AC3 procedures

Extracting AC3 tracks from a VOB

Important note: vstrip0.6a contained in the rippack has another command line structure. You can either use it according to the tools of trade section or get the old vstrip0.5d_css from the download page. 

Of course you'll need the vob files already on your hard disk. If you haven't do so, read the ripping guide on how to do it. Then start up the mpeg2avi GUI:

Select the path of vstrip.exe, the input file and the Output file in section 1. For those who still don't know what a stream list is I suggest you read the FAQ. ALWAYS USE A STREAMLIST. I can't tell you that enough. Too many times I see people extract soundtracks and split files with Mpegutils. Nothing against it but it's just not fully capable of the tasks at hand. You'll lose a couple of kilobytes every time you start working on a new vob, whereas vstrip - only when you use a streamlist - will work perfectly. For all you command line freaks, note the command line in the GUI, that's how it's supposed to look. Select your language and leave the rest. Make sure you've marked Enable Demux Mode, Audio, Strip Everything and Process Input List, uncheck the rest.

When you press Strip My VOB a dos box will pop up and it'll take 10-20 minutes till the process is complete. After the process is complete, you'll have the soundtrack in Dolby digital format on your hard disk.

An alternative way is to select Direct Stream Copy in Audio processing in the FlaskMpeg Output options. So if you use FlaskMpeg that's probably the even better solution. 

The bbTools way

Start a dos prompt. Then type "bbdmux input.vob 0xbd output.ac3 0x8Y", where Y is the number of the soundtrack you want to get. Unfortunately there's no way to use a streamlist, so you'll have to copy the files together at the end. The best tool to do that is FileMerger. 

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Go to the command prompt. Then use ac3decode to convert the AC3 to WAV. A sample command line: ac3dec audioout.ac3 -gain 250 audio.wav. If you like you can also compress directly to Mp3. Note that compressing to DivX audio is not possible, even if the codec shows up. To downsample to 44.1Khz use the -44100 flag - for instance: ac3dec audioout.ac3 -gain 250 -44100 audio.wav. 

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Alternative way

Use the I-media Multiple File source in Graphedit. You'll have to download Graphedit, run the register.bat file and then add the I-media filters. To do so, go to a command prompt and type "regsvr32 Multiple_MPEG2_Source.ax". This source works with Streamlist files so create a streamlist of your VOBs. Then start Graphedit, and add all the filters shown below (Graph - Insert Filter). All the filters can be shown under Direct Show Filters.

Feel free to use another splitter but the default MPEG2 splitter will only output the first audio track. You can of course also use the Intervideo Audio Decoder. If you want to preview if you have the right audio track simply connect the output of the Audio decoder to Default Direct Sound Device. For more info about Graphedit  please take a look at the Graphedit guide.

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