roebidog

roebidog wrote on 4/28/2004, 2:12 PM

I have solved the color problem, however one leads to another problem,I am using a Sony Handycam which records sound in AC3. Screenblast does not recognise AC3 sound. So I switch over to Power Editor a very good program, but not so good for restoring colors. So my question is, how do I convert AC3 into avi or mpg, you see I am using Power Editor to edit, because of AC3 and Screenblast for restoring colors, but the sound system is not the same. Why can Sony not add AC3 sound to Screenblaster to simplify live. Has any one any ideas. Thanks for your help. John

Comments

discdude wrote on 4/28/2004, 5:50 PM

Screenblast Movie Studio doesn't include an AC-3 decoder.

You can find some decoders on the Internet. However, I'm not quite sure which one to recommend since I am not familiar with the type of video the Sony Handcam creates. Is it MPEG or DV-AVI?

anthony-chiappette wrote on 4/28/2004, 5:52 PM

The main reason it's probably not included is the licensing costs. It would up the price to over 3X what it costs now. The AC3 plugin for Vegas (only for ENCODING, not decoding) is about $279.00 by itself, although it support 5.1 surround.

I paid 299.00 for the AC3 plugin for DVD Workshop 1, which only allowed Dolby AC3 2/0 (2 channel) encoding. At that price range, it would blow Screenblast out of the market it was intended for.

What really irks me is that for programs that do ustilize AC3, you have to pay a seperate license fee for each of the programs. In other words, if I purchase an AC3 plugin, I should be able to use it with any software that allows AC3 encoding/decoding. But it's not designed that way for software created by different software companies.

The nice thing about the Sony/Sonic Foundry professional family of products such as Acid / Vegas / DVD Architect is that they all use the same plugin. Once I purchased DVD Architect, which comes with the 5.1 Surround Dolby AC3 plugin as standard, I could use 5.1 in Vegas (encode only) and Acid Pro 4.

JoeS wrote on 4/28/2004, 6:11 PM

there is software you can download called BeSweet that will convert AC3 to wave, mp2, mp3 etc etc. it works good. i use it and it was a free download. the user interface may seem confusing at first, but once you get the knack of using it, you will find it does the job. check it out. ive used it to convert the AC3 in my VRO and VOB files.
good luck,
Joe S

go here...http://besweet.notrace.dk/

IanG wrote on 4/29/2004, 2:11 AM

You could try Virtualdub-MPEG2. This will extract the mp3 as a .wav file. It's not as versatile as besweet, but I find it easier to use.

Cheers

Ian G.

IndyGuy wrote on 4/29/2004, 10:58 AM

Can you please tell me how you convert the AC3 audio in a VRO file. I have a DVD recorder on my TV which burns files to a DVD-RAM disk as VRO's. I would like to be able to take the file to ScreenBlast and edit it but it won't handle the audio. If I could use BeSweet to convert the audio first, that would be wonderful.

IanG wrote on 4/30/2004, 12:27 AM

I don't have the s/w to hand, but I think Virtualdub (as above) will do this. It's free, so it wont cost anything to try it.

Ian G.

JoeS wrote on 4/30/2004, 9:11 PM

i was doing some fooling around with vro files on dvd ram also. i have a set top panasonic dvd ram dvd-r recorder and i wanted to take my recorded ram video and clip any junk off the start and end of whatever i recorded, then WITHOUT RE-ENCODING, take the vro file to my computer and author a dvd-r. i have tempgenc which would open the vro, but just could not scrub the file without it jamming up. i downloaded the trial version of wombel's mpg-vcr. it works quite good. was able to cut off whatever i wanted, and then a new file was made without reencoding the video. i was able to take that new file to ulead moviefactory2 and make a dvd-r with chapters. mpg-vcr has good tools too, you will be able to select if you want the original ac3 audio, or have the program convert it to mp2, which then can be opened in screenblast. wombel offers a 30day trial period, fully functional. i think its 75bucks, but it does the job and it got good reviews. if you use beesweet to convert the audio, you first have to demultiplex the vro, right? i do.
also, ulead moviefactory2 will not need to reencode the video file that mpg-vcr will make. you may need to change the file ext to .mpg before ulead mf2 opens it, but other than that, it works!
good luck,
Joe S