No Audio

[theninjaman43]

I have Been attempting to rip the movie off of my Blu-ray for the film (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), and I have been getting the full movie, but without Audio. I don't know if this would have anything to do with it, but I will mention that I have redeemed the most recent beta key. Does anyone have an answer to why I wouldn't be getting any sound?

[Woodstock]

Two ways to get "no audio". One is to tell MakeMKV to only select certain languages, and the disk does not have them (rare), or your player not interpreting the kind of audio the disk came with (more often).

Have you told MakeMKV to only rip certain languages? Usually, this happens with saying "I only want English" (or similar languages) and a disk does not have that language on it. It's best to leave the language blank for most disks, so you get whatever is there, and can select it later.

Have you looked at the file with a more capable player (VLC is popular for this), and seen what languages are available?

[drbubba]

I'm having the same issue. Trying to rip Mongol: The Rise of Gengis Khan, get the entire movie but no audio track. The default language is Mongolian with "always-on" English subtitles. I've tried opening the ripped .mkv file in VLC but the process stalls and freezes. When I try to transcode the .mkv file to .mp4 using Handbrake, under the "audio" tab the track lists "none." I've played the blu-ray in a dedicated blu-ray player and the soundtrack w/ subtitles is present. The preferred language in MakeMKV was set to "English," so I'm gonna try a re-rip with the default language set to "Mongolian" and see what happens.

[zeuspaul]

I have had issues with audio. No audio, or garbled audio and also some other audio issues. I am still new to the game.

I have tried reencoding with Handbrake, VLC and dBpoweramp with several different settings. Then I playback in VLC, Panasonic UB420 and a Sony s1700. None of them have consistently played back audio correctly all the time.

dBpoweramp Video has given me the best results using h264 and AAC and the Sony has been more reliable with the audio but sometimes it just freezes if it doesn't like a file.

Then I purchased a Zidoo 9X pro and it has played back correctly all of my dBpoweramp h264 AAC and likely other files so far. It also reads all my SSDs, internal 2/12 SSDs as well as the portables, the Panasonic does that too. I haven't had it long enough to know for sure but as for now it is my go to media player. It looks like it is going to save me a lot of work making different files for different players. I am going to standardize on dBpoweramp h264 AAC for now. I'll consider h265 for its much smaller size files but haven't tried that yet on the Zidoo.

[dcoke22]

I am going to standardize on dBpoweramp h264 AAC for now. I'll consider h265 for its much smaller size files but haven't tried that yet on the Zidoo.

I find that two-pass h.264 produces pretty good results with file sizes only slightly bigger than what h.265 produces. Here's a previous discussion on encoding: Reducing file size while keeping features

[zeuspaul]

I find that two-pass h.264 produces pretty good results with file sizes only slightly bigger than what h.265 produces. Here's a previous discussion on encoding: Reducing file size while keeping features

The two pass example in the above link produces a 4.4 GB file from 22 GB or about 20% of the original. Using dBpoweramp and h264 AAC constant quality (the default) I get files ranging from 20% to 25% of the original. h265 gave me 90% +/- reduction but I didn't spend much time experimenting with h265 because it is less compatible.

I have never done any pixel peeping so I don't know how much quality I have lost. However the viewing on my 65 inch plasma looks good to me.

My biggest issue is audio. With Handbrake I seem to always get stereo. I have tried a lot of settings but always end up with stereo even when it claims its creating surround.

With dBpoweramp and h264 AAC I usually get surround. One time I got stereo. There was a stereo box checked in MakeMKV and the stereo box was the first in the list. I unchecked the box and voila I got surround.

[dcoke22]

My biggest issue is audio. With Handbrake I seem to always get stereo. I have tried a lot of settings but always end up with stereo even when it claims its creating surround.

I think the Handbrake GUI defaults to AAC stereo output. On the Audio tab, you have to pick 5.1 for the Mixdown to get surround sound. I usually use AC3 for the codec, since it is well supported. I pick 5.1 for the mixdown, I leave the Sampe rate at Auto and pick 640 for the bitrate, which is the maximum AC3 supports. (This is all assuming the source has some kind of fancy lossless multichannel audio track or DTS audio. If it is an old movie with a mono or stereo sound track then I keep a stereo or mono mixdown.)

I don't have any experience with dBpoweramp, but if it works for you then keep going with it. There's no one right answer.

[zeuspaul]

I think the Handbrake GUI defaults to AAC stereo output. On the Audio tab, you have to pick 5.1 for the Mixdown to get surround sound. I usually use AC3 for the codec, since it is well supported. I pick 5.1 for the mixdown, I leave the Sampe rate at Auto and pick 640 for the bitrate, which is the maximum AC3 supports. (This is all assuming the source has some kind of fancy lossless multichannel audio track or DTS audio. If it is an old movie with a mono or stereo sound track then I keep a stereo or mono mixdown.)

I processed an mkv file using Handbrake and your recommended settings and I got surround! I processed the same file with the settings I had used and got stereo.

I used AAC and you use AC3
I used Dolby Surround mixdown and you use 5.1

One or both made the difference. ??

File sizes

original mkv..................25 GB.......reduction
HandBrake AC3..............3.6 GB.........85%
HandBrake AAC..............3.3 GB.........87%
dBpoweramp AAC...........2.7 GB.........89%
dBpoweramp 1 to 1.........3.0 GB.........88%

Compare HandBrake.png (120.27 KiB) Viewed 3667 times

[dcoke22]

Dolby Surround is a different, older thing than 5.1 channel mixdown.

If you choose AAC as the codec, I think you can also choose 5.1 (or 7.1) for the mixdown as well and get the surround sound you're looking for.

----

In your example, it seems your source file has a 5.1 channel, AC-3 audio track. Instead of re-encoding that, you could simple use the AC3 Passthru option for the Codec to copy, without re-encoding, the audio track from the source into your output.

If you wanted to change from AC-3 to AAC, then obviously you'd have to select AAC as the codec (and 5.1 as the mixdown).

[zeuspaul]

In your example, it seems your source file has a 5.1 channel, AC-3 audio track. Instead of re-encoding that, you could simple use the AC3 Passthrough option for the Codec to copy, without re-encoding, the audio track from the source into your output.

Working with another file (Amazing Spiderman 2) I tried several options in HandBrake choosing AC3 bitrate 640 mixdown 5.1 if there was the option. Passthrough did not provide an option.

Unfortunately I can't attach an image I spent a lot of time creating showing the results of the various tries. (Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached.)

HandBrake

Using DTS-HD and AC3 640 5.1 the file freezes my Sony s1700 but it is 6 channels.
Using DTS and AC3 640 5.1 I get stereo
Using AC3 5.1 passthrough I get 6 channels but it's the wrong audio. The audio is commentary.

dBpoweramp

The 1 to 1 (audio passthrough) is silent on the Panasonic UB420 but plays 5.1 on the Sony s1700
The AAC re-encode/transcode? plays 5.1 on both the Sony and the Panasonic.

I am waiting for an HDMI audio extractor so I can properly setup the Zidoo Z9X Pro. Hopefully it will have more universal capabilities.