No Sound on Standalone DVD player but works in PowerDVD?

I video capped a DVD Mpeg from a VHS tape (home movie) using Dazzle DVCII. I then used TMPGEnc DVD Author to create chapters, and edit it and then had it output it for burnging to DVD.

After that I burned it with Nero (and then later re-tried with TMPGenc's DVD burner). The DVD+RW will play fine using Power DVD and I have sound etc. When I try playing it in my Standalone DVD player the video and chapters all work fine, but there is no sound. I have played other DVD+RW's with regular movies on it in that DVD player and it works fine.

Any suggestions?

I'm going to try to re-do the DVD authoring with DVD-it LE that came with my Dazzle. I'm sure it's not a great program, but who knows, maybe TMPGenc has some issues.

I ordered a Canopus ADVC100 for capping from now on, but I don't think it's the MPG2 file from Dazze since neither DVDit or TMPGEnc complained about it. I'd like to buy a good program eventually but obviously I want the DVD's to work on my standalone.

I ran a search on the forum but haven't found anything with the specifics of my question, so I hope I'm not posting something that's been asked a million times.

OK, thanks. I'll check and see what the audio was encoded as. I guess TMPGEnc has different settings for that then?

I used DVDit LE last night. Although I couldn't seem to get the thing to break it into chapters, I just had it output it with no chapters and then burnt it with NERO to test it.

It played fine and there was audio this time on my standalone DVD player. I'll check into the audio encoding settings on TMPGEnc. I'd hate to have wasted all of the time I put into creating that layout with the chapters and labels, etc.

The MPEG2 was decoded on the fly by the Dazzle and I didn't try to re-encode, although TMPGEnc DVD Author says it can be re-encoded. I tested that but it doesn't seem to help. When I look at the properties of the MPEG in the program, it says the audio is MPEG 1 Layer 2 or something like that. This is the type that I don't want, right?

I guess I'll need to get the regular version of TMPGEnc and re-encode it to AC3 or PCM?

OK, I used VirtualDub Mpeg2 version to take the MPEG2 and rip the WAV file from it. I then used BeSweet to convert it to AC3 48khz. I then took TMPGenc DVD Author and edited the video clip and changed the audio to use the AC3 file. It compiled it but then I have no audio at all when playing the file with PowerDVD.

I then re-compiled it but used the WAV file instead and it works as PCM. It also worked in my standalone DVD. This is progress, but of course the WAV file is HUGE.

Am I doing something wrong when creating the AC3 file? I used the BeSweet tutorial and followed it exactly, making sure it output to 48khz and 224b/s playback since that's the same level the original audio was.

I really want to nail this down since I have a lot of home vhs's that I want to author as DVD's.

Thanks!

Well I had that happen to me too once. I was spewin' couldnt figure out what was wrong, reburned content several times still no go. THEN i swapped around my audio lines coming from my player to the tele (player has 2 audios out & tele only has one audio in). That worked , dont know why though.

So I should try another converter for creating AC3, I suppose. OK I'll see what exists.

I can't get DVDs authored with AC3 to play with sound on any of my Pioneer DCD players, nor within PowerDVD. I've tried all of the following with no success:

- convert wav to ac3 with besweet
- convert mp2 to ac3 with besweet
- pass ac3 through ac3fix
- author with audio separate from video (m2v)
- author with muxed ac3 mpeg2 files

no dice for any of these combinations. I use TMPGEnc DVD Author.
interesting enough--- mp2 audio on my dvds work just fine on all my dvd players, but i would like to understand why i can't get sound from ac3-authored dvds...

vcddude

Replying to my own message:

Note that in all cases where I author with AC3 audio, the DVD players all recognize the AC3 stream and the "Dolby Digital" display lights yp, but alas, no sound is presented.

My DVD players are all Pioneer - DV-37, DV-525, and DVL-909

vcddude

Originally Posted by vcddude

Replying to my own message:

Note that in all cases where I author with AC3 audio, the DVD players all recognize the AC3 stream and the "Dolby Digital" display lights yp, but alas, no sound is presented.

My DVD players are all Pioneer - DV-37, DV-525, and DVL-909

vcddude

Could you test convert to ac3 with the new ffmpeg??? You could try my simple gui ffmpeggui if you don't like command line tools.

I have all pioneer standalone players to. I did a slideshow using .mp2 sound and no sound came out. Until that is I went to my receiver and changed the output to mpeg (something like that) then it worked just fine. I also have the rca sound hooked up for this very reason because this sound won't pass through the digital optical cable.

I have seen a few guys posing this same problem over and over again and solutions recommended were to experiment this and experiment that!
Now I am no guru but I have burned and authored many dvds using TMPGENC and sister programs TMPGDVD Author and besweet with no problem whatsoever even with ac3. Lets get the facts right.

1. As long as your standalone can played a commercial ac3 disc be a Pioneer, LG or Samsung, there is nothing wrong with your standalone, leave it alone, the problem must be with your encoding settings.

2. TMPGENC CANNOT accepts ac3 file, It can accept only mp2, wav, mp3 mpg,mpeg,mov,asf, etc (see the browse button) So stop trying to load ac3 in this program. Alway encode to m2v file and wav file. Then convert to ac3. Fullstop

3. Funny thing is, sister program TMPGENC can accepts ac3 file.But, a big BUT, it cannot played ac3 in ANY MODE so you can't hear it. Again but, it will do the job of encoding ac3 nicely.I have posted a HOW -TO in someone query somewhere...to get it in synce

4. To hear your ac3 file, played the file in bsplayer Go to audio tab Here you can choose and see the ac3 codec. If you can't see it then you definitely cannot played nor hear the ac3 in any program because you don't have the codec installed. Powerdvd 5 can also played ac3.Finito..!!!

5. Nothing wrong with besweet!! Only thing wrong is your setting.. One of you ,I think is Karrillon, sets the bitrate to 224. It's wrong. Set it to 384 minimum Make sure the 48Kzh is checked and compression to light not normal or heavy. An alternate program (and very good at it) would be Soft Encode.

6. For dvd ac3 is the only way to go(other than DTS) not pcm, or mp2 You don't want to lose quality. Do you?

7. If you don't have an ac3 capable soundcard, you can played but not hear a dvd disc with ac3 directly from the dvd-rom/writer even though you may have the codec installed.

OK I hope my 2-cents worth of info is good enough for some of you. Again I am no guru. Gurus are those knows about Scenarist, Maestro etc..

Originally Posted by Drakng

5. Nothing wrong with besweet!! Only thing wrong is your setting.. One of you ,I think is Karrillon, sets the bitrate to 224. It's wrong. Set it to 384 minimum Make sure the 48Kzh is checked and compression to light not normal or heavy. An alternate program (and very good at it) would be Soft Encode

AC3 made with besweet(ac3enc) doesn't work on all dvd players....like some pioneer players(it works if you use soft encode). And you should be able to use bitrates from 64 kbit/s and up with ac3 also.

Agreed, BeSweet does not work in all cases. I tried pretty much every reasonable setting and gave up as it would never work on my Pioneer DVD players. Using SoftEncode works every time.

This tells me that it IS NOT an issue with my BeSweet settings, rather BeSweet does not create fully compliant AC3 files.

vcddude

Baldrick,

I will try ffmpeg and post results here.

vcddude

OK, Baldrick,
I tested ffmpeg AC3 on my Pioneer DVD players and the verdict is...

No dice, not even when applying ac3fix.

Different problem though: with BeSweet there simply is no audio in the AC3 track when played on the DVD player. With ffmpeg AC3, all playback immediately freezes up.

I'm sticking with SoftEncode.

vcddude

vcdddude: Thanks.

I had the same problem when encoding a wav to ac3 using besweet. What I did was encoded the wav audio to ac3 using sonic foundry soft encode and it work like a dream.

In case anyone else needs ac3 and has a Pioneer player.... DVDit PE produces Ac3 files (albeit very slowly compared to BeSweet) that play OK in my DV-340. I need to figure out how to do bitrate calculations for DVD with Ac3 so I can get best quality in TmpegEnc.

Yes I will give it a test -- hopefully tonight if I stay up really late.

Stay tuned.

vcddude

The way I calculate the right video bitrate for DVD with AC3 is to use the Wizard in TMPGenc, select CBR/VBR with MP2 audio and see which bitrate it suggests. Then I go back and change the setting to output WAV audio instead of MP2. Seems like AC3 is about the same size as MP2. After encoding with TMPGEnc, you get an M2V file and a WAV file. Convert WAV to AC3 and then author with your fave software. Works like a charm for me.

In general it seems that you can use a typical DVD bitrate calculator that assumes 224 kbps MP2 audio and use the same results for 384 kbps stereo AC3.

vcddude

Okay I tested
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=674391#674391
and the verdict is the same:

No dice on Pioneer DVD players. In fact this one is the worst of the lot. Plays only blank (black) video with no sound and freezes up immediately.

vcddude

Yep, it froze up before the train part. I never saw any train.



vcddude