[bold]5.1 surround sound and dvd shrink[\bold]

Curious question...

I just hooked up my Panasonic HS930 surround sound system, which comes with those 5 DVD changer things. Any case, I've been burning rather gracefully for the last few dvds with no sound issue whatsoever. Brilliant reproduction and sound...After putting together my sound system and trying to give the 5.1 channel a test drive i get nothing. I get the "background sound," birds chirping and all goings on but no speech or anything in the foreground. I don't know if this is a DVD shrink issue or an issue with the surround sound system and its logistics.

I can reroute the sound so that it comes through the tv rather than the 5.1, but i'd rather use the surround if possible. Also the sound is there but its so faint that unless you have it at the highest volume u'd never even realize there is something....

Background:

my ACS for 5.1 is always checked. I switch off the latter channels with commentary or other languages....and depending on the compression rate, I also "still image" most extra nonessential material....Beyond that its normal.....

any ideas would be appreciated, either on the shrink side or surround sound system if you got em...


Thanks

 

I don't know what could be wrong with your surround sound but I'll give you my thoughts on Shrink...

If you are checking only the AC3 5.1 audio stream then that is all you should get. You should not hear background noises.

If you do select 5.1 then make sure you unselect all the other streams. Sometimes players may get confused if there is more than one audio stream. Removing just some of them without remapping the remainder does not help things. You can remap with Shrink though.

Preview the audio stream by starting the main movie in the Shrink preview window, then right click within the preview window. Select "Audio" then select the 5.1 audio stream. This simply checks if the 5.1 is actually available on the main movie title.

If it is, then make sure that it is the only one selected for the main movie. Do this by clicking on the "Main Movie" which should be right above the Preview window in the DVD Structure window.

To remap the remaining audio and subpicture streams (if any) go to Edit -> Preferences -> Output Files tab and check the "Logical remapping of enabled streams" check box.
While you are at it, go to the "Stream Selections" tab and make sure your Audio Coding type is set to "All Types".

You do not need to include AC3 Stereo streams when 5.1 is available, even if you don't have 5.1 playback equipment the 5.1 will be folded down to 2 channel in this case.

You may want to copy the movie, keeping ALL the audio streams. Maybe do it in ISO mode to if you are not doing that already... Try to duplicate the original as closely as possible and see if that makes a difference.

I wish I had more to add, but this random stuff is all I can think of. Usually Shrink does a good job with the audio streams.
Frank

 

Thanks man....I've been going through the preferences trying to see what is relevent...I'm not coming into this technologically blind, so I figure its something that might be built off my surround system...Do you use a surround sound system that is based through DVD player? For all i know is the encoding from DVD shrink might be incompatible with the software on the dvd player...

Does remapping the streams do anything beyond setting them in a certain order? Been meaning to look at that in a little more depth...

the 5.1 channels i pretty much the only thing i have selected, and the fact that it works when it folds it to a 2 channel confuses me....you would think its something on my side if there was no sound.....

i'm going to fiddle some more, but it takes so long to test your attempt that its a bit annoying...

thanks once again

 

i figured it out.....it wasn't dvd shrink as was my original perception....it was my pain in the ass dvd/surround sound system....it couldn't hack the 5.1 channel as it was re-encoded by Shrink...so i basically had to have it mix the 2 ch with the dolby digital rather than have the dolby digital acommodate both into one entity...basically i punched a bunch of buttons till it worked....words of wisdom "shift 2ch mix" is the key....

thanks for all your help but in the end it turns out the manual wasn't detailed enough and i didn't punch enough buttons..... lol