Videos but no sound

[jer446]

I am making a video for a friend.. He gave me clips that are all mpg from his camera... they play fine but in quicktime and imovie there is no audio. When i play them in vlc the audio plays fine.. What could be the problem? Additionally, how can i find out the resolution and everything of the video.. When you create a new project in imovie.. it asks whether you want it widescreen dv or widerscreen 1080i, 720p.. how could i find out the format the clips were shot in.. i believe they are hd but not sure which format.

 

[surfer99]

I had the exact same problem. I was able to fix this by downloading a free program called visual hub, a simple google search will bring this up. Basically what it does is enables you to change the format of the video. For some reason iMovie will not play sound for some formats of movie. Im not sure which format it was but basically if you change the format of the video and then import it into imovie it will work. I had to play around a little bit with this but it did end up working. hope this help.

 

[Max Payne]

Here is a sound codec I used to watch them. Worked with me too.

http://www.cod3r.com/download/get.php?name=a52codec.dmg

From this page, if you don't trust my first downloadable link.

http://www.pure-mac.com/audio.html

 

[jer446]

the visual hub worked.. but it is not free.. it only provides a two minute demo.. Is there a free alternative? The sound codecs did not work.

 

[EMKoper]

For some reason iMovie will not play sound for some formats of movie.

I think, more specifially, iMovie cannot handle mux'ed mpeg formats. You can find something to 'demux' (aka demultiplexing or 'separating') the video and audio streams and then recombine them in Quicktime Pro to make an 'non mux'ed' file (.mov is fine). You might be able to import the audio separately and combine in iMovie (don't know for sure on that one!).

I used to use a classic program called bbDemux to do this and then recombine in Quicktime Pro and save as a .mov before importing into iMovie... which seems like a horrible amount of steps and time (if a large file) to make iMovie work like it should from the get-go. Strange... that seems like a simple enhancement to iMovie Apple never seemed compelled to put time toward!

So, I guess, using a tool to save as different file format or specifically search for "mpeg demux" freeware... there are quite a few on Version Tracker.

 

[jer446]

i downloaded ffmpeg x which seems like it is what i want.. but not sure which settings i would want.. It tells me the original file is 720x480. Which setting would i want to not touch the video, and just extract the audio, and then merge them again?

 

[jer446]

so which settings could i use to merge the audio file and video?