing SVCD on a standalone with AC3 sound?

Cheers

[BJ_M]

BJM wrote

I multiplexed ac3 files with a sample mpeg2 video SVCD file with manzinita transport multiplexer and then converted the transport stream to a program stream and this plays fine as a svcd with 5:1 --

Are you telling us you are playing SVCD on a standalone with AC3 sound?

Cheers

yes - but it only works on two players out of several i have .. the pioneer 7400 (a professional unit) and the pioneer 343 .. i tried the same disk in a toshiba and a sony and it didnt work .. i have some other things i want to try when i have the time .. as i may (or may not) be on the right track.

BJM could you give us a few details on how you created your SVCD with AC3 sound.


Cheers

[ralfbeckers]

I took the liberty of creating a fully SVCD compliant disk image in bin and cue format from one of those audio streams posted on www.doom9.net. Its very small so please test it out on your decoder and let me know if you can hear all the channels.

http://home.att.net/~adam.poole/5.1_Test.rar

Hi there,

I burned the file with Nero 5.5 resulting in an unplayable disc. I couldn't even read the finished disc in the very same recorder let alone a DVD player. Sorry.

Can you send me a muxed mpg file instead?

To prove my observations to you please send me your physical mailing address and I will send you one of those 5.1 discs free. (This applies only to you, adam, because you are the moderator of this nice formum and will surely tell everybody about your observations with that disc.)

My address is: soz.beckers@removethisantispam.gmx.net

[adam]

Hmmm, well if the drive won't even read the disk than I think the image obviously wasn't the problem but the sample did get messed up somehow as somone else suggested. The last channel is missing, though I think its safe to assume that if one rear channel works the other probably should too.

ralfbeckers I do not know of anyway to multiplex MC audio with video other than I-Author and if I sent you the .mps that wouldn't do you much good unless you had I-Author. I would have to make a disk image, I could extract the mpg file from the bin but then you would probably have to remultiplex it to remove the file header, which would make you have to start all over. There might be another way, I'll try to post an mpg for you but in the mean time...

Nero is not exactly the most reliable program for burning bin and cue files. Is there any chance you can try the sample I posted again? Try using a program that natively supports bin and cue such as CDRwin, CDRao, or fireburner. You may also want to try Daemon tools to mount the image and see if it plays in your software dvd player.Then you can do a cd to cd copy.

I am not sure what good it will do to send me a 5.1 disk as my hardware does not support MC mpeg audio in a SVCD. I have created numerous test disks both by hand and through DVD2SVCD and none of them work. I don't doubt that your disks are properly encoded, but I know my hardware doesnt support them.

[yg1968]

I am getting confused by this discussion. I thought that only mpeg-2 audio supported 5.1 multi-channel. I always thought that mpeg-1 (layer I, II or III) couldn't. Many DVD players (at least in North America) play mpeg-1 audio but simply do not support mpeg-2 audio. Am I wrong in thinking this?

As far as I know mpeg 1, layer II (or mp2) does not support 5.1 multi-channel audio. See this link for details on mpeg-2 audio:

http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/frame/research/mpeg/faq/mpeg2.html

[adam]

Yes we are talking about mpeg2 audio not mpeg1 layer II audio. I think the file exentions are just the same and that's why its .mp2. I believe that the MC mpeg audio encoding tools export the audio stream as .mpg even though its not a program stream, but you need to rename them to .mp2 so that you can multiplex.

Mpeg2 audio is backward compatible with mpeg1 audio, so it should still play on any device that supports mpeg1 but you may lose some features. For example if you play the audio taken from the test file I posted in any software player on your pc it will report it as being mpeg1 layer II, but its actually mpeg2 audio.

I am fairly certain that all dvd players support mpeg2 audio since it is supported in the dvd standard. Not all dvd players or recievers will be able to support all functions of mpeg2 audio though, for example MC channel mpeg audio in a SVCD.

[yg1968]

I am not sure that mpeg-2 audio capability is found on most DVD players. Mpeg-2 audio capability is only required on european DVD players. For NTSC DVD players, only Dolby Digital (AC-3) is required. Furthermore, the DVD specs make the mpeg-2 audio track optional on DVD disks.

See these links:

http://www.disctronics.co.uk/technology/dvdvideo/dvdvid_audenc.htm
http://www.iis.ee.ic.ac.uk/~frank/surp99/report/kht97/va.html

P.S. As you likely already know, mpeg-2 audio is multi-channel (5.1 or 7.1) by definition. Mpeg-1 audio (Layer I, II or III) is not multichannel. I am emphasing this because there seems to be some confusion between mpeg-2 audio and mpeg 1, layer II audio in this thread (as you must have noticed yourself).

[yg1968]

Interestingly the Apex 1500 seems to support mpeg-2 audio. I haven't checked for other DVD players:

http://www.apexdigitalinc.com/images/products/manuals/AD-1500.pdf

[ralfbeckers]

P.S. As you likely already know, mpeg-2 audio is multi-channel (5.1 or 7.1) by definition. Mpeg-1 audio (Layer I, II or III) is not multichannel. I am emphasing this because there seems to be some confusion between mpeg-2 audio and mpeg 1, layer II audio in this thread (as you must have noticed yourself).

Dear yg1968, I kind of doubt your statement but am unable to prove you wrong. But how do you explain that MPEG MC is backwards compatible with decoders that only see the stereo part of the MC signal? It is my understanding that there is no MPEG-2 audio, only MPEG-2 video.

Regards,
Ralf

[BJ_M]

there is mpeg2 audio (2 types) and it is being used as a subset of HDTV:

AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is one of the audio compression formats defined by the MPEG-2 standard. AAC used to be called NBC (Non-Backward-Compatible), because it is not compatible with the MPEG-1 audio formats. MPEG-2 also defined another audio format called MPEG-2 Multichannel or MPEG-2 BC (Backward Compatible), which is compatible with MPEG-1.
AAC is more efficient than MP3 (MPEG-1 Layer 3) and is the state of the art in audio compression technology.


What is MPEG-2 AAC?
MPEG-2 AAC is the consequent continuation of the truly successful coding method ISO/MPEG Audio Layer-3 developed in Erlangen. The extensive co-operation with international partners and the insight derived from Layer-3 paved the way for this coding method which is unprecedented at present stage. The appropriate incorporation of high coding gain and great flexibility opens up a wide field of applications. With sampling frequencies between 8 kHz and 96 kHz and any number of channels between 1 and 48, the method is well prepared for future developments in the audio sector. Compared to well-known coding methods such as MPEG-2 Layer-2, it is possible to achieve half the bit rate with no loss of subjective quality.

http://www.iis.fhg.de/amm/techinf/aac/index.html

[lourenc2]

forgive me if this is a stupid question because next to most of you guys i am an idiot in this area but is there a chance that there will be dvd players made that can handle multichannel mpegs on svcds?

BJM- any chance you could give us a few details of how you made your SVCD with AC3 sound?

Exactly how you multiplexed the audio & Video.

[joes]

D_HEAD, it's joe again.

My philips DVD 752 shout out "left, center, right, right back, left back" from the respective speakers when I plyed a disk burned from ADAM's test BIN/CUE, is this good enough to prove that the DVD 752 is able to play DD 5.1 sound?

And when I do DVS2SVCD with 5.1 checked I can distinguish the center from the front and again from the rear speakers, if this is true 5.1 sound, it is just as simple as to check the right box to put AC3 on SVCD.

Hi Joes, shit I get confused talking to myself........

[adam]

Joes, most Philips dvd players are known to have no problem exporting 5.1 MC audio in a SVCD, after all they are the inventors of the format.

However your post really confuses me. That test disk I posted got corrupted somewhow and the rear right audio channel is not present at all on the audio track. That's not to say that the test disk can't still be used to test multichannel audio, but are you sure you actually used this test disk because I really don't see how that could be possible?

Also joes, we are not talking about "5.1 DD" or about putting "Ac3 on SVCD." We are talking about 5.1 multichannel mpeg audio and yes creating such a disk is as simple as checking the option in DVD2SVCD, but what has already been established is that very few hardware configurations will be able to play it.