How to mux in 3 tracks: AC3 plus VBR-MP3x2

[absinthe]

I'm not sure this is the right forum for this sorta thing, but anyway . . .

I want to mux 3 audio tracks into my XviD encode. Traditionally I use VDubMod, unless I have VBR MP3, in which case I use NanDub. I've used VDubMod before to mux in multiple audio tracks using AC3 and CBR MP3.

What I'm doing is encoding a movie in a foreign language, and I want to keep the original Japanese 5.1 AC3 audio. There's also a 2-channel English translation track, and then there's an audio commentary track in English. I want to keep all three, and I've encoded the latter two tracks to VBR MP3 to save space.

Is there a way to do this? I have never been able to get AVIMux GUI to produce anything that would play in my standalone.

Advice? Tips?

-abs

[Teegedeck]

Not for playing in standalones.

If it weren't for that, ogm, mkv or mp4 would all work for what you're trying to do.

[absinthe]

So I'm stuck with using CBR MR3 then?

-abs

[Teegedeck]

Have you already tried the old faithful Nandub way? :)

[stephanV]

Originally posted by Teegedeck
Not for playing in standalones.

If it weren't for that, ogm, mkv or mp4 would all work for what you're trying to do.

:) ac3 in mp4? nono...

set AVIMux GUI to mux standard AVIs, perhaps you have one of those b0rked players that cant handle openDML, although your filesize cant exceed 2 GB that way. you can also mux VBR MP3 with VirtualDubMod BTW.

dont use NanDub, thats archeic and wrong.

anyway, dont think this will work on a standalone

[absinthe]

Originally posted by stephanV
:) ac3 in mp4? nono...

set AVIMux GUI to mux standard AVIs, perhaps you have one of those b0rked players that cant handle openDML, although your filesize cant exceed 2 GB that way. you can also mux VBR MP3 with VirtualDubMod BTW.

dont use NanDub, thats archeic and wrong.

anyway, dont think this will work on a standalone

I have the Philips DVP-642, and as far as I know all my XviD encodes are muxed Open DML (isn't that standard in Vdub?).

I was able to mux all the tracks I mentioned above with AVIMux-GUI and they play great on the computer. I haven't tested them in the standalone, but I think that would be a waste of time since I've never created anything with AVIMux-GUI that would play in a standalone, even when it was just video and a single AC3 file. I don't really understand that particular program.

You say VDubMod can mux VBR MP3. How exactly?

-abs

[stephanV]

Originally posted by absinthe
I have the Philips DVP-642, and as far as I know all my XviD encodes are muxed Open DML (isn't that standard in Vdub?).
Nope, if your file stays under 2GB VDub(Mod) will automatically write a standard AVI. Don't believe GSpot, it's a bit to strict in interpreting the specs. It thinks it is OpenDML because of some lost, useless header. Any standard AVI parser can read files created by VirtualDub under 2GB.


I was able to mux all the tracks I mentioned above with AVIMux-GUI and they play great on the computer. I haven't tested them in the standalone, but I think that would be a waste of time since I've never created anything with AVIMux-GUI that would play in a standalone, even when it was just video and a single AC3 file. I don't really understand that particular program.

You can find it in the settings somewhere, i cant directly point you to it as i dont have the program available right now.


You say VDubMod can mux VBR MP3. How exactly?

Just add them in the streamslist and press no when asked to rewrite the header. (At least that should work with VDubMod 1.5.4 and 1.5.10)

[absinthe]

Originally posted by stephanV
Nope, if your file stays under 2GB VDub(Mod) will automatically write a standard AVI. Don't believe GSpot, it's a bit to strict in interpreting the specs. It thinks it is OpenDML because of some lost, useless header. Any standard AVI parser can read files created by VirtualDub under 2GB.


You can find it in the settings somewhere, i cant directly point you to it as i dont have the program available right now.


Just add them in the streamslist and press no when asked to rewrite the header. (At least that should work with VDubMod 1.5.4 and 1.5.10)

Thanks stephanV. Most of that is new to me. I have always assumed that all of my AVIs were Open DML :rolleyes:. I simply unchecked the OpenDML settings in AVIMux-GUI, and now my files are recogized and play in the Philips standalone just fine ... at least files with only 1 audio track, which is all I've tried thus far.

As far as the VDubMod thing goes, I understand what you're saying, but I'm wondering if it will split files with VBR MPR audio correctly. That's the problem I've always had in the past.

Guess there's only one way to find out ...

Thanks again!

-abs

[Joe Fenton]

Originally posted by absinthe
As far as the VDubMod thing goes, I understand what you're saying, but I'm wondering if it will split files with VBR MPR audio correctly. That's the problem I've always had in the past.

I don't know about that. I always split my sources BEFORE running it through VDubMod. Then I just run all the individual segments as a job list.

You get much better splits if you split the source, in my opinion. For example, DVD2AVI will let you split the source vob at any frame and splits the audio at the same time perfectly for each segment.

[absinthe]

Originally posted by Joe Fenton
I don't know about that. I always split my sources BEFORE running it through VDubMod. Then I just run all the individual segments as a job list.

You get much better splits if you split the source, in my opinion. For example, DVD2AVI will let you split the source vob at any frame and splits the audio at the same time perfectly for each segment.

Mmm ... but wait a minute. Doesn't DVD2AVI only split on I-frames? That means you'd have to have at least 1 overlapping frame, right? Though I suppose you could edit that one frame out of your final product.

-abs

edit: Also, can two files created in this manner be properly joined?

[stephanV]

Originally posted by absinthe
Mmm ... but wait a minute. Doesn't DVD2AVI only split on I-frames? That means you'd have to have at least 1 overlapping frame, right? Though I suppose you could edit that one frame out of your final product.

-abs

You should split in your AVS script i guess...

But youre having the exact same splitting problem with VirtualDubMod concerning keyframes.

[absinthe]

Originally posted by stephanV
You should split in your AVS script i guess...

But youre having the exact same splitting problem with VirtualDubMod concerning keyframes.

I have done that once before (split the movie in a script), and it worked fine, but I still wonder if that isn't less than optimal. Here's why ....

Where do you split the movie? The middle? It seems like when I did this before I just took the total number of frames and divided by 2 to find a split point. But, the "bits" in an encode seem to distribute themselves in such a way that dividing the movie evenly in half (in terms of time) does not necessarily (almost never in fact) divide the file's size in half. In other words, if you divide, say, a 1 GB file in half going by the number of frames, you may well end up with 470 MB and 530 MB halves (for instance).

Point is, it seems to me (and I'm no expert, only spouting off here :)) that bitrate distribution more ideal to an entire movie would take place encoding the entire movie, not halves. I.e., one half might suffer at the expense of the other.

Does that make sense?

-abs

[stephanV]

certainly that does make sense, and what i was proposing certainly isnt ideal... its a matter of preference too...

if i were to split a movie in 2, i wouldnt like the cut to be in the middle of an action scene... i would chose a point where it would be logical to split following the storyline of the movie a little bit too...

but yeah, you by no means have to listen to me :)