TMPGEnc disadvantage?!?

[ackovski]

i coverted the DivX to M2V and WAV with TMPGEnc...
authored a perfect DVD with DVDMaestro... menu, subtitles etc...
BUT... the sound is stereo... PCM format... not AC3 Dolby 5.1?
huh any program that extracts the audio to 5.1 from the DivX?
and other trouble... with the video i guess...
i get "PLAY" instead "00:00:00" at the timer when i try to play the burned DVD in my DVD-Player...
i guess TMPGEnc is not the best encoder... i tried CCE but i get some formats that DVDMaestro does NOT support...
now im in trouble, i thought all my troubles were gone when i extraced all simple with TMPGEnc... now these things give me headache... new programs? new authoring program? i really like DVDMaestro!
someone help?

[ackovski]

i even tried GraphEdit but it also extracts WAV
i read somewhere about TMPGEnc encoding AC3...
am i missing any plugin or something?

[BJ_M]

tmpgenc doesnt time stamp the mpeg file the same way as cce and MC

[ackovski]

ok, now... CCE converts the DivX to MPV and MPA...
MPV is not supported by DVDMaestro...
and im getting MPA instead AC3...
am i missing something or i cant get the proper video and audio to author them with DVDMaestro?
should i use some other authoring software?

[adam]

You can use Virtual dub to extract the AC3 file. Load the avi, set audio tab to direct stream copy, hit file/save wav. Now rename the .wav file to .ac3.

Depending on your dvd authoring software you can either import this ac3 directly or you will have to multiplex it with your video stream. You can do this in TMPGenc by going to file/mpeg tools/multiplex.

DVDMaestro will accept files encoded from CCE fine, and the same should go for just about any mpg encoder. I have a feeling there is something about your settings that is making your file non-compliant. For example are you encoding at 23.976fps? If so you have to run the video stream through pulldown.exe to add the pulldown flag so that it will play at the NTSC required 29.97fps, otherwise it is not compliant and dvd authoring software will not accept it. If you use TMPGenc's ntscfilm template it adds the flag for you.

[ackovski]

ok TMPGEnc is out it does me no good since the video has no time stamp.
about virtualdub and saving as WAV then renaming to AC3...
when i hit save as WAV it says:
" the requested audio compression is not compatibile with the input format. Check that the sampling rate and channel count of the input match those in the requested format"
the property of the AVI file says that the audio is 5 channel stereo 48000hz... unknown tag!
for authoring im using DVDMaestro and i think i dont need to multiplex the audio and the video, i need them separate...
i didnt quite understand that pulldown.exe thing... im trying to create a PAL DVD (5.20AM here ) and im encoding the DivX that is 23.976fps and i cant find settings for 23 to 25fps at CCE ...GRRRRR
i encoded the AVI once again and i got some strange 2MB MPV output

[adam]

Did you set the audio tab to direct stream copy like I said? If you do this I can't see how you could possibly get that error.

CCE doesn't allow you to change framerate, you have to do this during frameserving. If you are trying to make a PAL DVD than I assume you resized to 480x576 or 352x576, but if you didn't change the fps than you are still at 23.976...no wonder DVDMaestro rejected it.

There are various ways to convert from NTSCfilm (what you have) to PAL but there is really no reason to bother with this. Almost all PAL tv's can display an NTSC signal. Even if your's can't, almost all DVD players that are sold in PAL regions can convert NTSC to PAL 60, which virtually any PAL only tv can play. Basically, there is probably a %99 chance that this dvd will play on your setup, and any other setup in your country, if you just leave it as NTSC.

So, do everything as normal in CCE but after encoding run your video stream through pulldown.exe. Just take the video stream (m2v) and drag and drop it over the pulldown.exe file. It will create a new file at the c:\
Just import this file into DVDMaestro and everything should be fine.

[ackovski]

yes i am doing it under direct stream...
i have read that 1000 times in the manuals before...
and thats why im posting this message...
i believe that last "compression UNKNOWN (TAG 2000)" is the trouble...
OR i guess Virtual Dub has no option for setting an 5 channel output...

[adam]

Then try a new version of vdub because something is wrong, maybe your version is outdated. When you use direct stream copy and save wav it does not really have to do any encoding, it simply takes the audio stream and makes an exact copy on the hard drive. Even if you don't have the codec to play that audio, it should still work.

[ackovski]

how big should be the output of the file in wav that i should rename to AC3?
i did that with other DivX, its extracting the WAV both, with and without "full processing" but the one is about 200MB and the other is 1GB is the one AC3 and the other only WAV?

and about CCE... the DivX seems to be variable bitrate, if i try to encode it as CBR with CCE it causes troubles...
if i try VBR it is encoding 2 hrs and i get 2MB MPV output!
i tried several versions, even the newest for P4 processor, i got 1.7Ghz

[adam]

When vdub is set to full processing mode it will decompress your audio to wav, which is going to be much bigger so 1 gig is about right. Perhaps the newest vdub can decompress AC3 files, but if you don't have this version than this means that the audio that you were able to decompress to wav wasn't actually AC3, it was probably mp3. I assume you downloaded this movie, and different releases will have different audio depending on the number of disks they were aiming for. The 200mb file is probably an AC3 file, yes. So in short, if you have a divx that you want to convert then load it in vdub and hit file/file information. If it says the audio is 5 channels than it is AC3 and you should set the audio tab to direct stream copy and hit file/save wav. This essentially just extracts the audio track as is, so it is actually the unchanged AC3 file, so rename it to AC3 and use it as such. If it does not say 5 channels it is probably mp3, and it will actually probably tell you this specifically as well. In this case set the audio tab to full stream processing and hit file/save wav. Now this is an actual wav file, you will have to encode it to whatever form of audio you need ie: MP2, AC3.

Regarding the encoding of the divx...I think you have some corrupt frames. This is very common and there are ways of fixing or removing the bad frames. There are some good guides on this site explaining how to get around this problem.

[ackovski]

i doubt that there are corrupt frames because i just got main concept and it works fine with both of the DivX
im getting fine results, but the virtual dub error still remains...

the DivX that has 2 channel audio makes no troubles... i can extract it both ways... full processing and not...
as i said full processing im getting ( i guess ) the real WAV format since its 1GB... the other way its 200MB...

the other DivX that i have trouble extracting the audio is the one that has 5 channel audio... when i try it "full processing" it says the error i described above... the other way without "full processing" it works fine but im getting 200MB WAV that i doubt is the 5 channel AC3
there is nothing i can think of trying any more, i tried everything but its the same

[adam]

I don't see what the problem is. Vdub doesnt decrompress AC3 files (newest version may be able to) so if its on full processing mode its going to give you an error every time. Like I said the 200MB file is probably the AC3 file. AC3 is still heavily compressed, its not going to be nearly as big as the uncompressed wav file. 200MB does seem small, but it could happen. Maybe this track was encoded with a low bitrate or maybe the person who released the divx lowered the bitrate to make it fit on the disk. Also I assume this is just a 1 cd divx but if its 2 cds then the filesize is perfectly normal. Maybe this is a short movie, maybe the source audio is corrupted and is only half there etc etc. If you are unsure than just check it. Install the AC3 codec in the tools section and play both your source divx and the output AC3 that Vdub extracts and make sure they match up. Direct stream copy just takes the audio as is and makes a copy of it. Regardless of whether its all there or not, it IS the AC3 file. Vdub appears to be working exactly as its supposed to.

If you are using CCE to encode than uncheck audio encoding in the settings, this will often crash the encode, plus if you have your extracted AC3 file then there is no reason to encode the audio again. If it still crashes then YES you probably do have some corrupt frames. Corrupt frames are extremely common when you download a divx, you are going to get at least a few almost everytime you download one. These corrupt frames may or may not cause any given encoder to crash. Apparantly MainConcept is handling them ok, but if you want to use CCE I suggest you fix these frames if they do in fact exist.

Finally, turn on the error log in CCE. Go to Options/Outputs and check output logfile and set a destination. If it crashes again read the log and see if it tells you what went wrong.