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My HDTV card records broadcast HD in its native MPG format (MPEG-2 video + AC3 audio, I think). These files are then playable in Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, zPlayer, Mplayer, etc. But I need to play in Showtime, because I would then like NeroVision to convert the files to other forms (MPEG-4, DVD, etc.).

Here is a sample (11MB) file:

www.fileh.com/lgmayka/Videos/1280x720.mpg

Hi Igmayka,

I downloaded the file and was able to play it with Nero ShowTime, however, there was not audio during playback. When I look at the file with Nero Recode, it reports that there are no audio tracks, and recode does indeed support AC-3 2 channel and 5 channel Dolby tracks. So the audio format must be something other than Dolby or LPCM.

And yet when I used Windows Media Player, it did play the audio, though the audio was way out of sync with the video, but still there was audio.

I would need to know what audio format is being used before I can properly assist you.

When I get the chance, I'll try other software to see if I can determine what audio format is being used.

Regards,

Craig

First, I should explain that the lack of A/V sync occurs only because this sample is very short. On files of reasonable length (e.g., 30-minute programs), the A/V sync is just fine (except perhaps at the very beginning and very end of the file).

This MPG file, and the longer ones like it, were recorded by my FusionHDTV card from ordinary American HDTV broadcasts. The FusionHDTV software refers to this as a direct native copy, implying that these files use simply the same encoding that ATSC uses--which, I thought, was MPEG-2 video and AC3 audio.

Nero Showtime and Ulead VideoStudio pretend that the files have no audio at all. Other programs, including Windows Media Player and RealPlayer, play both video and audio well enough.