[MPlayer-users] Mencoder and AC3 surround sound encoding

[Richard Tweedie]

I found that I couldn't rip DTS audio from a film I was trying to convert.  I 
didn't have the same symptoms as you, basically I got the background and mood 
music but no voices.  If the reason is the same though, you can get round it 
by chosing a different audio track.  What you could do is run 

# mplayer -v dvd://[track no]

Look at the output and you'll probably see a number of audio tracks (near the 
top of the mplayer output), some AC3 5.1  in various languages, maybe a 
couple of stereo and DTS.  Use the -aid option on the mencoder command line 
and specify the id of an audio track that is AC3 5.1 not DTS

Hope this helps...

Rich


On Tuesday 30 December 2003 12:57 pm, John Richard Smith wrote:
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> Can mencoder handle AC3 surround sound properly ?
>
> I'm having some problems ripping some dvd's with AC3 audio tracks.
>
> It seems to muck up the indexing (-idx) no matter which options I choose.
>
> I end up with either,
>
> a) no sound at all,
>
> or,
>
> b) Mplayer has to do a index scan before it can play the mpeg4, .avi file.
>
> c) Note no problem with the picture.
>
> ManyDVD's have AC3 surround sound  audio files.
> If I understand this correctly AC3 surround sound uses mp3.
> However, the audio tracks are set up differently.
>
> typically, I set the audio encoding up with something like,
>
>
> -oac mp3lame -lameopts br=96:cbr
> or,
> -oac mp3lame -lameopts vbr=0
>
> However the result is not always a happy one.
>
> Where the source mpeg2 DVD had AC3 surround sound audio, mencoder fails
> to create a satisfactory index file but provided that you then play the
> result in mplayer it will do an index scan of the disc before it plays
> the disc, but other programmes will not, including most of the new bread
> of stand alone   "DivX-DVD players" that are  able to play
> mpeg2/mpeg4-5, jpeg, and, mp3,  discs.
>
> I found this to be the case because another dvd ripper programme tells
> me what is on the source mpeg2 dvd disc, and I am able to read what it
> find on it ,namely AC3-DTS audio files, and so by comparing the results
> , and reading the information it seems to imply surround sound, of
> course this could be wrong, I'm no expert.
>
> Am I doing something wrong or is this a mencoder limitation, in that
> currently mencoder cannot encode AC3 surround sound mpeg2 dvd's.
>
> I have searched the mplayer/mencoder help files, but cannot find
> anything . There is nothing specific to cover this aspect of my problem.
>
> thanks,
>
>
> John
>
> _______________________________________________
> RTFM!!!  http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/DOCS
> Search:  http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/cgi-bin/htsearch
> http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-users