Adobe Media Encoder cs5 - No audio

Question

I am using Adobe Media Encoder cs5 version 5.0.1.0 on a Windows XP Service Pack 3 32-bit machine.  None of the wmv or avi files I try to encode have the audio track encoded.  I have tried encoding with both the "F4V - Match Source Attributes" and "FLV - Web 640 x 480" presets.  Neither of these encode the audio output at all.  The audio track plays correctly in Windows Media Player.  Has anyone else had this problem?

Answer 1

Very interesting data, Wayne.  Very interesting.
> I am not sure how to encode to the other formats using AME, so I could not complete these tests.
Sorry, that's my fault.  Ignore that test.  I didn't realize you are using the Web Premium suite.  The other formats I referred to are only available if you have Premiere Pro, After Effects, or the Production Premium suite installed.  (I knew this by subconscious deduction, actually, since those products require a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or Vista and you stated that you're on XP 32-bit.  It just didn't trickle out to my conscious brain.)
Let's back off for a second and review what we know.  Please correct me if I'm wrong about any of these points.
You have WMV and AVI source video files.  The audio in the AVI files is encoded as PCM or MP3.
You can hear the audio in these files when you play them in Windows Media Player.
Encoding these files to FLV, F4V, or H.264 appears to complete successfully in AME CS5.
You can not hear the audio of the encoded files in Windows Media Player, Adobe Media Player, or VLC.
Inspecting the encoded files in VLC and Audacity shows both that an audio track exists and that there is a waveform in that track.
Using a different user account on the same machine does not exhibit the problem.
Encoding your source files on a different machine using AME CS4 (your colleague) or AME CS5.5 (my computer, with the sample you posted) does not exhibit the problem.
So, yes, this is most intriguing.  The difference in your ability to hear your source files but not the encoded files is most curious.
I do wonder:
If you take one of your encoded files to a different machine, does the audio play? (If you post a sample, I'll try it here.)
Since Audacity shows a waveform for the encoded files, can your hear the audio in that application?
The only thing I can think of that is unique about the formats that you are using AME to encode to (FLV, F4V, and H.264) is that those formats all use compressed audio.  MP3 in the FLV format, and AAC in F4V and H.264.  (FYI - F4V is simply H.264 insided of a Flash video wrapper.)  What could be unique under your user account related to that?  I don't know.  Possibly if there is a utility on your machine related to compressed audio, that might be intercepting the audio stream in some way.  Do you have any software designed for capturing compressed audio from the Internet?  Or it could be related to the audio card drivers on your machine.
It might be worth sniffing around the %appdata% folder on your account and temporarily disposing of the folders for other programs.  If you can isolate something that way, you may be on the right path.
You might also want to run msconfig (Start > Run > msconfig) to disable background applications and services that could be hijacking the audio.  Go to the Startup tab there, clear everything, reboot, and see what happens.  If that works, start putting the services back one-by-one until you find the culprit.