NO AUDIO?... Read Here! (Summary in First Post) **UPDATED**

[Cavalicious]

- Both cores utilization droped to ~35%. bed.

I know this is a little off topic, but how do you monitor your CPU usage... I am new to OSX and not sure what is a good tool to monitor CPU usage down to each individual cores.

thanks.

I use Menu Meters

[loyalty_anchored]

Hey, to piggyback on to this - the sound cuts out for me on several disks as well, such as Annie Hall, Zoolander, and Star Wars III. It cuts out right after the beginning where it shows what movie studio the film is from (ex. Paramount, Fox, etc.). The video looks beautiful, but there is no audio whatsoever! I can run the same file through ffmpegx and get a Divx mp4 in an .avi file that has sound and video all the way through. Thanks to all for their continued work!!!

this raises an interesting point, alot of people seem to be pointing the finger at MTR being the cause of the dropped audio when encoding with handbreak/medifork... now what if the same VIDEO_TS folder ripped with MTR results in dropped audio using handbreak, but works just fine with FFMPEGX?

where does the finger get pointed?

[jbrjake]

this raises an interesting point, alot of people seem to be pointing the finger at MTR being the cause of the dropped audio when encoding with handbreak/medifork... now what if the same VIDEO_TS folder ripped with MTR results in dropped audio using handbreak, but works just fine with FFMPEGX?

where does the finger get pointed?

this raises an interesting point, alot of people seem to be pointing the finger at HB being the cause of the dropped audio when extracting with mactheripper... now what if the same DVD ripped with MTR results in dropped audio using handbreak, but works just fine ripped with AnyDVD?

where does the finger get pointed?

[loyalty_anchored]

jbrjake, did you mean to repost my same post? im assuming this was a mistake.

[rhester]

Best read his post again.

You are in a twisty little maze of passages, all different.

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all different.

You are in a little maze of twisty passages, all different.

Rodney

[loyalty_anchored]

vewy intewesting... its a fine line for sure, but your point is well taken

[jbrjake]

To clarify: pointing fingers is pointless, as there is plenty of blame to go around.

The way it seems to be shaping up, MTR has malformed output. But because the malformed output works in ffmpegx yet not handbrake, HB is obviously less forgiving. So you can blame HB for not being liberal enough with its input, and MTR for not being conservative enough with its output.

[loyalty_anchored]

very fair statement. i really hope MTR takes care of the "issue" soon! although now that we pretty much know what the "issue" is, we should not be as affected by it.

i for one am just going to rip everything in FULL DISK mode with MTR 2.66 from now on and hope that our theories are correct

[petvas]

The Audio problem is clearly a bug in Handbrake. MTR has NOTHING to do with this!
Just try using the mpeg4 encoder for ripping the DVD and it will work. That means that the H.264 encoder has apparently a bug.
The problem also occurs when ripping directly from a DVD...

Many times my iMac experiences the issue, so I put the DVD to my Macbook Pro and it works!!! Both machines are C2D running at 2,16GHz!!! Go figure!!!

[loyalty_anchored]

i must say i am starting to believe the same, i read some feedback that it was caused by MTR when it has to recreate the VOBs when ripping in MAIN FEATURE mode, but this is not true:

1- MTR 2.6.6 ripped FEATURE ONLY -> MF dropped audio
2- MTR 2.6.6 ripped FULL DISK -> MF dropped audio

this obviously has nothing to do with FULL MODE or MAIN FEATURE mode in MTR.

i am currently at work but i ripped the same disk with AnyDVD in parallels and it is now encoding on the OSX side in MF. i will have the results in the afternoon, i do have a feeling that it will go through fine without any dropped audio.

having said this, my testing does not by any means proove that MF is at fault, all it prooves is that you can get the dropped audio in FULL DISK mode as well as MAIN FEATURE mode... so the theory of MTR being at fault because it does not know how to re-create VOB files is out the window.

any ideas people?

[nightstrm]

If this happens to me when I try and use Handbrake to directly rip from the DVD itself, wouldn't that lend itself to something within the encoder messing up?

[rhester]

No...that would lend itself to you assuming your DVD is protected with nothing more than basic CSS, which hasn't been true of most commercial DVD releases in the past 3 years or so. The odds of a HandBrake-direct rip working at all these days are very, very small.

Rodney

[nightstrm]

The DVDs in question are the X-Files season sets, which were some of the first DVDs I received in 2000-2001, so I don't believe there is any special protection on them. I could be wrong about that though. Also, I have been able to use other programs (MPEG Streamclip) to encode the VOBs to MPEG4 without any issues.

Not trying to start anything, just trying to help determine exactly what the problem is.

[rhester]

So are we all.

What I know is this - to date, there has been no incident of a DVD having been run through AnyDVD first (the gold standard for Windows deprotection) experiencing any issues with audio loss. There have been incidents with MTR that were resolved by using AnyDVD as an interim shim. That suggests that the issue is strictly one of protection that is somehow being missed (or incorrectly removed) by MTR.

I realize there are other tools like ffmpegX that work fine with these 'problem' MTR rips, which suggests ffmpegX is much more tolerant of whatever the malformed input is.

If we could isolate what's wrong with the MTR rips, we could potentially make HandBrake more friendly to them, but for now we're still grasping at straws.

There has certainly been no solid evidence to date that HandBrake is incorrectly transcoding valid/correctly deprotected DVD streams.

Rodney

[nightstrm]

My understanding of all of this a bit shaky, but I will say that I always have to fix timecode breaks in MPEG Streamclip before I try to export the file to MPEG4 in order to get the complete title to encode. This is after the VOBs have been ripped with MtR 2.6.6 in Title Only mode.

I don't know if this would lend itself to anything, or if it is a normal thing. Figured I'd report it here in case it helped at all. I'm more than willing to help in anyway possible.

[petvas]

So are we all.

There has certainly been no solid evidence to date that HandBrake is incorrectly transcoding valid/correctly deprotected DVD streams.

Rodney

I am sorry but I will have to disagree with you in this one. For me it is evidence enough that if I take the same DVD and put it in my Macbook Pro, Handbrake works!
I have tried today with Star Wars the Phantom Menace. My iMac running Handbrake 0.8b2 had the issue, my Macbook Pro didnt!!! Of course there are also many DVDs that Handbrake can only succesfully rip with ffmpeg.

[rhester]

There has certainly been no solid evidence to date that HandBrake is incorrectly transcoding valid/correctly deprotected DVD streams.

I am sorry but I will have to disagree with you in this one. For me it is evidence enough that if I take the same DVD and put it in my Macbook Pro, Handbrake works!
I have tried today with Star Wars the Phantom Menace. My iMac running Handbrake 0.8b2 had the issue, my Macbook Pro didnt!!! Of course there are also many DVDs that Handbrake can only succesfully rip with ffmpeg.

So you're using the same software, on the same operating system, with the only difference being the hardware - one works, one doesn't, and therefore it's a HandBrake problem? How did you come to this conclusion?

Rodney

[Cavalicious]

Since I started this post, complaining about a specific DVD with specific settings..and a specific outcome. Let me close it by stating:

THE PROBLEM IS INDEED MTR R14d!

After more testing I have a perfect encoded rip by JUST using the SVN Handbrake.

Like jbrjake stated above; In an effort to overcome some of Sony's more "complicated" protection schemes, developers of MTR "broke" something. While other MPEG and h.264 encoders may encode a rip from MTR R14d, they are obliviously more forgiving.

Action items are one of two things (or both):

1. MTR to "correct" (using term lightly) what they they "broke" (again lightly), in order to be more "compatible."

2. If MTR is doing what is "needed" to combat the latest (and past) copy protection schemes, then it will be up to Handbrake (and any other encoding software) to understand whats "needed" and adapt.

That being said, My problem is solved (for the moment). So instead of hijacking a thread, if you have specific issues with specific DVDs; I suggest opening a new thread.

Thanks All,
~Cav

[petvas]

There has certainly been no solid evidence to date that HandBrake is incorrectly transcoding valid/correctly deprotected DVD streams.

I am sorry but I will have to disagree with you in this one. For me it is evidence enough that if I take the same DVD and put it in my Macbook Pro, Handbrake works!
I have tried today with Star Wars the Phantom Menace. My iMac running Handbrake 0.8b2 had the issue, my Macbook Pro didnt!!! Of course there are also many DVDs that Handbrake can only succesfully rip with ffmpeg.

So you're using the same software, on the same operating system, with the only difference being the hardware - one works, one doesn't, and therefore it's a HandBrake problem? How did you come to this conclusion?

Rodney

Its only a couple of DVDs that dont rip on my iMac but work on my Macbook Pro...

Most of the problematic DVDs dont work on both machines.

If the problem was the DVD itself, then Handbrake wouldnt be able to rip it using the ffmpeg encoder. With ffmpeg it ALWAYS works!
Its pretty obvious that the H.264 encoder causes the problem.

[rhester]

Its only a couple of DVDs that dont rip on my iMac but work on my Macbook Pro...

Most of the problematic DVDs dont work on both machines.

If the problem was the DVD itself, then Handbrake wouldnt be able to rip it using the ffmpeg encoder. With ffmpeg it ALWAYS works!
Its pretty obvious that the H.264 encoder causes the problem.

For those that don't rip on the iMac using H.264 - what is the symptom?

Rodney

[petvas]

I have also tried ripping these DVDs using DVDFab and AnyDVD on Windows. The symptom is always the same. Handbrake starts encoding at a good Bit Rate (approx. 25 fps) and when it reaches 1,35% it drops to 6-7fps. If I wait the approx. 4 hours then the film has no audio

[dynaflash]

One other thing you should all take note of, the type of dvd drive you have can (and for me has, on at least two occasions) make a difference.

I suggest reading this thread: http://www.ripdifferent.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=5097 over at the mtr forums ( you need to be registered on them, I believe). Since they are probably currently the foremost authorities on ripping for the mac.

If you dont want to register there, I will paraphrase parts of this post here from dvdrexer, one of the developers there regarding the [Censored] drives so common in Powerbooks and MacBooks:

I work for an Apple Service Provider/Mac Shop, and I see more problems from these drives than any other component of any Mac other than the Pro desktop.

He seems fairly qualified...

3) They generate RIP and burn errors in huge quantities compared to an internal Pioneer, NEC, Plextor, or other excellent quality drive

This is one of a list of 7 problems he sees with them.

There is alot more regarding this very subject if you do a search on their forums for "[Censored]". As a previous PowerBook and now MacBook Pro user I went ahead and bought an excellent Pioneer external firewire dvd drive and enclosure for a total of about 78 dollars. There are two disks (frankly, cant remember which ones right now) that I could not get mtr to rip using my internal [Censored] drive in my PowerBook. Popped em in the Pioneer drive and bang, ripped fine and encoded in HB no problem! I do not pretend to know the technical reasons for this, but I do know it worked.

That may possibly explain the reason why using a different machine worked, even if they were both [Censored], maybe different model numbers. Just an idea.

Now, if indeed, on the same machine, same drive, h.264 drops audio but ffmpeg doesnt, that is a clue for us and we will look into that as soon as we have time.

What I am trying to say is that there are a huge number of factors in trying to defeat copy protection, and that trying to narrow it down is like finding a needle in a haystack. If there is indeed a problem with HB we are looking into it as best we can. But it is very hard with dvd specific issues as developers do not have an inexhaustible supply of dvd's to test with, nor an inexhaustible supply of time with which to test.

HandBrakes Description:

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

I am not speaking for the development team, but personally I feel it is fair to remove the "Ripper" part of HandBrakes description with the new copy protection schemes we are seeing. Again, just my opinion.

One other thought to ponder which rhester alluded to. The windows version requires that you run a separate dvd ripper for windows for HB to work. Using the latest version of AnyDVD, they have had literally no audio drops and the windows version uses exactly the same HB core that the mac version uses. You be the judge.

[loyalty_anchored]

So instead of hijacking a thread, if you have specific issues with specific DVDs; I suggest opening a new thread.

Thanks All,
~Cav

sorry

[petvas]

If you remove the ripping part, then we will be needing more time to convert our DVDs...
Handbrake stands out from the rest because among others it can directly rip a DVD.

Handbrake is by far the best software available for the job, despite the issue we are discussing. The fact that is also free is fantastic. Others charge 30$ for sub par quality products...


For me the ffmpeg codec works 100% of the times. The H.264 doesnt.

Is this such a big difference in quality between the two codecs?

[dynaflash]

If you remove the ripping part, then we will be needing more time to convert our DVDs...
Handbrake stands out from the rest because among others it can directly rip a DVD.

Handbrake is by far the best software available for the job, despite the issue we are discussing. The fact that is also free is fantastic. Others charge 30$ for sub par quality products...


For me the ffmpeg codec works 100% of the times. The H.264 doesnt.

Is this such a big difference in quality between the two codecs?

Well, for now, we arent actually removing any part of the software, just removing the "Ripping" part of the description, we dont want to mislead people into thinking it is the be all end all of rippers. Dont worry, its current "ripping" ability will stay in tact.

I am, however, very curious about your findings that dropped audio using h.264 does not happen at all with mpeg4 using ffmpeg. Do I read you right on this ?