first attempt at a dvd rip - sound re-encoding help

[atconc]

Hi,

I've just finished my first attempt at ripping a dvd, I used the guide on this site and have managed to create a 2pass XviD avi of the DVD I was ripping which has come out with good video quality.

When it came to the audio the only option avaliable in FlaskMPEG (0.6 preview) was PCM audio. Of course this sounds good but the 2 hour movie is almost 2 gig in size! I haven't had any trouble playing back avi's with mp3 or ac3 sound, so I assumed I'd be able to use the same codecs to encode, so I let it carry on thinking I could re-encode the sound in a compressed format with Virtualdub later. But when I load the file into virtualdub and try to set an output audio format I still only have the option of PCM audio. What do I need to do to be able to encode audio in a compressed format (preferably one that supports surround sound)? I'm guessing i need to download some codecs, but where from and which ones? I've had some bad experiences of codec packs so I'd rather download the individual codecs if at all possible

Tia for any help

[dodge]

open the .vob files that you ripped in dvd2avi and save project this will take about 5 mins and leave you with an .ac3 file

now open the xvid you in nanodub, select video directstream copy

then select audio .ac3 and load in the .ac3 you just got from dvd2avi now select file and save.
(thats what i would do anyway.)

[atconc]

thanks, I extracted the audio with DVD2AVI like you suggested and used VirtualDubMod to replace the audio stream, it worked really wel, thanks

[Qyd]

being able to playback codecs doesn't necessarily mean you have the encoding part installed on your system (the "co" in codec).
Frauenhofer Mp3 is normaly installed on all windows OS's, but if you want to encode mp3 at decent bitrates you need the "proffesional" version, or a good hack, like Radium Mp3 codec.

[atconc]

is there a free ac3 codec around, just out of interest

[Qyd]

you don't realy need an ac3 codec to produce ac3 sound from dvd; you can just save the audio strean from the vobs with direct stream copy
you can use BeSweet (and BeSweetGUI) to convert between wav/mp3/ac3/mp2
for ac3 playback in avi, use ac3filter