Begging for help with non playing ac3 mkv files....

[sadsack]

Hi all,


I have given up on the search for an answer to this, and was hoping that a guru of some form could at least shed some light as to what is going on.


I have one or two mkv's that are causing nothing but grief..... (I am only concerned with one at the moment).

both show the same problem, no audio at all.

one of them which is "Penguins.of.Madagascar.Operation.Search.And.Rescue.2014.DVDrip.x264.AC3-MiLLENiUM_ac3.mkv works fine via USB on LG tv but on my boys TV it's a no go.
All other files avi's mp4's and mkv's work fine on his TV, I just don't understand what it is with this one file.
I did think to just run it through popcorn again and remake the mkv, remove all compression, but that made no difference.
so I tried "Orcas Fix" but that made no difference.
I have included two Media info printouts hoping that someone could see what the problem is.



the first is the problem file:

General
Unique ID : 225116574846914823443271249733203068640 (0xA95BE010394E8184A59E6EB6596906E0)
Complete name : I:\To Transfer\Penguins.Of.Madagascar.Operation.Search.and.Rescue.2014.DVDRip.x264.AC3-MiLLENiUM.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 2
File size : 1.44 GiB
Duration : 1h 58mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 743 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2014-08-02 20:23:54
Writing application : mkvmerge v7.0.0 ('Where We Going') 32bit built on Jun 9 2014 15:08:34
Writing library : libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.1
DURATION : 01:58:38.048000000
NUMBER_OF_FRAMES : 222439
NUMBER_OF_BYTES : 398610688
_STATISTICS_WRITING_APP : mkvmerge v7.0.0 ('Where We Going') 32bit built on Jun 9 2014 15:08:34
_STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC : 2014-08-02 20:23:54
_STATISTICS_TAGS : BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 1h 58mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 260 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 40.0 Mbps
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 400 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.183
Stream size : 1.04 GiB (72%)
Writing library : x264 core 142 r2431 ac76440
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=4 / deblock=1:1:1 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=0.40:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=18 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=10 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / slices=4 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=1 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=0 / keyint=23 / keyint_min=1 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=23 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=19.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=40000 / vbv_bufsize=30000 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=vbr / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:0.60
Default : Yes
Forced : No
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 1h 58mn
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 448 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 380 MiB (26%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

And this is the one that plays fine:

General
Unique ID : 217384076292296185667443221102384046600 (0xA38AA67345EFA8F686297AA757BAE208)
Complete name : I:\To Transfer\lego.star.wars.the.yoda.chronicles.race.for.the.holocrons.720p.hdtv.x264-w4f.mkv
Format : Matroska
Format version : Version 4 / Version 2
File size : 613 MiB
Duration : 22mn 55s
Overall bit rate : 3 741 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2014-06-21 02:13:32
Writing application : mkvmerge v6.0.0 ('Coming Up For Air') built on Jan 20 2013 09:52:00
Writing library : libebml v1.3.0 + libmatroska v1.4.0

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 5 frames
Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration : 22mn 55s
Bit rate : 3 282 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.149
Stream size : 538 MiB (88%)
Writing library : x264 core 142 r2431 ac76440
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / lookahead_threads=2 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=18.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : A_AC3
Duration : 22mn 55s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 384 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 63.0 MiB (10%)
Language : English
Default : Yes
Forced : No

Text
ID : 3
Format : UTF-8
Codec ID : S_TEXT/UTF8
Codec ID/Info : UTF-8 Plain Text
Language : English
Default : No
Forced : No

now as far as I can see, there is no difference in the audio, so why wouldn't it play. Popcorn won't convert AC3 down to stereo, this may have helped, as I don't need to re-encode the video.

I then thought about using popcorn to pull out the video and audio and then to change the container to mp4... (I haven't a clue how to do this without re-encoding).

I did a quick rip with popcorn of the audio and video and put them through mkvmerge but lowered the audio bitrate thinking that could be the problem, but it's still a no go.

I could really do with a bit of guidance on this one chaps, especially if groups start to bring out more files like this.

I have heard some good things about XMedia Recode, but some say the video becomes choppy after changing the audio, (then again they may have re-encoded the video as well by mistake and forgot to mention it).

and help or guidance would be very much appreciated chaps, especially as to why it refuses to play audio, and if / how converting to mp4 might help.

thanks chaps....
sadsack.


Well after scouring my boys mkv's I have come to the conclusion that ac3 either will or won't...... but AAC is perfect, as is mp3. also found one avi where the audio is also dead (that to just happens to be ac3.

but just to let you chaps know i did a quick convert using the above software xmedia (available as portable version) worked well. (converting ac3 to mp3 - pity it wont convert to 320 though).

and replies / advice still welcome chaps, is there anything that will convert ac3 to aac and still keep the ac3 as a second audio channel..

cheers and if you are.. thanks for reading.
sadsack

[scdas141]

Hi sadsack..

I am not very encoding-savvy, but I would like to put in my 2-bits..

1. Even tho this is no way connected with ur audio encoding problem, the most problems that I encountered were connected to malware .. Are u sure ur pc is clean ??

2. Also you can try this helpful thread that I found here http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/3...rom-AC3-to-AAC..

[scdas141]

Do try out this thread above at videohelp.com dude, it really hits your nail on the head!!

[zero66]

play with vlc player or convert with convertxtodvd

[Phuket]

thanks for the link very good info

[sadsack]

Thanks for the info and links chaps... and I'm very sorry for the late reply.

It does seem now, that ac3 or any other type of audio apart from aac or mp3 just will not play on my boys blaupunkt tv. It's just one of those situations where I wished I had an i7 980x to do some fast encoding....