Why has DVD Architect failed to pick up audio?

[Mike Green]

Funny that you mentioned Nero, John; just the other day I was set to give an intriguing-sounding product of theirs a try, “Nero Multimedia Suite.” Yet during the installation it required three very strange components to go along for the ride, and that’s when I backed off. (Yes, I was skeered.)

Thank you, gentlemen, for your marvelous insight.

Rob, I am not that familiar with Architect, so I simply let the program take care of its job under whatever default settings it happened to have. After you asked whether the program was set for AC-3, I bumbled within to check. There was nothing audio-related under “Options > Preferences,” as far as I could see, but under “File > Properties” for a nonexistent project, the program was default-set at AV-3 Stereo. It only had two other options, “PCM Stereo,” and the Surround version of AC-3.

And John, I second Tom Keane’s enthusiasm for your having pointed out the promising codec program. (How thoughtful of you to have inserted the graphic, too.) I’m not at the whiz-kid stage to really know what to do with such a thing, alas; I can check the video file’s codec, but then what — would I be able to understand that Architect says “Buzz off” the the codec? (Perhaps I shouldn’t sell this GSpot short; it may turn out to be pretty nicely explanatory. Shame on me, as a man, for selling any GSpot short.)

Since you mentioned “MiniDV cameras should be using PCM audio,” that gave me an idea for a little experiment. I changed the audio property on the new DVD Architect project to “PCM Stereo,” and then inserted the gigantic .AVI file, the raw footage that was transferred from my camera. I clicked on preview, but no, darn it, the audio still was dead.

I posted this question elsewhere (greedy brain-picking zombie that I am), and got the clue that perhaps the way I captured the footage was the issue. And yes, it was the first time that I simply plugged the camera into the computer, and allowed whatever Microsoft program that popped up to do the job. (Rather than going through a third party program or contraption, as I have done in the past.) If this rests at the root of the issue, then I am alarmed that the program designers have refrained from making their products as user-friendly as possible. (It was just a basic video capture, after all. The “oh shucks” untinkered end result should have been invited to any club within the computer.)

[John Rofrano]

[Mike Green] “I posted this question elsewhere (greedy brain-picking zombie that I am), and got the clue that perhaps the way I captured the footage was the issue. And yes, it was the first time that I simply plugged the camera into the computer, and allowed whatever Microsoft program that popped up to do the job. (Rather than going through a third party program or contraption, as I have done in the past.) If this rests at the root of the issue, then I am alarmed that the program designers have refrained from making their products as user-friendly as possible. (It was just a basic video capture, after all. The “oh shucks” untinkered end result should have been invited to any club within the computer.)”

You should be connecting your camera to your computer via the IEEE 1394 Firewire port via a firewire cable. Then you should use Vegas to capture your footage.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

[Rob Franks] “But I’m not so sure (and let me be clear that I have not tested this)DVDa has the ability to CREATE a ac3 file from from nothing but a couple a wav files (or similar).”

OK, I got my DVD Architect working again and I just tested this on a DV AVI file with PCM audio and the resulting VOB file has AC3 audio in it. So DVD Architect will definitelyconvert whatever audio format you drop into it, to Digital Dolby AC3.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com