trouble initialising audio on windows 7 (x64)

[AQUAR]

Note: This issue seems to have resolved itself and no action is warranted.


Some audio tracks that were decodable with ADM 2.6 (32 bit) are no longer decodable with ADM 2.7 (64 bit) on a win 7 OS.

The issue appears to be related to the bit rate of the audio track eg:
AC3 with a 448 Kb/s bit rate caused ADM 2.7 (x64) to flag an "trouble initialising audio" message.
DTS with a 1509 Kb/s bit rate caused ADM 2.7 (x64) to flag an "trouble initialising audio" message.

Obviously AC3 tracks with a lower bit rate (eg 192 Kb/s) work fine with ADM 2.7 (x64) - (I've not tested DTS with lower bit rates!).

Both audio's are decodable by ADM 2.6 (x86) (I thing lavcodec is being used here).
Because I have not tested against ADM 2.6 (x64) it might possibly be a 32 bit versus 64 bit item.



Is this an issue with the Linux ADM version?
Could windows enduser "someone else" see if this is a repeatable issue? 


   

[Jan Gruuthuse]

There are 2 flavours of Dolby:
- AC3, Dolby Digital, DD, AC-3, ATSC A/52, Dolby Surround AC-3, Dolby Stereo Digital, and Dolby SRD.
- E-AC3, Dolby Digital Plus, also known as Enhanced AC-3

not to speak of the others / newer
Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Digital Surround EX, Dolby Digital Live, Dolby AC-4, Dolby TrueHD

you did look at/tested with 'E-AC3-FiveDotOneChannelTest-bbcᴴᴰ.mkv'

[AQUAR]

These are just plain old AC3 audio tracks.
Test tracks I used were from different sources - some I recoded from DTS to AC3 myself.

Neither audio tracks on the FiveDotOneChannelTest will play on ADM2.7 (and they are lower bitrates too!).
Message "trouble initialising audio" appears.

Playback on VLC and windows media player produces no sound on either tracks.
Even if I use libavcodec with windows media player there is no sound.
IF I use MPC-HC the playback chokes on the EAC3 track but not on the MP2 track - still no sound output though.

Not sure if the "trouble initializing audio" with ADM here is related to that experienced with my audio tracks (they play fine in everything I have - except ADM). Maybe libavcodec just can't do it.
 

[Jan Gruuthuse]

AC3andE-AC3testVideo.7z 1 file, 8.19 MB in total ・ Will be deleted on 24 September, 2017
Download link: https://we.tl/4Eh05EhWYQ

test videos with 3 audio tracks 5.1  channels:
- AC3 5.1 384 Kbps, 448 Kbps, 640 Kbps: 3xAC3-5-1-384-448-640Kbps-BBC HD test card audio Test

- E-AC3 5.1 384 Kbps, 448 Kbps, 640 Kbps: 3xAC3-5-1-384-448-640Kbps-BBC HD test card audio Test

Load this video into avidemux:
3xAC3-5-1-384-448-640Kbps-BBC HD test card audio Test.mkv
Audio Menu enable only track One, 384 Kbps, play video (plays in ubuntu)
Audio Menu enable only track One, 448 Kbps, play video (plays in ubuntu)
Audio Menu enable only track One, 640 Kbps, play video (plays in ubuntu)

Load this video into avidemux:
3xE-AC3-5-1-384-448-640Kbps-BBC HD test card audio Test.mkv
all 3 tracks do play, do notice only showing up as
E-AC3, 6 chan, 128 kbps

present are

Code Select Expand

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : E-AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : A_EAC3
Duration                                 : 23s 616ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 384 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Frame rate                               : 187.500 fps (256 spf)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 1.08 MiB (16%)
Title                                    : E-AC3 384 Kbps
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
Format                                   : E-AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : A_EAC3
Duration                                 : 23s 616ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 448 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Frame rate                               : 187.500 fps (256 spf)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 1.26 MiB (19%)
Title                                    : E-AC3 448 Kbps
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

Audio #3
ID                                       : 4
Format                                   : E-AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : A_EAC3
Duration                                 : 23s 616ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 640 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Frame rate                               : 187.500 fps (256 spf)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 1.80 MiB (26%)
Title                                    : E-AC3 640 Kbps
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

[Jan Gruuthuse]

Seems detection or reporting video audio E-AC3 property is flawed?
the 3 separate videos do play in avidemux 2.7 ubuntu 16.04.3

3-E-ACvideos.7z 1 file, 4.66 MB in total ・ Will be deleted on 24 September, 2017
Download link https://we.tl/xsBGDPftQ2

3 separate video E-AC3
- 384 Kbps
- 448 Kbps
- 640 Kbps

So depending your testing different behaviour between windows and linux?

[AQUAR]

I will check these 3 samples to see how they behave on windows 7 (x64).

Checked: and all 3 have "trouble initializing audio" when trying to play the clips in ADM 2.7.

All 3 play with sound when using VLC.

When Mean re-appears on the forum he might shed some light on the audio initialisation issue.

[Jan Gruuthuse]

Or our resident developer eumagga0x2a

So "to flag an "trouble initialising audio" message" with higher bit rates windows only issue?

[AQUAR]

For sure!

If it really is a windows only issue, for all windows users, it might be difficult to track down.
Mean's Visual Studio based build root might prove useful.

[AQUAR]

Not sure what happened, but it plays all the troubled audio tracks now.
Except no sound for the FiveDotOneChannelTest.

If the issue returns it would most likely be a local issue:  hardware problem or software conflict.
However if anyone comes across this issue please report it, as it might still be a bug in ADM.

Parting comment: these samples crash ADM when local down mixing is set to "no down mixing".

[Jan Gruuthuse]

Sometimes the audio hardware is used by another process (locked and not available for other process).

[AQUAR]

So true, a software conflict is always a possibility.
I'll have to be more vigilant in working out what is happening on my system when/if this issue strikes again.

So many video processing issues that are posted here, are automatically characterised as ADM issues on squeaky clean PC systems.
I had no intention of reporting this issue - it was incidental to this Topic: Avidemux 2.7.0 is unworkable.