First impressions

Hoju wrote on 3/6/2003, 10:47 AM

I have to say that DVD-A is pretty damned impressive for a first release, but it does seem to have a few teething problems.

Firstly, when preparing a dvd which contains a music compilation, you're given the option to have the audio stored as 5.1 AC3, stereo AC3 and PCM. I don't know if it's a bug or not, but despite the fact that you can specify what audio format the music compilation is compressed to, you can't actually import externally pre-prepared AC3 files. Is this by design?

Also, I can import MPEG-1 video clips (vcd compatible), but when it comes to the preparation, DVD-A always insists on re-encoding the files to MPEG-2. I figure that it's worth mentioning as it's apparently part of the DVD spec and also because Sonic's DVD Producer has no problems handling it. Is the necessary support going to be added at a later stage?

Is SoFo aware of these shortcomings, and are they going to be addressed by the update that's coming out next week?

Hoju

Comments

JSWTS wrote on 3/6/2003, 4:53 PM

DVD-A does accept 'externally' prepared ac3 files as long as they are up to spec. I've made several dvd's with music compilations with pre-existing ac3 files (encoded either by ReelDVD's ac3 encoder or Acid 4's ac3 encoder plug-in).

DVD-A currently only accepts standard, D1 mpeg2 files; as best I can tell it doesn't allow for half D1, mpeg1, broadcast D1 type files (eventhough they are technically within the dvd specs).

Jim

Hoju wrote on 3/6/2003, 5:21 PM

Hmm... that's weird. How did you go about importing your ac3 files? I've tried dragging an ac3 file into a music compilation, but the media explorer won't even display ac3 files. If I try to insert an ac3 file using 'insert track', I have to force it to display every file as 'all media files' doesn't seem to include ac3 files. When I then try to import it, it comes up with an unsupported file error. I've tried dragging them in from explorer, but that doesn't work either.

Hoju

Hoju wrote on 3/6/2003, 5:47 PM

Ok, scratch that last bit. Apparently SoFo's 5.1 Surround Plug-In pack conflicts with DVD-A's ability to support ac3 files.

Hoju

SonyEPM wrote on 3/7/2003, 8:51 AM

"Apparently SoFo's 5.1 Surround Plug-In pack conflicts with DVD-A's ability to support ac3 files"

Please explain what you mean by this.

Hoju wrote on 3/7/2003, 6:13 PM

Well, when I've got the plug-in pack installed, DVD-A is unable to even display ac3 files within the media explorer. It's as if it's not showing them because they're not supported or something.

The problem only started happening once I'd already installed DVD-A and when I then went to install the plug-in pack.

AlistairLock wrote on 3/8/2003, 4:31 PM

Hi,
I've found that if you've rendered an .mpg file and separate .AC3 (with the same name) to the same directory, when you drag the .mpg file into position on the music compilation screen, the corresponding .AC3 file is associated with it.

Hope that helps.

Sunray wrote on 3/10/2003, 5:39 PM

Could you tell me the version of ac3plug.dll on your system after installing the 5.1 Surround Plug-In Pack on top of DVD Architect. You should be able to find this file in Program Files\Sonic Foundry\Shared Plug-Ins\File Formats\AC3. It should be version 302, both before and after installing the 5.1 Plug-In Pack.

- pj

Hoju wrote on 3/11/2003, 10:36 PM

I've just tried installing it again, and the ac3plug.dll version is 1.0 (Build 302), both before and after installation. I don't know why, but installing it this second time round didn't seem to break DVD-A's support for AC3.