Sound failing in video files ripped with Handbrake

June 3, 2007 11:15 AM

TV show episodes ripped to iPod via Handbrake (aka MediaFork) are dropping audio 3/4 of the way into the file. Arrrrrgh! Has anyone found a reliable way of overcoming it? Or do you have a better program to recommend?

I see that it's a known problem, but barring a sudden breakthrough over at the Handbrake forums, has anyone found a solution (I'm running the most recent Mac OS, FYI) or another, better program?

I'm annoyed to have spent days ripping all of Firefly only to have files with ooky sound. (Ah well, at least it wasn't all of Buffy. YET). Thanks in advance.

posted by bitter-girl.com to computers & internet (6 comments total)

I never ran into this issue using an older build. Handbrake (0.7.1) is a Universal Binary which is still available from their download page. Try ripping a single episode and see if this generates usable audio.

Version 0.7.1 doesn't have the recent niceties such as widescreen h.264 or AppleTV encoding, but I've ran hundreds of movies through this app without an issue.
posted by porn in the woods at 11:29 AM on June 3, 2007

Thanks, I'll try an older version and see what happens!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 1:33 PM on June 3, 2007

Wow. That's very strange. I use Handbrake (0.7.1) all the time and have never had that happen. I'd roll back...sounds like something broke in the new release.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:46 PM on June 3, 2007

Have you tried a demo of VisualHub?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:02 PM on June 3, 2007

Handbrake never quite worked right here. But had great success with ffmpgX however.
posted by lundman at 7:45 PM on June 3, 2007

Sorry, would have replied sooner but I haven't checked ask.me in a few days.

Unfortunately, there's no one-size-fits-all answer right now. The reason that one suggestion is to use 0.7.1 is that some (but by no means all) of the audio drop-outs described in the thread you located are caused by some as-of-yet-elusive changes in the Mac GUI version's optical scanning code. This means that if you still want all the features in newer versions, you can try using the CLI version of HandBrake. Most of the drop-outs that are fixed by going back to 0.7.1 can also be overcome using the CLI route. Of course, it's far from an optimal solution :/

The problem is that the Mac GUI-specific drop-outs cropped up inbetween 0.7.1's release and when the new dev team took over. We've narrowed it down to the window of time between 0.7.1's release and Instant HandBrake's release. But that's all we know for now. That period of time includes one of the largest single code changesets of the entire project. :(

The best advice I can give is what I put in the FAQ (which is still a little hard to locate, sorry about that):

----
There are many different reasons audio can be missing, so there is no one-shot solution at this time.

* You should rip the DVD to hard disk first using MacTheRipper. Doing so will resolve the majority of issues.

* If it doesn't work in the latest version of HandBrake, try using version 0.7.1. If it doesn't work with a samplerate of 44.1 KHz, try raising it to 48 KHz. If it doesn't work with 2-pass, try a single pass. If it doesn't work with x264, see if it works with FFmpeg or XviD. If it doesn't work with anamorphic or default resolution, try lowering the width to 640.

* If it doesn't work using the latest private beta of MacTheRipper, try the last public beta, and vice versa. If it doesn't work using Main Feature Extraction, try Full Disc Extraction, and vice versa.

* If it still doesn't work, try other rippers, or running DVD2OneX. It's hard to beat AnyDVD for Windows, which is generally considered the best DVD decrypter available. People have also had success, at times, using DVDFab.

* If none of these work, try using HandBrakeCLI.
posted by jbrjake at 2:14 PM on June 5, 2007 [1 favorite]