strip audio stream question

[ztrmils]

Recently, I was making a backup of a movie with three audio tracks.

1 - english
2 - spanish
3 - director's commentary

I stripped out the Spanish track with VobBlanker, selecting Clear audio/subs status when blanking/stripping in the More Settings dialog.

Everything plays fine and it seems that the Spanish track is successfully stripped, but using a player like Nero Showtime or WinDVD, the audio language menu (the one in the software, not the DVD menu) only shows the first audio stream. I have to go to the DVD menu to be able to select the third stream, the director's commentary. I should be able to see both the first and third streams in the menu.

What have I done wrong?

I've done this successfully in the past, IIRC, with IfoEdit. Can I do this with VobBlanker and make it work?

[jsoto]

There are some players (also settops) which don't like "holes" in the audio sequences. let's say: if you keep two streams you cannot clear the status of the streams in the middle of them.

Simply uncheck Clear audio/subs status when blanking/stripping in the More Settings dialog.

To avoid the stripping process again, use pgcEdit on your stripped DVD and re-activate the second stream in your PGC:
- Open the DVD with pgcEdit
- Double click on your PGC in the left pane
- In the PGC editor change the second audio stream (the # 1) to 1 and enabled
-save the DVD
You're done.

jsoto

BTW: VB is not used to strip Spanish (beautiful language)... ;)

[ztrmils]

I'd read something, somewhere, about out of sequence problems. Thanks for the pointer to make the easy fix and avoid the problem again. BUT, and this is a minor "but", this leaves an unwanted stripped audio stream in the menus. Can I leave the stripped one out and move the third stream so that it becomes the second? Or do something so that the extra stream doesn't appear?

Si el idioma original de la pelíula fuera el castellaño, lo habría dejado. No me gusta el doblaje. Prefiero tener el espacio disponible para otras cosas. Quito el ingles cuando estoy trabajando con películas en Castellaño. :)

[2COOL]

this leaves an unwanted stripped audio stream in the menus.The easy remedy is to hide your menu button, in question, with PgcEdit (free) or MenuEdit(not-free). This way, you can't access that button.

[ztrmils]

That's not what I meant, 2cool. I wasn't referring to the DVD menu, rather to the software DVD player menus. I had already hidden the button with PgcEdit and even replaced the menu image. I don't want the stripped stream to appear in the menus that are in the players, such as the one you can see by right clicking the movie window in Nero Showtime or the language menu available at the right of the WinDVD control panel.

[influenza]

You can do this by editing the audio streams. if you copy over the stream value of stream 3 to stream 2. If you play stream 2 it will actually play the sound of the third stream.

[jsoto]

Oh, yes... I thought on it... to remap the stream internally in the VOB... but it can have many more consequences, so , if you really want it, you have to do it manually:

A) Demux the PGC (with pgcDemux ;) , for sure )
B) Mux it again, putting the streams in the order you want
C) Replace the PGC with VobBlanker. VB will warn you about the differences in the stream attribute if any.
D) Open pgcEdit and manually modify:
---> streams attributes like language
---> number of streams.
---> VM commands in menu buttons
---> all the related VM commands, may be the automatic selection of language (depending on your settop default language)

Well, to be honest, I really don't know if the settops complain about the "holes" in the audio streams sequence inside the VOB or it is enough if you avoid the "holes" in the audio tracks inside the PGC (I believe this is the case, but I'm not sure). In this case, it will be enough to do:
A) Open pgcEdit and manually modify:
---> In PGC editor, use the point Audio #1 to theVOB stream #2 (You need to do this on all PGCs in the VTS)
---> Change accordingly the audio attributes in the domain
---> Check VM commands in menu buttons (Set stream number)
---> Check all the related VM commands, may be the automatic selection of language (depending on your settop default language)

If you play with this, please let me know... I'm pretty sure the second option will be enough.

@r0lZ
If the last is true, it could be done in a pgcEdit's macro...

jsoto

[influenza]

If you have altered the menu image in a way that stream 3 in the vob is actually stream 2 in the menu all you have to do is alter the stream values if you ask me.

[jsoto]

Do you mean the background image? IMHO, it's not always a valid option, because of the button highlights.

In any case I think you need to check all the related VM commands and the logic to do the track selection.
Do I miss something?

jsoto

[influenza]

Background and Highlighting I assume. maybe I'm just thinking about this to easily but:

original menu lay-out:

stream 1
stream 2 - > plays vob stream 2 with stream value 2
stream 3

New menu lay-out:

stream 1
stream 2 -> plays stream 2 but with stream value of stream 3

In the ifo change stream 2 so that is has the stream value of stream 3 and disable stream 3. This way you can keep all the commands for stream 2, while it physically plays stream 3. This is how i usually do things when I strip/dummy out streams.

[r0lZ]

Well, to be honest, I really don't know if the settops complain about the "holes" in the audio streams sequence inside the VOB or it is enough if you avoid the "holes" in the audio tracks inside the PGC (I believe this is the case, but I'm not sure). In this case, it will be enough to do:
A) Open pgcEdit and manually modify:
---> In PGC editor, use the point Audio #1 to theVOB stream #2 (You need to do this on all PGCs in the VTS)
---> Change accordingly the audio attributes in the domain
---> Check VM commands in menu buttons (Set stream number)
---> Check all the related VM commands, may be the automatic selection of language (depending on your settop default language)

If you play with this, please let me know... I'm pretty sure the second option will be enough.

@r0lZ
If the last is true, it could be done in a pgcEdit's macro...
IMO, yes, this method should work.
But doing a macro to automatize this stuff is not easy, because of the indirect SetSTN commands.

The easiest way to get rid of this problem is the method suggested by influenza (if I understand correctly.)
If you duplicate a valid audio stream over the missing one, you will still have 3 audio streams in the player's menu. Two of them will be identical. There is nothing to change in the VM commands, since the first and last streams are left untouched. In the other hand, if the user select the stripped stream, it will still work, but with a different language than in the original.
Of course, with this method, it is probably necessary to hide the menu button so that the original language of the stripped stream cannot be selected anymore.

Oh, yes, there is no macro to process all the PGCs at the same time, but there is a somewhat hidden popup menu to simplify the work. Just edit the audio streams assingments in one PGC, then right click on the "Audio Streams" label, and select Copy All. In the other PGCs, all you have to do is Paste All.

[influenza]

If you duplicate a valid audio stream over the missing one, you will still have 3 audio streams in the player's menu. Two of them will be identical.

Yes that's what I mean ;)

[jsoto]

If you duplicate a valid audio stream over the missing one, you will still have 3 audio streams in the player's menu. Two of them will be identical. There is nothing to change in the VM commands, since the first and last streams are left untouched.
But the final intention is to reduce the number of streams...
Think in subs if you want to keep the streams #1 and #23 but not the other ones... I do not like to have to cycle 23 selections from the remote (using the subs button)

May be I'm not understanding well the proposed solution...., but in the VM commands there could be an "automatic selection" to stream #23, so you cannot reduce the number of streams, even in the case you are "duplicating" the stream #23 in the #2, no?

jsoto

[influenza]

I would also reduce the streams (deleting the third one). My proposition is to create a button that's similar to button 2, with the same comamnd set. This button is still pointed to stream 2. But Stream 2 is given the stream value of stream 3 .

so original:

[0000000c] Audio stream 1 status 32768 [8000]
Audio stream 1 uses stream nr.: 0
[0000000e] Audio stream 2 status 33024 [8100]
Audio stream 2 uses stream nr.: 1
[00000010] Audio stream 3 status 33280 [8200]
Audio stream 3 uses stream nr.: 2

After editing the ifo:

[0000000c] Audio stream 1 status 32768 [8000]
Audio stream 1 uses stream nr.: 0
[0000000e] Audio stream 2 status 33280 [8100]
Audio stream 2 uses stream nr.: 2
[00000010] Audio stream 3 status 0


So now If I select the button the says play stream 2 it will actually play the original stream 3.

[r0lZ]

It's a good idea, but it may lead to problems. Sometimes, the language menubutton you chose changes a GPRM that is used through the whole DVD to automatically select the audio streams, but also the subpics, angles, and even menus. With your method, you will end up with a mix of different languages.

IMO. to get rid ot the unused streeams, the easiest method is to use DVDShrink with the option to remap the streams when there are no indirect SetSTN. You can check if the current DVD is compatible with this option with PgcEdit's DVDShrink plugin.
If it is incompatible, you should try influenza's method, but at your own risk.
Finally, my method is the safest way to go, but you cannot remove the unused streams from the player's menu.

[influenza]

:goodpost: hehe, well I think we have more than enough options now to solve the question :)

I'm lucky enough to have a dvd player that doesn't care if I disable a stream number, so I usually just do that, together with disabling the menu button. I have seen players that do not like this, meaning that you cannot easily switch between the streams using the remote control. In that case you have to go through the menu. Personally I don't think its a very big deal.

[ztrmils]

Thanks so much to all of you.

I tried jsoto's second set of recommendations using PgcEdit to tweak audio stream and VM settings. This took no more than a couple of minutes. It seems to have succeeded perfectly. It helps that there weren't many repercussions within the structure of things caused by my changes.

I'm going to play around with the other recommendations, including the remuxing stuff. The DVDShrink method seems like an easy enough approach, which I'll try, too.

Yes, influenza, the hassles involved are minimal, which has me wondering why I'm bothering with this at all. In practice, leaving it as it was at the beginning of the thread will cause me somewhere close to no grief at all, ever. I think it's curiosity that's driving me, here.

[ztrmils]

A) Demux the PGC (with pgcDemux ;) , for sure )
B) Mux it again, putting the streams in the order you want

Would I demux the audio streams only? I did that and got a couple of .ac3 files, but don't seem to be able to remux them back into anything. Would VobEdit be a good place to do the remuxing? Any pointers to guides that will give me a little more info about this aspect of the process?

[spyhawk]

Ya'll have been exchanging great discussions, and ztrmils already got his done. That's great! I'd like to summarize the steps if you don't mind, and some inputs, since I've already written all this. ;)

jsoto's 2nd option is what I would do.
Well, to be honest, I really don't know if the settops complain about the "holes" in the audio streams sequence inside the VOB or it is enough if you avoid the "holes" in the audio tracks inside the PGC (I believe this is the case, but I'm not sure). In this case, it will be enough to do:
A) Open pgcEdit and manually modify:
---> In PGC editor, use the point Audio #1 to theVOB stream #2 (You need to do this on all PGCs in the VTS)
---> Change accordingly the audio attributes in the domain
---> Check VM commands in menu buttons (Set stream number)
---> Check all the related VM commands, may be the automatic selection of language (depending on your settop default language)

If you play with this, please let me know... I'm pretty sure the second option will be enough.

@r0lZ
If the last is true, it could be done in a pgcEdit's macro...r0lZ is right. It's not easy to deal with indirect SetSTN commands. Not only that, there will be conditional statements that will set the stream if the condition is true. The macro has to be artificially intelligent, like I,Robot. :)

Certain software/dvd players will behave differently when there is a "hole" in the audio/subtitle stream sequence. For example, if stream 2 is not defined, and there are stream 3 or greater, then some player will show only stream 1, stream 3 and greater are not selectable. Other players will show stream 1, stream 3 move up to be stream 2, and so on. But this is just the display info. I don't know how it will behave when you select the stream through the DVD menu.

This is what I do for dealing with removing of first or middle tracks completely, no info display whatsoever. Of course, the last track is the easiest to deal with.

1. Import the modified menu background of the removed track.
1. Hide the corresponding menu button. Delete will take more work.
2. Modify VM commands in remaining menu buttons, whether it's direct or indirect. e.g. if stream 2 is removed, then change stream 3 to 2, etc. Use DVDShrink plugin to see if you can use it.
3. Do the same for all occurrences (direct or indirect) in pre/post/cell commands.

Now the actual removing the stream info part. I've been using IfoEdit to do this, like influenza has shown, but that is not enough. You have to remove stream attributes in VTSI_MAT and VMG_VTS_ATRT for completeness. But I find PgcEdit makes this easier.

4. In PGC Editor, reference the removed stream position to the first existent stream below, and disable the last stream number.

Audio Stream (original => new)
0 English = 0x80
1 Spanish = 0x81 ==> 0x82
2 Comment = 0x82 ==> none

You find that the stream attributes has not changed when you click on "Current domain streams attributes" button. It's ok. Click OK.

5. Go back to PGC Editor, click on "Current domain streams attributes" button. A dialog will ask you to fix the number of audio/subpic streams. Just click Yes.
6. Now fix the attributes, like language, normal, # channels, etc.

And that will do it.

[blutach]

Unfortunately, I need to do this procedure quite a lot, especially when English is not stream 1 (e.g. English subpic streams are 3 (full) and 13 (forced only) which need to be remapped to 1 and 2). One player happily accepts holes, the other goes bananas (you can select the stream with the menu but the remote gets "stuck").

Using the method of making sure there are no holes and remapping the audio/subpicture menu in PgcEdit has always worked well for me. Sometimes, you need to work through other SetSTN codes, but it is not generally a hassle.

After that, run PgcEdit's macro to fix number of streams.

Regards

[jsoto]

Would I demux the audio streams only? I did that and got a couple of .ac3 files, but don't seem to be able to remux them back into anything. Would VobEdit be a good place to do the remuxing? Any pointers to guides that will give me a little more info about this aspect of the process?
Forget the demuxing/muxing process. It is not needed.

jsoto