The VideoLAN Forums

Hi all. I'm very new to VLC, my apologies if I can't answer some of the more advanced debugging questions.

Basically, I am trying to rip a DVD to an MP4 format. I'm using Media->Convert/Save to do this. The video and audio are both good quality, and everything is in sync. However, it doesn't matter which Audio Track I select under "Audio/Subtitles" - VLC always defaults to the same audio track. I can set it to a different one, but VLC ignores this setting. Note that if I instead use Media>Open Disk (to watch the DVD) and specify an Audio Track, this works just fine. I can specify any audio track, and VLC will select the correct one and play it. Similarly, if I go into Tools>Preferences and under Input/Codecs>Track Settings set the Audio Track or the Audio Language, VLC will select the correct Audio Track when playing the DVD.

This seems likely to be a bug to me. Both Media>Convert/Save and Media>Open Disc use exactly the same "Open Media" dialogue, but in one case the audio track selection is always ignored.

Which version of VLC are you using ?

Can you try with latest VLC 3.0.0 nightly build ?

I'm currently using 2.26.

I tried downloading vlc-3.0.0-20170815-0457-git-win64.zip, and it constantly crashed when trying to rip the DVD. I would get to the point where I clicked "Start" (after selecting the DVD and track in the "Open Media" dialogue and selecting the filetype / codecs in the "Convert" dialogue). It would try to convert but would crash almost immediately. As far as I know, everything was set the same as it is for 2.26 (I checked every setting I had changed from the default). I can confirm that setting the audio track when opening the DVD and playing it (rather than ripping it) stilled worked correctly (and setting an audio track / audio language in the codec settings also worked for playing).

Just to test a little more, I also tried vlc-3.0.0-20170710-0514-git-win64.zip. This version couldn't actually play audio from the DVD - I got the following error: VLC could not decode the format "a52 " (A52 Audio (aka AC3))

Just for kicks, I also tried vlc-3.0.0-20170815-0251-git-win32.zip (the latest 32 bit version). The results were exactly the same as for the 64-bit version.

Yes, I can reproduce this.
For me, with VLC 3.0.0 NB, AC-3 stereo is playing fine but VLC crashes with AC-3 5.1.

You should create a new ticket on the VLC Trac with the link to this thread.

What about the issue with the audio track selection being ignored when using Convert/Save? Is this a known bug, or should I make a ticket for this as well?

I did not solve the audio track selection using the GUI. Instead I used the command line. At first all audio tracks were overlayed into one, same as with the Convert/Save in the gui.

This is the command line that worked for me.
Replace the two file names. The audio track numbers are zero relative. My input audio was DTS at 192kb hence the ab=192.

-I dummy --no-sout-video --sout-audio --no-sout-all --sout "#transcode{vcodec=none,acodec=mp3,ab=192,channels=2,samplerate=44100,audio-track=0}:std{access=file,mux=raw,dst=f:\temp\audiofile.mp3}" file:///F:/temp/videofilename.mkv vlc://quit

The "--no-sout-all" is the key, it is from https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... ck#p447359 otherwise you get all audio intermingled

You can change this default behaviour back to no-sout-all (like before VLC 2.2) in VLC preferences:
Tools > Preferences > Show settings=All > Stream output: [ ] Enable streaming of all ES
Then the streaming wizard (Media > Stream...) has the option: [ ] Stream all elementary streams (:sout-all)