Star Wars -- Looking for Editing Help

OK, now I'm even closer. Through much trial and error, I discovered that by hitting Select Reference, MPEG Wizard will output with ac3 even with the non-original ac3 file present. Wonderful!!! I'm starting to love this program. The final hurdle is, although the files with original 5.1 .ac3 stay in tact, the encoded .ac3 file remains silent. Wizard accepts it into the timeline, plays it in preview but only silence upon output.

I know that when they get the ac3 encoder onboard, this will most probably work, but I feel there just must be a way to take a stereo wav file and make it into 5.1 (compatible, not mixed) .ac3 so that Wizard likes it enough to output it with the rest of the project. btw, File Properties show it as a 6 channel Dolby AC-3 file.

Any more suggestions? Once again minion, many thanks for pointing us in the direction of Womble's MPEG Wizard.

 

The Only Program i know of that can encode a sterio Wav file to Dolby 5.1 AC3 is "Sony Vegas Video 4/5/6" as it has a 5.1 Mixer and Dolby Encoder and it is the Only AC3 encoder I use.....

 

Minion - I have now used Vegas 6 and output an .ac3 audio file. MPEG Wizard doesn't even like this. For some reason, Wizard doesn't like anything except original 5.1 ac3 tied (or embedded) to a vob file. Maybe there is some way I can output to mpg and ac3 files to vob and then import them into Wizard. But I don't know of any way to create a vob file other than actually outputting to a dvd and then reimporting.

 

Did you encode to Dolby 5.1 in Vegas ??? Because it is Natural to Not be able to Mix Dolby Stereo and Dolby 5.1 in the same File...

I do not know why you are Haveing some of these Problems because I have No Problems Mixing and Matching Mpeg-2 and AC3 files and being able to keep the Dolby AC3...The only Times I ever Loose the Dolby AC3 is If i add an effect or Transition or If I try to Mix Dolby 5.1 and Dolby Stereo...as Long as the audio files are Consistant and the Video Files are Consistant (Meaning the Same Format, Resolution,Frame rate ect) then i don"t have Problems Mixing and Matching Mpeg-2 and AC3 files....

Maybe you should Try working with Just Seperate Audio and Video Files...So take the Vob file and demux it into seperate audio and Video Files and Just use seperate AC3 audio and M2V Video files and not any VOB files and then Try Joining them because I allways work with Seperate audio and Video Files and never have problems like this..and Of Course make sure both Audio Files are 5.1..

Good luck

 

I am pretty sure that my problem does lie in the 5.1 vs. stereo problem. That is why I was so excited about Vegas, I thought that it could make a 5.1 effective file from the stereo wave. Mind you, I don't expect to be making a 5.1 mixed surround from this stereo wav, just a 5.1 compatible file that will integrate with the others in Wizard.

In Vegas, I selected 5.1 and saw the 5.1 pan/mixer tool and then rendered as .ac3 but when this is imported into Womble Wizard, the properties still read as 2 channel stereo. So, am I doing this wrong in Vegas? Do I need to import 5 or 6 of these files and select each one as 5.1 and then combine them all out to a ac3? I guess I will try this tonight when I get back to my system.

 

OK...In Vegas go to "File" to "properties" and under the "Audio" Tab select "5.1 Surround" and "48000hz" then Load your Wav file to the Timeline...

Now go to "File" to Render as" and select "Dolby AC3" and you should see under the "Save as Type" menu a "Description" menu were it should say:

"Audio: 448 Kbps, 48,000 Hz, 5.1 Surround
Main Audio Service: Complete main
Use this setting for 5.1 Surround DVD soundtracks."

then render the file...Make sure that you select the Correct Bitrate because your VOB file might have Dolby 5.1 but useing a 384kbs Bitrate were Vegas encodes to 5.1 useing 448kbs so if your VOB file uses a different Bitrate then click the "Details" button in the render dialog and change the Bitrate to 384kbs.....

Cheers

 

SUCCESS!!! SUCCESS!!! I can't believe it, it works! I can finally do what I want and fix the films I want to fix. I used the same .wav file 6 times, making each one a single channel file. Used the 5.1 surround pan tool to allocate each track to a different surround channel, then output as the 5.1 ac3 file. MPEG Wizard took it and processed it alongside the original VOBs with their onboard 5.1 audio. It's Seamless!!!

Minion - I can't thank you enough for pointing me in the direction of Womble MPEG Wizard and Sony Vegas. The two together allow me to do what I haven't been able to do since the Laserdisc days 7 years ago. If there's anything I can do for you, let me know. Now I'm off to tons of re-editing.

 

Well I"m glad you finally got everything working the way you want it to....
If you ever need any help with anything let me know...

Cheers