New user, probably a very common situation

gmichae · Post by **gmichae** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 5:59 am

Hi... I've pretty much exhausted myself trying to find a solution to this problem, and have decided to pose it to the masses.

Here goes:
I had VS7ESD and now have VS8 ESD. I have applied all relevant patches (those that actually work - *cough Daylight savings)

I have a MSI TV@nywhere analog capture card that I use to capture TV shows on my computer. I have a Giga-byte KT7A-RAID motherboard, running an Athlon XP 2600+ CPU with 1GB of DDR PC2700 RAM. I am running Windows XP Pro SP2 with all the latest patches and updates. I have a Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum sound card and an Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti 4800 SE video card.

Needless to say, I think that I have a fairly decent system for what I am trying to accomplish.

When I try to create a DVD from one of my recorded TV shows, I cannot for the life of me get sound. I know that the MPEG file is recorded in AC-3 format. I have tried downmixing the audio to WAV format in MPEG Layer-2 and still does not work.

I have changed as many of the settings as I can think of to try to get this working, and nothing seems to allow me to create a DVD that actually has sound. When I look at the DVD with Windows Explorer, I find that there are only files contained in the Video_TS folder, and nothing in the Audio_TS folder.

Is my only recourse to buy the AC-3 plug-in, and pray that that solves my audio problem? I have no issue with spending the $30 if that takes care of the issue, but...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:25 am

Try the following:

Download this AC-3 Filter.

Edit your UVS.INI file by adding the following in the [VIODRIVER] section:

PlayAC3=1
DecodeAC3=1

gmichae · Post by **gmichae** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:35 am

Not to make myself sound slightly inept, but what do I need to do with the filter? Is it just a codec?

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:46 am

Close -- it's a filter, it can only decode, not encode.

Ulead's AC-3 plugin does both.

gmichae · Post by **gmichae** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:49 am

And by installing this filter, what would I be able to accomplish? I'm just trying to determine whether it would be necessary to buy the AC-3 plug-in if that's going to end up being my solution.

Will I need to run the install for the filter, and then try to create a audio file from my mpeg via another program, or will I be able to pull the audio off of it using VS8 and decode it down to mpeg?

THoff · Post by **THoff** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 6:55 am

What this should let you accomplish is to open media in UVS that contains AC-3 audio. Follow the installation instructions provided with the filter, make the INI file changes, and try opening the MPEG file with the AC-3 audio.

Also, regarding the empty AUDIO_TS folder, that's normal. That folder would be used for an audio-only DVD, and is usually put on the disk for compatibility.

gmichae · Post by **gmichae** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 7:07 am

Filter installed, uvs.ini file modified - still nothing...

all of my volume settings are up, and unmuted. I can't understand why this is such a difficult thing to do.... thanks for helping me THoff.

gmichae · Post by **gmichae** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 1:58 am

FYI.... I purchased the AC-3 Plug-in, and that appears to resolve my issue. Not sure why I couldn't downmix the recorded video to a lesser format, but it is a moot point now.