How can I determine codec required for sound on a DVD

[mij]

My DVD plays the intro music/sounds from some DVD's but not the selective/instruction rest of the DVD. Is there a method of determining the codec required for a DVD - assuming that is the problem. It does play other DVD's from the same stable fine.

Jim

PS I am liable to forget my head these days.......

The drive is a a TSST corp CD/DVDW TS-H653L

This machine runs windows 7 and all dvd's I have all work with windows media. I also have WinCinema on this machine as well as irfanview - none will play the sound (video yes) of these DVD's.

Edited April 14, 2013 by mij

[Plastic Nev]

Hi Jim, it may actually be better to first try a different, and free, player first. Have you tried the VLC Media player? it can handle quite a lot of different file and codec types that Windows Media and other players can't.

You can download and try it from here=

 

http://www.videolan.org/

 

Give that a try and let us know.

 

Nev.

[mij]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I did try that program yesterday as well as BS player but it did the same as Windows Media and played the video with no audio. It has just done the same downloading from the site you gave as restoring lost me those two programs this morning.

 

I will be going out this afternoon but will be back about five and will try some more then.

Thanks

jim

[Plastic Nev]

Hi Jim, if it is a codec issue try this site.

 

http://www.windows7codecs.com/

 

I have to ask are these DVD disks copies of an original or are they originals?

If copies there may be a DRM issue where the original has buried coding preventing a full copy being made, in which case the sound just isn't there, so no clever software will be able to retrieve it.

 

Nev.

[mij]

Hi Jim, if it is a codec issue try this site.

 

http://www.windows7codecs.com/

 

I have to ask are these DVD disks copies of an original or are they originals?

Nev.

 

Hi Nev and thanks for the reply.

I have downloaded them only to find that it couldn't find the D: drive, a restore to yesterday's good point brought the D: drive back but eliminated the VLC and codec packages so have downloaded them again. It made no difference - it still wont sound the audio on the DVD's which are originals BTW. They are of oil painter Darrel Crow from the USA. Many of his other DVD's work fine but it's the odd ones that don't. I know that they have worked in the past but at that time I think I was using power DVD and I cannot find that disk anywhere. I lost it when I went from Vista to Win7.

jim

[mij]

Got a bit clicky here - as you do when something wont work and found something. Whilst the disk was running in VLC I right clicked and opened the audio options window. Stereo was 'ticked' so I clicked mono and suddenly all was sounding! I presume the others will work in mono? If they don't I shall just have to switch to stereo won't I? I wonder why they have suddenly gone like that? Anyway it is working at the mo!

Thanks for the support and suggestions - VLC did work, but in Mono.

jim

[Plastic Nev]

Thanks for the feedback on that Jim, firstly glad you found that the sound track itself must therefore be in mono, but why it wouldn't play while in Stereo is a small mystery, However I will look this up as I have a feeling it may be something in the D to A chips, (That's the bit that converts the Digital signal to an Analogue signal the amplifier can handle.) There just maybe some confusion when it sees a true single channel mono signal. I could of course be way out, but I will try and find out for my own curiosity.

 

Nev.