Studio 9 - Pinnacle says I need 'their' AC3 codec???

[Wontonman]

I have the AC3 codec and need it to process several mpg's for a real estate video presentation. These mpgs were made with a digital video camera and the audio is AC3. Gspot tells me that I have the codecs required for each of these mpgs. But the audio won't play in Studio 9. The mpgs play fine in Windows Media Player.

On live chat with Pinnacle, I was told that I need to purchase their codec pack - that their AC3 codec was unique to their software.

Virtualdub won't open the files. It states "no video frames found in mpeg file".

TMPGEnc wants a separate audio track (separate from the video track).

Do I have to purchase the Pinnacle Pack???

I hope all of this made sense.

[drfsupercenter]

I never purchased it, IIRC it's a free download if you legally registered your software.

The other option is to demux the audio using something like TMPGEnc (not the DVD author), then convert to PCM or MP3 using BeSweet/BeLight, and remux using TMPGEnc. Pinnacle should handle PCM or MP3 without an additional codec package.

[Wontonman]

I never purchased it, IIRC it's a free download if you legally registered your software.

The other option is to demux the audio using something like TMPGEnc (not the DVD author), then convert to PCM or MP3 using BeSweet/BeLight, and remux using TMPGEnc. Pinnacle should handle PCM or MP3 without an additional codec package.

Thank you drfsupercenter. Yes, I did legally register the software but their tech support insists that I have to purchase the codec from them.

I have never done anything more than just converting an avi into an mpeg with TMPGEnc so I am not familiar with demuxing. Something new to learn! But some days I feel as though I am getting too old to learn new tricks. lol

Off to find out how.

Thanks again!

[drfsupercenter]

I registered my Pinnacle, and it let me download something similar for free. But perhaps they changed their policy.

You said it was an AVI file? I thought you were talking about a DVD, as that's the most common place to find AC-3. In that case, download VirtulDubMod (free), and open your file, click on Streams, then Streams List, and then click Demux. Save it somewhere in your hard drive.

Then run it through BeSweet/BeLight as I stated earlier, and it should give you a PCM WAV file. If all you need is to edit it, a WAV file should suffice. All you have to do now is re-open the video in VDubMod, then disable the AC3 stream, and add the WAV stream.

Let me know if I gave you too much info at once!

[paglamon]

You said it was an AVI file?

No,he did not.

I have the AC3 codec and need it to process several mpg's for a real estate video presentation. These mpgs were made with a digital video camera and the audio is AC3.

@Wontonman,see this
At the extreme bottom it says:

The import/editing of DVD titles with Dolby Digital (AC3) audio, files with AC3 audio, DivX files, MPEG-4 files and output in Dolby Digital Audio format require Advance Codec Pack, which can be activated inside Studio at additional cost.