Audio Streams in Multiple VTS Files

[Cougar1]

This is my first post here so go easy on me. I am rather new at DVD authoring and have spent many hours reading through many different guides and posts. Most have been very enlighting (and many times confusing). I am trying to make an "Intro DVD" for my home theater with my theater intro, some movie trailers, and the DTS and/or Dolby Digital splash screens. Herein lies my problem. I am working with multiple aspect ratios and audio types (dolby AC3 and DTS)in multiple VOB files. I have figured out so far that I need to use multiple VTS files and am working now to get them to play sequentually (another post elsewhere may be required). Once I have this working I would like to know if it is possible to get the intro to switch automatically between the Dolby audio streams of the trailers and the DTS audio stream of the DTS logo splash? In all my reading I have not found any answer to this question and so here I am. Any suggestions?

[killingspree]

hi and welcome to the forum,
if you do have different VTS sets for each trailer which are simply played one after another you shouldn't have any problem with the audio either... the only problem you might have is, that a VTS set cannot only have one DTS stream and nothing else. by some spec it is required to at least have another mp2/ac3/pcm stream. but perhaps it allows it to be the secondary (non default) stream!

anyway, it would help enormously if you told us which programs you used and how far you did get so far, or where you got stuck and what happened there!

hth
steVe

[Cougar1]

OK, here is what I did. Each trailor, splash screen and my intro are in different VOB files. In my initial attempt to make this work, I used VOBedit to join all the files together and then used IFOedit to create the IFO files. It worked OK until I got to the DTS splash screen and I got no sound. The DTS splash only has a DTS audio stream. I stripped out the Dolby 2 channel audio because I wanted to be sure it would play the DTS. The DTS splash works great alone but not when joined. If I leave the Dolby 2 channel stream intact on the DTS splash, it plays fine except it plays in Dolby 2 channel and not in DTS.
It dawned on me that normally I would select either Dolby or DTS but not both so without some manipulation it is no wonder this didn't work.
My next idea was to keep the files separated and figure out how to get them to play one after the next. After much reading on this forum, I think I can do this. My next challenge was to see if I can get the Intro DVD to play the dolby streams on the trailors and then automatically switch to the DTS stream for the DTS splash. I am hopeful this is possible.

[killingspree]

hi,
well it was obvious that the DTS soundtrack wouldn't work in this case as you can't switch formats within a stream.

anyway, an idea that just popped through my mind: why don't you reencode the other intros audiostreams also to DTS... you won't notice any audible decrease in quality as i'm sure you can spare an extra meg (or two) for the high bitrate DTS sound of these short clips. after you've converted the ac3 files to DTS you can join the different clips (provided you get them to a single resolution) and won't have any problems with the sound, if not sync issues!

anyway, I got a small DTS intro too and since i'm curious myself i will try to add two intros together and author it in a way so it plays the first clip with ac3 and the second one with dts.

i have to try, but it should actually be possible that you won't even have to create seperate VTS sets, but it would suffice to create one VTS set with multiple PGCs, which then again are easier to connect and will have shorter skips in between.

anyway,
hth
steVe

edit: after some consideration i think you'll get more answers in the 'DVDauthoring' forum - so i'll move you there! (;) @ influenza)

[maa]

1. Start with your clips as seperate VTS with IFOs in seperate folders.
2. Start DVDShrink and open the first Clip
3. Hit re-author which opens a new window and drag your clip across from the first window.
4. Now, in the first window open the second clip and drag that across too !
5. Continue untill you have all clips in the re-author window.
6. Hit Backup and specify a folder.
Done!

If each clip only has one audio stream this should work straight away as Shrink makes the navigation for you to play in sequence.

If however for some reason a clip has no sound we'll need to look at the IFOs and add a command to switch the right audio channel on.

Try that and post the results here.

cheers

maa

[Cougar1]

All I can say is... YES,YES,YES. It worked!! I could hardly believe my ears and eyes. After 2 weeks of trying to do this by just reading the forum I finally decided to ask for assistance. It was well worth it as the procedure described by "maa" worked like a charm. I now have a DVD with multiple VTS files and different audio types that plays perfectly, switching automatically between DTS and Dolby Digital as required. Since my individual VOB files did not have any IFO files I used IFOedit to create them for each separate VOB file. I then followed the procedure listed above and it all came together. Perhaps in time I will be able to pickup a better understanding of the art of IFO editing but for now I'll let DVD Shrink do the programing for me. Thanks again maa for all the help.

Now, if I can only figure out the right forum thread to ask my next questions in. . . :D

[maa]

Well done - glad it worked.

I suggested the newbie forum to you (via PM) because I think a lot of newbies would like to know this trick - but of course it really is an authoring question so ....

Your last question is a lot more difficult and requires re-authoring.
DVDlab is a great tool but it doesn't natively support Multiple VTS yet. I have writen guides for this and making an audio menu:

Making a multiple VTS with Ifoedit for a Menu produced with DVD Lab (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58791)
Guide to a Multiple Audio Menu with DVD Lab and IfoEdit (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=61173)

Another way - as these clips are very small - would be to make seperate versions of the clips containing one audio stream each and author them with TMPG DVD Author which can produce Multiple VTS but not multiple audio. That way you just ahvethe same clip twice - one with AC3 and the other with DTS !:D !

[Cougar1]

I looked at both your guides when I was attempting earlier to join the files. Now that I have gotten this far I will read them over more carefully and see if I can get them to work for me. I am also going to experiment with the TMPG method to see if that works (I tried it earlier not knowing it did not support multiple audio streams). I also have a book on order called "DVD Authoring and Production" by Ralph Labarge which I hope will further enlighten me. Thanks again for the help. I am sure you will find me posting again some time.

By the way, I am using the trial version of both TMPG and DVDLab and have to make up my mind soon which software package to purchase. At this point I am leaning towards DVDLab. Any suggestions?