[mythtv-users] Archiving Shows to DVD

[Thomas Börkel]

HI!

Martin Bene wrote:

>>I have PAL and I always convert audio to AC3, because my Toshiba DVD 
>>player requires some switching in the menu, if I want to hear MPEG 
>>audio. So, converting to AC3 should not be restricted to NTSC.
> 
> Wierd. Any PAL DVD Player is required to support mpeg2 audio and it may
> optionally support ac3, but doesn't have to. Givedn this standard, you'd
> expect a player to actually play mpega audio without any fiddling
> around. But OK, that's what happens when reality meets standards.
> 
> So, a better solution would be: 
> 	1) let users specify their preferred audio format (mp2 or ac3)
> and
> 	2) allow transcoding if the preferred audio format isn't
> available in a recording.

Right. And it should be possible to specify the target bitrate (ffmpeg 
-ab switch).

>>You don't need mpg123 or madplay for conversion of MPEG audio to AC3. 
>>This is how I convert with ffmpeg alone:
>>ffmpeg -y -i "$1.mp2" -acodec ac3 -ab 224 "$1.ac3"
> 
> That's the first thing I had tried - didn't work. Only difference: the
> demuxed audio files are saved as *.mpa by projectx; looks like ffmpeg
> doesn't recognice the mp2 audio file with an .mpa extension but works
> just fine with the same file renamed to .mp2. Aaaarrrrgggghhh!!!

Try this:

ffmpeg -y -f mp3 -i "file.mpa" -acodec ac3 -ab 224 "file.ac3"

Thomas