Did something change with VOBs?

smhontz wrote on 7/14/2005, 8:18 PM

I had to go back and pull some VOBs from DVDs I created using Vegas 6.0 and DVDA 3. In the past, I remember this was an annoying process, as you could drag the VOBs to the Vegas timeline, but all you would get is the video - you had to convert the AC3 audio to WAV using something like DVD2AVI because Vegas didn't understand the AC3 stuff.

Now, however, I drag the VOBs to the timeline, and I get BOTH the audio and the video -no muss, no fuss. No having to convert AC3 to wav.

That's great! How long has that been working like that??? Am I just lucking out because my videos are short (< 5 min) or something? For a while, I thought that maybe even though I generated an MPG and a matching AC3 for DVDA to use when I made the disks, that maybe somehow it ended up with PCM audio, but I checked the DVDs with AVICodec and it says they have AC3 audio.

Woo-Hoo!

Comments

farss wrote on 7/15/2005, 12:06 AM

IF you have a DVD player app installed I think that gives Vegas access to a ac3 decoder, I suspect that's what might have changed.
What hasn't changed is that you're decoding and encoding lossy audio and video.
Bob.

B_JM wrote on 7/15/2005, 9:36 AM

vegas does not decode ac3, unless they changed something in the last 3 weeks

a possibility is that the vobs had both mpeg and ac3 audio (or lpcm)

Trichome wrote on 7/15/2005, 10:34 AM

I may be totally wrong, but I tried this last week without success.

After downloading this AC3 decoder for VDub:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=AC3_ACM_Decompressor

and BeSweet : http://dspguru.doom9.net/

It then seemed to work as you've described. I don't know which decoder Vegas is accessing but after installing these 2 programs I am editing 5.1 tracks on V6 timeline!

Another possibility is that its unofficially supported...

smhontz wrote on 7/15/2005, 2:14 PM

Well, I'm still confused as to why this is working. I don't think there is an lpcm audio stream.

When I created the DVDs, I used Vegas 6 to render out two files: a .mpg using the "DVD Architect NTSC video stream" template, and an AC3 file using a variant of the default template that does no compression. DVD Architect didn't do any recompressing or converting of either of those files - just created the VOBs and made the DVD.

If I look at the properties of the VOB in the Vegas Explorer, it says:
Streams
Video: 00:04:10.217, 29.970 fps interlaced, 720x480x32, MPEG-2
Audio: 00:04:10.208, 48,000 Hz, Stereo, MPEG

If I look at the properties of the VOB in MPEG Video Wizard, I see it says it is Dolby-AC3, 2 channels, 192kbps, 48 Khz. AviCodec says it has a single audio stream, AC3.

So, either Vegas 6.0b understands AC3 now, or maybe I have something loaded that is making it work? If I use GSpot, it says that it can successfully play the audio using this path:

(S) --> MainConcept MPEG Splitter --> InterVideo Audio Decoder --> (R)

So does this mean that one of my InterVideo WinDVD player is providing a codec that Vegas can use to put the AC3 audio on the timeline? I've had that software on the machine since I got it, and I haven't been able to do this until recently...

The mystery deepens...

B_JM wrote on 7/16/2005, 7:50 PM

amaizing, i dont recall sony ever even mentioned it ......

B_JM wrote on 7/16/2005, 8:36 PM

i tried it and it didnt work in vegas -- but i dont have windvd installed (but a 1000 other things) ,

i tried it with ac3 decoder direct sound and/or with:

moonlight splitter
Sorenson splitter (MC)
main concept splitter
nero digital

and no go ...