Vegas and TMPGEnc 3 AC3 Sound

rendez2k wrote on 7/26/2005, 2:57 AM

If I encode any videos with TMPGEnc 3 and the AC-3 plugin, Sony Vegas 6 will only recognize the video - is there anyway round this? The files play fine in all other programs.

Heres the file details:

Complete name : C:\Alex\TDA-DVS-2005-07-25-0000.mpg
File size : 1009 MiB
Format : MPEG 2 multiplexer

Video #0
Codec : MPEG Video 2
Bit rate : 9300 Kbps
Bit rate mode : CBR
Width : 704
Height : 576
Aspect ratio : 4/3
Frame rate : 25
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.917
Delay : 1277

Audio #0
Codec : AC3
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channels : 2
Channel coupling : L, R
Sampling rate : 48 KHz
Delay : 1197
Video0 delay : -80

Many thanks.

Comments

Wolfgang S. wrote on 7/26/2005, 3:54 AM

No, there is no way around that. Vegas is not able to import AC3 at all. If you need that, you could take the much cheaper Ulead Videostudio, for example.

rendez2k wrote on 7/26/2005, 3:59 AM

OK, many thanks! Surely as a professional editing application though, this shouldn't be an issue?! I notice it won’t import standard m2v files either!

TheHappyFriar wrote on 7/26/2005, 5:23 AM

try rename the m2v to mpg, that might work.

ac3 is a finished audio format. It should never need to be imported. If you edit & re-render it you'll get crappy results.

you can get ac3-wav converters out there though. That would be MUCH better then editing/importing the AC3 (I do the same thing with mpeg's I need to edit: I bring them in to tmpgenc plus 2.5 & convert them to an AVI.)

ScottW wrote on 7/26/2005, 5:45 AM

Renaming the m2v to mpg is unlikely to work. m2v files are elementary streams, and Vegas will only touch program streams.

--Scott

rendez2k wrote on 7/26/2005, 5:54 AM

Fair point TheHappyFriar, but in one case, I need to import MPEGs from a Sony DVD cam and guess what, the sound is in AC3! I take it when you say AC3 converters, I need to demulitplex the file first - or is there an automatic utility?

ScottW wrote on 7/26/2005, 6:10 AM

DVD2AVI will do this for you, or I believe VIrtualDub will as well. Or you could use VOBedit and demultiplex to individual streams and then use BeSweet to convert the AC3 into WAV (be sure to get the BeSweet GUI along with BeSweet).

trock wrote on 7/26/2005, 6:20 AM

There is also a great little free tool called AC3tool that will convert AC3 to wav with all sorts of options for conversion and an easy interface. And there are many free demuxers around. I like Xmuxer.

B.Verlik wrote on 7/26/2005, 11:19 AM

Try www.ac3dec.com

Liam_Vegas wrote on 7/26/2005, 11:51 AM

Professional editors really don't edit from MPEG as a source media type. It's just not an appropriate medium to work with as far as editing is concerned.

It is a great shame that people buy DVD camcorders in the expectation they will be a great way of capturing videos for editing. The fact is they are not.

There are several tools that will provide better ways of working with MPEG as a source format than Vegas. Ulead is one of them.

farss wrote on 7/26/2005, 4:02 PM

We've tried ULead with the files from DVD cam, even harder than trying to do it with Vegas. One of the problems is the additional data blocks in the ac3 stream. Apart from anything else that causes BeSweet etc to loose the plot, first you need to run the ac3 through ac3fix.

Bob.

trock wrote on 7/26/2005, 4:23 PM

Womble's MPEG Video Wizard does a great job for those occasional times when you need to edit existing .vobs or mpeg files with smart-recompressing (only recompressing transition or filter-type changes).

It also enables you to edit both the video and AC3 audio without demuxing and it includes a lot of filters, transitions and titles. The only thing I've found it can't do is add fades to AC3 audio tracks. If you do that it converts them to .mpa's.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 7/27/2005, 4:42 AM

TMPgenc JUST came out with an mpeg editing program. That may be of interest to someone here.

B.Verlik wrote on 7/27/2005, 11:34 AM

TMPGEnc has always had some basic mpeg editing capabilties. I downloaded the newest version and I still don't think it will handle ac3 files. (I have used it for some basic cuts and patches and it works fine for the video part.)

TheHappyFriar wrote on 7/27/2005, 7:39 PM

No, I mean it's a special mpeg-editing only program, not TMPgenc Free or Plus (I just bought plus).

it's designed to cut on any frame, not just i-frames. If someone buys the AC3 plugin I assume you could use Vegas ac3 files no problem (but I also find it easy to take the finished mpeg choped, sliced & diced with audio into Vegas, then render the audio out as AC3)

B.Verlik wrote on 7/27/2005, 8:22 PM

Sorry about that. Now that you mention it, I do remember briefly looking at that, when I up-dated my TMPGEnc encoder. It would do .ac3 stereo (if you bought the plugin) but not .ac5.1.
I have used the item in my link (above) and it did transfer the sound back to an .avi, but I've never bothered actually editing any of my DVDs, once made. The few edits I made with my regular TMPGEnc were also done with mpeg sound in TMPGEnc. These were just tests to see if it worked. (it did)
I would love to be able to save mpegs and then stitch them together later into one long program, but not being able to stitch the .ac3s together means I have to save the sound as wavs and then place them back to back and render to an .ac3 and hope for the best. Hmmm, I wonder if this new mpeg tool will stitch .ac3s together?