No Audio for Transcoded Files

[VlcNovice]

Hi all,

I came across VLS only recently, after some frsutrating tests of other software.

My use case is to rip chapters from a DVD. The DVD is written by a camcorder which stores the scenes as chapters. However, I need those scenes as single videos, and I also need them to have a lower bitrate.

So I found http://www.therealcaffeine.com/how-to/rip-dvd-with-vlc/ and followed it.

The results are excellent in general but none of my (many, many) transcoded test videos has audio. No matter whether I play them in VLC or another suitable player: No audio. Tried different caontainers, different (reasonable) codecs within the containers... no audio.

I'm using VLC 0.8.6c on Win XP SP 2.

I can't seem to find any other user with the same problem so might there be something special about my PC which makes VLC fail? Like any Windows settings, ugly audio driver, whatever? (Can't imagine VLC feeding the audio stream through the soundcard mixer, but then, who knows.)

DVDx works but can't access the chapters automatically so I'd spend too much time on finding the chapters (or do I miss something).

Any pointer or advice would be appreciated. I've been playing with SUPER and friends for a while and am aware of some pitfalls regarding video processing, but I can't think of what's going wrong in this case.

Thanks,

VlcNovice

[Arite]

Are you able to hear the audio when you playback the videos?

What are the codecs used in the video (press "Ctrl + I" and click on "Advanced information"), and what codecs and container format are you transcoding to?

Arite.

[VlcNovice]

Are you able to hear the audio when you playback the videos?

The original videos do have audio and I can hear it, even when I play them in VLC.

What are the codecs used in the video (press "Ctrl + I" and click on "Advanced information"), and what codecs and container format are you transcoding to?

According to VLC Advanced Information, the original camcorder video uses mpgv for video and a52 for audio.

One combination I tried to transcode it to was mp1v and mp3 as suggested on http://www.therealcaffeine.com/how-to/rip-dvd-with-vlc/ and I tried MPEG TS, MPEG PS and MPEG 1 as containers. I also treid the MPEG 1 container with mp1v and mpga and other combinations.

[VlcNovice]

What are the codecs used in the video (press "Ctrl + I" and click on "Advanced information"), and what codecs and container format are you transcoding to?

According to VLC Advanced Information, the original camcorder video uses mpgv for video and a52 for audio.

I just tried to transcode a video which uses a52 using a52 for the output stream. When I open the transcoded video, VLC tells me it's using mpgv for video and... nothing... for audio.

I ticked the "Audiocodec" box, yes I did.

Hmm.

[Arite]

Assuming that the a52/ac3 track is 6 channels, try changing the "Channels" to "6", selecting "a52" as your audio codec I would recommend either "384" or "448" for the bitrate.

Cheers, Arite.

[VlcNovice]

Assuming that the a52/ac3 track is 6 channels, try changing the "Channels" to "6", selecting "a52" as your audio codec I would recommend either "384" or "448" for the bitrate.

Thanks for the tip! I tried 1, 4 and 6 channels -- same result as for 2: no audio. (It's a comcorder DVD, I'd expect 2? Not sure though, the stream has a pretty high bitrate.) 384 and 448 aren't offerend, though -- only 256 and 512, regardless of the codec I choose.

Any other settings I should try?

:-/

[Arite]

Yes - you can enter e.g. "448" in the box yourself (or in the commandline at the top), I just suggested those because they are the defaul 6 channel a52/ac3 audio DVD bitrates.

Do you think you could paste the MRL (commandline) from the top text box bar of the "Stream output" window?

Arite.

[VlcNovice]

Yes - you can enter e.g. "448" in the box yourself (or in the commandline at the top), I just suggested those because they are the defaul 6 channel a52/ac3 audio DVD bitrates.

Oh! A select box where I can enter an arbitrary value. I hadn't expected that. Thanks for pointing it out!

I've tried with the bitrates you suggested -- no audio.

Do you think you could paste the MRL (commandline) from the top text box bar of the "Stream output" window?

:sout=#transcode{vcodec=mp1v,vb=1024,scale=1,acodec=a52,ab=448,channels=6}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=mpeg1,dst="C:\Temp\VTS_01_1.mpg"}}

I could give you (privately) a link to the ISO image and ZIPped file system of the DVD in question but I tend to think the problem must be located somewhere else. I've now also tried a DVD which I created with a DVD recorder. It seems to use a similar encoding scheme with a52 audio and the results are similar -- no audio.

Which made me perform another test -- I took a .wmv video which VLC claims is using wmv3 and wma2 and tried to transcode it to .mpg -- no audio.

Problem is located elsewhere isn't it? Any idea what to look for?

Thanks for your support.

[Arite]

This may make no difference, but seing as it is apparently not DVD-specific, you could try restting your preferences and cache. To do this, go to:
C:\Documents and Settings\(Your username)\Application Data

And delete the "vlc" folder. Then try your commanline again.

If there is no change, try the commandline:

Code: Select all

:sout=#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=1024,scale=1,acodec=mp3,ab=192,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=mp4,dst="C:\Temp\VTS_01_1.mp4"}}

The container format is MP4 (the key difference), video is mp2v and audio is mp3 - I tried it out with a *.wmv with wmv3 video and wma2 audio and it worked without a problem (whereas MPEG-TS had problems).

Cheers, Arite.

[VlcNovice]

This may make no difference, but seing as it is apparently not DVD-specific, you could try restting your preferences and cache. To do this, go to:
C:\Documents and Settings\(Your username)\Application Data

And delete the "vlc" folder. Then try your commanline again.

Thank you very much Sir, that did the job.

Have no idea what went wrong along the way, though.

Thanks again! You helped a non-profit organization find a good solution for a big challenge.