Totally depends on your needs. I'm guessing that if you're contemplating encoding to MP3 aswell as AC3, then you're encoding to stereo. If that's true then MP3 (LAME) would be the way to go. I haven't used BeLight for years but iirc the AC3 encoder in BeSweet is from (old) ffmpeg, and not the best quality-wise. I personally use LAME at 128k ABR with the sample rate the same as the source (if 44.1KHz or 48KHz).

If you're not sure how to use them, then I'd suggest john33's LameDropXPd. Set your bitrate and settings, then drag and drop your WAV's onto the program and it'll encode them for you.

You don't use Lame, you use programs which use Lame.  The software that you are using to encode your movies to Divx should be the application which uses Lame.

Also keep in mind compatibility.  If you ever plan on playing these files on a portable, encode the audio to mp3 as there aren't that many players (if any) that can playback AC-3 audio in a Divx movie.  I would also only use AC-3 if your software offers up Dolby Digital pass through.

I would download and install the K-Lite Mega Codec pack.


K-Lite is a huge collection of free A/V codecs for use on the Windows platform (2000/XP/2003/Vista).  Get it from

http://www.free-codecs.com/download/k_lite..._Codec_Pack.htm


You need the Mega pack because you plan on encoding, and this comes with a bunch of additional video/audio ACM for that.  Included are both the latest LAME (3.98) and Fraunhofer (3.4.0) ACMs.  It will also install the latest DivX codec (6.8.3) and XviD (1.2.0 build 2008-01-10) unless you tell it not to do such.

You can then do what you need to do in VirtualDub, XMPEG, or whatever you feel like using.

Personally, I use mp3 at 48k samples per second encoded at 132kbps ABR. However, if you wish to retain 5.1 channel audio, then AC3 is really the only choice. I also WaveGain the audio prior to encoding to the 89dB reference level.

It worked for me.  I just converted an 8 minute regular MPEG to XviD AVI just fine, using the LAME 3.98 ACM for the audio in the AVI.

EDIT:  I'm using VirtualDub 1.8.1


Your VirtualDub might not be set up correctly.

You might find it easier to dump the software you're currently using and go for Vidomi instead to be honest. It accepts any unencrypted VOB or MPEG-2 file as a source and deals with both the video and audio in a single pass.

Video is encoded using XviD or DivX and audio is encoded with LAME. It turns in an encoding speed of around 75FPS for 16:9 content on a 2.66GHz C2D. This equates to a total encoding time of roughly 30 minutes for a 25FPS 90-minute movie.


Basic instructions for generating an XviD CQ-mode encoding at 90% quality are as follows...

Install Vidomi wherever you like and then run up the encoder.

Click on the plus symbol and navigate your way to the appropriate MPEG-2/VOB file. Click open and the file path is loaded into Vidomi.

Before you start to encode, make the following settings by using the "options" icon.

Video Options: Hyper Crop - tick, Deinterlace - tick if needed, Hyper Scale - tick, Threshold - 20, Scale By Percent, Left Crop - 0, Right Crop - 0, No Frame Rate Adjustment, 100% of Width, Force Output Dimensions to be a Multiple of 16 - tick. In the Video Codec Settings - Normal One Pass Codec (One Pass). In the Encode Colour Space setting - YV12 (Faster).

Now click on the "Select Video Codec Defaults" and select - XviD MPEG-4 Codec. Click on "Configure" and select "1 Pass - Quality". Set a Quality value of 90%.

Click on "Advanced options..." and select Motion Search precision - 6-Ultra High, Quantizer Type - MPEG, FourCC used - XVID, Enable lumi-masking - tick. Click "OK". Click "OK" again on the "XviD configuration" window and click "OK" again on the "Select Video Codec" window and click "OK for a last time on the "Vidomi Video Options" window.

Click "Options" on the main encoder window again and select "General Options" and apply the following settings. Display Statistics When Encoding - tick, Multithread Encode on Dual CPUs - tick, Use _INFO.txt if present - tick. Leave all other checkboxes clear. Click the "OK" button to close this menu.

Click "Start" to start encoding.

Note: These settings are saved on exit so you don't need to manually save them or re-enter them every time you want to encode.


Audio is set to LAME CBR 128Kbps by default but can be changed easily in the appropriate options menu. Don't forget to use Joint Stereo.


I've spent longer than I can remember messing around with every free application under the sun in an attempt to create combined MPEG-4/MP3 encodings that look good and play back on anything. Vidomi has been the only free package to satisfy my fussy nature so far.

Cheers, Slipstreem. 

I just downloaded it and back to the same problem. Lame will not work for me. The Audio data is set at 0 meaning it's encoding video only.

This is what I did for the Audio tab. Set it to Full Processing Mode then select Audio tab again and select compression. Find CBR 160kbps in the list for stereo and select it and press OK. Now do a test and save as AVI and let it go Audio data 0. That is exactly why I never use Lame. I tried it in the past, no luck.

I promise I will not at all bother with anything but only VirtualDub. I came here for audio. Not trying to get me to get another software. It's not going to work. Now let me get back to my original question.

Quote from: php111 on 2008-07-14 23:32:07

I just downloaded it and back to the same problem. Lame will not work for me. The Audio data is set at 0 meaning it's encoding video only.

This is what I did for the Audio tab. Set it to Full Processing Mode then select Audio tab again and select compression. Find CBR 160kbps in the list for stereo and select it and press OK. Now do a test and save as AVI and let it go Audio data 0. That is exactly why I never use Lame. I tried it in the past, no luck.

So you load the file into VirtualDubMod... Next, you choose video compression in the menu. Next, you go into "Streams" menu and "Stream List"... There, you right-click on the audio track and choose "full processing mode", then right-click again and choose "conversion". There you choose a format LAME can handle (e.g. 48kHz, stereo). After this, you right-click the last time and choose "compression..." and select Lame MP3 from the list together with the desired bitrate.
If you're doing this then the produced video file has the desired audio, I made these steps and it works for me...

if your source (i.e. a DVD) has a 2.0 AC3 track (usually 192kbps) you might want to use this stream without re-encoding.

Xvid + AC3 in AVI is very well supported.


later