CorePlayer + Perian = Better AC3 Audio

[zen.state]

Nova77 and I had an ongoing conversation recently about how CorePlayer struggles with AC3 audio after I discovered that installing Perian fixed this issue about 90%.

As a big user of VLC and Mplayer for about a decade before I bought CP in Jan. I hardly ever use Quicktime for playback so in turn I never bothered installing Perian as I didn't need extra codecs for it. It turns out that Perian makes some codecs truly system wide for any compatible app.

Most of the MKV wrapped h.264 I play has AC3 audio so this is a huge help! I still have some issues with XviD that has AC3 but all the h.264 that had it play fine now.

Just something I wanted to share with the few CorePlayer users out there. Both Nova77 and I are running version 1.3.6 of CorePlayer and OS X 10.5 Leopard for the record.

Perian can be found here for those that don't have it or know of it.

 

[chrismacguy]

I get the same results in regards to AC3 audio on my Dual 867 MDD (Latest Core Player on 10.5.8) with Core Player. Only issue I have is it seems to have corrupted my Final Cut Pro install. Not entirely sure why - any ideas?

 

[zen.state]

I get the same results in regards to AC3 audio on my Dual 867 MDD (Latest Core Player on 10.5.8) with Core Player. Only issue I have is it seems to have corrupted my Final Cut Pro install. Not entirely sure why - any ideas?

I don't use FCP at all so I can't speak for that but CorePlayer is it's own entity and I highly doubt it's install would have any effect of FCP or any other app. Please try and expand on "corrupted" by explaining the specific symptom.

 

[chrismacguy]

I don't use FCP at all so I can't speak for that but CorePlayer is it's own entity and I highly doubt it's install would have any effect of FCP or any other app. Please try and expand on "corrupted" by explaining the specific symptom.

Well for some reason the option from FCP to jump into Compressor no longer works - the jump into Soundtrack Pro works fine though (STP opens nicely, but compressor just bounces and quits). although its possible its just coincidental. Ill dig around further later today to see if any other applications have any issues - who knows, it could easily be a larger problem with the system (It had an overheating issue recently that new larger fans seem to have fixed).

 

[zen.state]

Well for some reason the option from FCP to jump into Compressor no longer works - the jump into Soundtrack Pro works fine though (STP opens nicely, but compressor just bounces and quits). although its possible its just coincidental. Ill dig around further later today to see if any other applications have any issues - who knows, it could easily be a larger problem with the system (It had an overheating issue recently that new larger fans seem to have fixed).

I would try a simple hard drive repair verification in disk utility first to see if you can rule the drive out as possibly having a bad sector or even a more serious issue. Could very well be an extended attributes or multi-link issue.

If DU finds nothing then try reinstalling. Let me know how it goes.

 

[chrismacguy]

I would try a simple hard drive repair verification in disk utility first to see if you can rule the drive out as possibly having a bad sector or even a more serious issue. Could very well be an extended attributes or multi-link issue.

If DU finds nothing then try reinstalling. Let me know how it goes.

Whaddya know, looks like Disk Utility found that my Compressor.app was on a bad sector. It fixed the problem (Im assuming my moving to a known good sector), and Compressor has returned to working condition.

Since this is the first bad sector Ive found on the disk - you reckon I should just replace the disk or keep going and assume it won't happen again? (Its my tertiary editing machine, which I only use for transfers from VHS/VHS-C tapes and Super-8, so I don't think its that bad. I have another HDD I could drop in though, if that would prevent it happening again).

 

[zen.state]

Whaddya know, looks like Disk Utility found that my Compressor.app was on a bad sector. It fixed the problem (Im assuming my moving to a known good sector), and Compressor has returned to working condition.

Since this is the first bad sector Ive found on the disk - you reckon I should just replace the disk or keep going and assume it won't happen again? (Its my tertiary editing machine, which I only use for transfers from VHS/VHS-C tapes and Super-8, so I don't think its that bad. I have another HDD I could drop in though, if that would prevent it happening again).

Once a drive finds and verifies a bad sector it's normally fine for even years later. The drive will never try to use the bad sector again even after formatting now that it has found it. If the drive is already 3+ years old then maybe replace it for peace of mind but if newer I would stay with it.

Just for the record what exact drive is it and what is the manufacture date on it?

 

[chrismacguy]

Once a drive finds and verifies a bad sector it's normally fine for even years later. The drive will never try to use the bad sector again even after formatting now that it has found it. If the drive is already 3+ years old then maybe replace it for peace of mind but if newer I would stay with it.

Just for the record what exact drive is it and what is the manufacture date on it?

It is a Maxtor 6Y120P0 manufactured in 06/2005 so its a relatively old low-end drive. (Its only system/scratch without any user data, so I don't mind leaving it as it is I think. I have a backup of all the important data on the machine on my NAS anyway).

 

[thorns]

OT: Check the drie for errors from time to time. IF they are mechanically induced (sth between the heads and the platters, it could very well be that the drive will fail intermittently).

As for CorePlayer/AC3: Is there any insight as to DTS decoding? Perian supports DTS decoding, but can it be used with CorePlayer? That's the last thing holding me back from purchasing CorePlayer since I don't want to re-encode every mkv with DTS audio.

 

[Nova77]

OT: Check the drie for errors from time to time. IF they are mechanically induced (sth between the heads and the platters, it could very well be that the drive will fail intermittently).

As for CorePlayer/AC3: Is there any insight as to DTS decoding? Perian supports DTS decoding, but can it be used with CorePlayer? That's the last thing holding me back from purchasing CorePlayer since I don't want to re-encode every mkv with DTS audio.

Is there a way you can send me one of your files? I could test it for you.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Coreplayer doesn't seem to play 16 bit 768kbit/sec PCM audio from a .mov file for me, and I have Perian installed. Re-encoding the file into H264 with AAC-LC audio makes it work fine. Any ideas?