DVD Rebuilder and Audio

[gtaylor]

Hello all,

I'm very new to DVD backups and such and would appreciate any info or advice you could provide. Here is what I am attempting to do and would appreciate advice on. I purchased the 2006 Star Wars DVD's that contain the original versions. The original versions are in 4x3 letterbox format. I purchased the professional version of DVD Rebuilder and used DVD decrypter to convert the DVD's to 16x9 and burnt them to dual layer DVD. The video results came out great. My problem is that the audio, instead of being the PCM audio from the laserdisc, is 192kbps AC3. I would like to try to take this audio track and increase the bitrate to at least 448kbps AC3. Is this something that DVD Rebuilder can help with, or is there another audio encoder that must be used, and is it doable? Again, I'm really new to all of this and I appreciate any feedback you guys can provide. Thanks!

[ruedas]

The Starwars audio that i have in Starwars collection is DD5.1 and DD2.0 as I remember. I dont remember having pcm. This is a collection of the original trilogy in a special edition remasterized and with added footage.
ENGLISH: DD-EX 5.1
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Surround
FRENCH: Dolby Digital Surround
SPANISH: Dolby Digital Surround.
It has a darth vader in the back and the original poster in silver in the front.

[wmansir]

More generally, DVD-RB can only use the existing audio tracks as they are. It cannot process them or import a new track.

[gtaylor]

The Starwars audio that i have in Starwars collection is DD5.1 and DD2.0 as I remember. I dont remember having pcm. This is a collection of the original trilogy in a special edition remasterized and with added footage.
ENGLISH: DD-EX 5.1
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Surround
FRENCH: Dolby Digital Surround
SPANISH: Dolby Digital Surround.
It has a darth vader in the back and the original poster in silver in the front.

You are referencing I believe the 2004 4 disc DVD set. In 2006 the released 2 disc "limited edition" dvd's that had the special edition cuts in dolby digital 5.1 ex. The second disc contains the original theatrical, non special edition cuts of the films using the 1993 sound mix from the Definitive Collection laserdisc set. On the laserdisc, the sound was full PCM. On this new DVD, it is dolby digital 2.0 at 192kbps. When comparing the audio quality of the 2.0 dolby track on the dvd to the 2.0 pcm track on the laserdisc there is no comparion. The PCM track is much much better than the compressed 192kb track on the dvd. I was thinking that taking the 192kbps track and re-encoding it to 448 might help, though it still won't be as good as the lasers PCM version.

[TBL]

I was thinking that taking the 192kbps track and re-encoding it to 448 might help, though it still won't be as good as the lasers PCM version.

Actually you'd be making it even worse because AC3 is a lossy compression method. But if you could get the PCM version from the laserdisc (I won't know how, analog rip?) and re-encode that to 448kbps, I'd think it would sound better.

[jolson]

Absolutely correct. You won't gain any sound quality by re-encoding a 192kbps track to 448, it will be noticably worse. But working from the PCM track and making a DD2.0 track at 448kbps can be much better than the 192kbps track, but you'd need a Dolby encoder program for that. I don't think there's anyone free due to Dolby licensing costs.

[jdobbs]

FFMPEG can do it.