Cannot open .MPA file from Womble -Sound Forge - PC

Subject:Cannot open .MPA file from Womble Posted by: haw Date:1/25/2004 10:39:58 AM Using Womble's MPEG Video Wizard program, I demux'd an MPEG-2 video (with NTSC DVD settings) into an audio-only MPA file and a video-only file. I'm trying to open the audio-only .MPA file with Soundforge 7.0a (evaluation copy) that I just downloaded and installed on my PC. I'm running W2k SP4 on my PC, and use NTFS. The clip with which I'm working is just a few minutes long. I can open it and play it just fine in Windows Media Player. When I try to open the file (using type = All Known Media Files) in Soundforge, I get the following error message: the file format plug-in for the specified format was not properly initialized. If I try opening the file as a RAW audio file, I can open the file but it contains only static and has a length of about one minute rather than the actual length of the clip. I'm sure this is a set-up error, but I cannot figure it out. Any ideas? The audio attributes in the Womble program, when I create the audio-only file, specify MPEG-2 format, 48.0 khz, stereo, 128 kbps, 16 bit. I've tried to match these settings in Soundforge's "custom" dialog box for opening RAW audio ... but still cannot get anything but static. I'm not sure how important the options like "signed/unsigned, big/little endian, etc. are? The video clip that I demux'd in the first place is footage I took with my camcorder, captured using Ulead's Video Studio program. At that point I used the same MPEG layer 2 audio settings described above. One last thing. I read in another post a question from someone else having trouble opening a MPA file. The suggestion was to open a WAV file and save it as MP3, to initialize the MPEG plug-in. I did open a WAV file and saved it as MP3 ... but I got no pop-up asking me to register anything. Please HELP!!! Thanks, Adam
Subject:RE: Cannot open .MPA file from Womble Reply by: Sonic Date:1/26/2004 8:12:36 AM As stated on the website, MPEG-1&2 support in Sound Forge requires the the MainConcept MPEG plug-in. The plug-in is not included in Sound Forge, though it is included with Vegas 4.0. So if you have Vegas installed or purchase the MainConcept plug-in separately, Sound Forge will support MPEG. What you are seeing is the Quicktime plug-in trying to open it and failing (Quicktime claims it can open darn near anything when all other file format plug-ins fail to recognize the file). J.
Subject:RE: Cannot open .MPA file from Womble Reply by: haw Date:1/26/2004 10:27:50 AM I don't have Vegas, so this means that I cannot evaluate SoundForge (for my purpose) without purchasing the MainConcept plug-in? I have discovered (the hard way) that it does not pay to purchase audio/video editing software without first trying it out ... so I guess the underlying question of whether or not I should buy SoundForge is "no." For me, no try = no buy! Thanks for answering my question, though.
Subject:RE: Cannot open .MPA file from Womble Reply by: metrazol Date:1/26/2004 1:01:45 PM Don't give up yet. You can covert the MPA with some other tool. There's a bunch of software that'll convert MPA's to .aiff, .wav, etc. Just dig around in the DVD-Ripping community and you'll find something. Sound Forge is the best editor, hands down. Don't give up on this great piece of software just because certain forces have made MPEG-2 and MP3 a royal pain to use sometimes. Silly $20 encoding liscense...
Subject:RE: Cannot open .MPA file from Womble Reply by: Sonic Date:1/26/2004 1:49:55 PM I don't have a clean enough machine to try it on, but it might work if you install the Vegas 4.0 demo. I think it is included there for eval...though I could be wrong. J.
Subject:RE: Cannot open .MPA file from Womble Reply by: SonyTSW Date:1/26/2004 8:51:59 PM Sorry, but demo or trial versions of our software don't include MPEG due to licensing restrictions. You get 20 free MP3 encodes from Sound Forge. You will see a dialog to register for MP3 after these have been exhausted. Since you were able to play it in the Windows Media Player, you probably could transcode the MPA audio to WMA using the Windows Media Encoder, and then load that WMA file into Sound Forge. WME is a free download from Microsoft.

Subject:Cannot open .MPA file from Womble

Posted by: haw

Date:1/25/2004 10:39:58 AM

Using Womble's MPEG Video Wizard program, I demux'd an MPEG-2 video (with NTSC DVD settings) into an audio-only MPA file and a video-only file. I'm trying to open the audio-only .MPA file with Soundforge 7.0a (evaluation copy) that I just downloaded and installed on my PC. I'm running W2k SP4 on my PC, and use NTFS. The clip with which I'm working is just a few minutes long. I can open it and play it just fine in Windows Media Player. When I try to open the file (using type = All Known Media Files) in Soundforge, I get the following error message: the file format plug-in for the specified format was not properly initialized. If I try opening the file as a RAW audio file, I can open the file but it contains only static and has a length of about one minute rather than the actual length of the clip.

I'm sure this is a set-up error, but I cannot figure it out. Any ideas?

The audio attributes in the Womble program, when I create the audio-only file, specify MPEG-2 format, 48.0 khz, stereo, 128 kbps, 16 bit. I've tried to match these settings in Soundforge's "custom" dialog box for opening RAW audio ... but still cannot get anything but static. I'm not sure how important the options like "signed/unsigned, big/little endian, etc. are?

The video clip that I demux'd in the first place is footage I took with my camcorder, captured using Ulead's Video Studio program. At that point I used the same MPEG layer 2 audio settings described above.

One last thing. I read in another post a question from someone else having trouble opening a MPA file. The suggestion was to open a WAV file and save it as MP3, to initialize the MPEG plug-in. I did open a WAV file and saved it as MP3 ... but I got no pop-up asking me to register anything.

Please HELP!!!

Thanks,
Adam