How to make Audio VCD compliant?

[Bubba]

I'm not sure this post should be here or in the Audio forum, but the question I'm about to ask is related to VCD, and so I decide to post it here.

I download some MPEG clips, and I noticed that the Video part of these clips look VCD-compliant (i.e. 352x240 or 352x288), but the audio part are not. Some have lower frequency than 44100 Hz, some have different bit rates that the required 224 Kbits/sec for VCD, and some have only 1 channel instead of 2. I was thinking ...

1. Demux the video & audio part using TMPGEnc. This will produce a MPV file & a MP2 audio file.
2. Convert the MP2 to Wav
2a. Create another channel of Wav (L & R)
--Note: Do I need this step 2a? (I'm not sure that VCD-compliant need 2 audio channels or not)
3. Up-sampling the Wav to 44100 Hz
4. Re-encode the upsampling file from step 3 to VCD-compliant MP2 file at 224 KBits (using tooLame).
5. Mux the step 4's MP2 file back to the MPV file from 1.

These steps should get me a VCD-compliant MPEG clip. Anyhow, I know how to do step 1, 4, and 5, but I do need help or guidance to do step 2, 2a and 3.

Thank you in advance & merry X-Mas!

[Bubba]

After reading some topics over the Audio forum, I think I can use SSRC to upsampling the Wav file to 44100 Hz.

If SSRC can do this, then the steps I still need help are step 2 & step 2a.

Thanx

[Div_X Factor]

to convert the mp2 to wav use tmpeg's file=>output to file=>WAVEfile.

to add the second channel any decent wave editor should do it.
try cooledit.

[Psyche]

I advise you to NOT use TMPEGEnc to decode MP2. Here (http://mitiok.cjb.net) you can get MADPlay (and the link to MAD Homepage). This sounds a LOT better than TMPEG (due to dithering, noise shaping and a great quality decoder).
What is more, it allows you to output a stereo wav from a mono MP2 so this solves 2a also.
Unfortunately it's a command line tool (not that I mind, in fact I like CLI tools :p ), and I don't know if there is a GUI available.

[Bubba]

Hi Psyche,

I follow the link you provided, and it brought me to the following site: http://home.pi.be/~mk442837/

In this site, I could not find the program "MADPlay" as referred in your message. The only references that have the word "MAD" are in the "some audio related programs" section:

* mad-0.14.2b mad's sourcecode 10 Nov 01
* mad-0.14.2b mad's Win32 binary 10 Nov 01 161k
* MAD plugin for winamp

Did I miss something?

Thanks

[Psyche]

Yup! Sorry, the program is called madplay but it's this zip the one you have to DL:

mad-0.14.2b mad's Win32 binary 10 Nov 01 161k

Sorry again! :D

[dinesh]

I am not sure whether this is the right method but it works for me.

1. Open your MPEG1 file in VirtualDub( http://www.virtualdub.org ).
2. Select Audio -> Full Processing Mode
3. Select Audio -> Conversion
4. Choose Sampling Rate as 44100, Precision as 16 Bit, Channels as Stereo.Click OK
5. Select File -> Start Frameserver and Frameserve to TMPGEnc. (0r)
Try File -> Save as WAV and load the WAV file in your Audio Source in TMPGEnc

[Bubba]

Thanks. I will try it.

[Bubba]

First of all, I would like to thanks everyone that have answered my question, especially to Dinesh. With your help, I have successfully made non-compliant VCD clips (because of Audio) to non-compliant ones, and all of them play fine on my standalone DVD/VCD/SVCD Player.

Here are my findings. I used the following 2 apps to make VCD Audio-compliant, and both work fine:

1. VirtualDub (with the steps as disnesh pointed out in his reply)
2. dBpowerAMP Music Converter (very easy)

These 2 apps will convert your non-VCD Audio to a 44100 Hz/stereo Wav file. This should cover the steps 2, 2a, and 3 stated in my original questions. I used either TMPEGEnc or bbMPEG (both work fine) to mux/encode to create the final VCD clip.