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Old 4th November 2004, 11:23   #1  |  Link
Malcolm
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UPDATED: Compressing Audio before Shrinking a DVD (LPCM/ac3 5.1ch -> mp2/ac3 2ch)

This guide describes how to compress DVD audio tracks. This is useful if you want to save space for the video part when shrinking from DVD-9 to DVD-5.

You need the following tools:
- a DVD Ripper (e.g. DVD Decrypter)
- PgcDemux
- an audio encoder (e.g. BeSweetGUI or BeLight)
- MuxMan
- VobBlanker

There are a few other guides out there. But these methods are fairly complicated, work only for DVDs with exactly one audio-track and also can't keep subtitles, chapters and menues.

This guide works for multiple audio tracks, preserves subtitles, chapters and the menue structure. It's also fairly easy. (with a certain basic-complexity) and it should work for most DVDs.

According to jsoto, VobBlanker cannot process multiangle DVDs! I can not say if my method works in other exotic cases. (e.g. multiple PGCs per TitleSet)

Here's the guide (in case you want to compress the audio tracks of the main movie from a DVD):
1. Rip the DVD to your harddisk.
2. Open PgcDemux, choose the .ifo file for the main movie on the DVD. Demux all audio, video + substreams. Also create the Celltimes.txt + the logfile.
3. Use BeSweetGUI or BeLight to convert the demuxed audio tracks to any format you like (2ch AC3 or MP2) (*1).
4. Open MuxMan. Select the demuxed video track from step 2. Select all audio tracks you have created with BeSweet (take care for the right order: 0x80, 0x81,..) (*2). Select all demuxed substreams. Select the Celltimes.txt that PgcDemux has created. Create the VOBs + IFOs.
5. Open VobBlanker. Open the original, ripped DVD (NOT the one you have just created with MuxMan)! Select the main movie TitleSet + PGC (the one you have demuxed with PgcDemux). Select 'Replace' and choose the first VOB you have created with Muxman. Hit 'PROCESS!!' VobBlanker will correct the Coding Mode for all audio tracks that you have converted to their new format (Dolby AC3, MPEG-1).

That's it!
Now you have a DVD on your harddisk with compressed audio tracks. And you can transcode it with DVD-Shrink or any other program you like.

(*1) IMHO 160 kbit is a good choice for MP2 and 2ch AC3 compression. In PAL-land you can use MP2 if you want. In NTSC-land, AC3 is mandatory for DVDs (MP2 is optional). I recommend MP2 since BeSweet is not good in creating AC3 (bad sound quality). MP2 and AC3 should have a comparable sound quality at a bitrate of 160 kbit. Edit: If you really want to save space, you can go down to 64 kbit AC3s when encoding in mono(!). HeadAC3e produces much better AC3 than BeSweet. The quality of 64 kbit mono AC3s from HeadAC3e is also much better than 64 kbit mono MP2s.

(*2) It might be that you have to enter a delay for the audio tracks in MuxMan. According to jsoto the delays in the logfile of PgcDemux have the right values and can directly be entered in MuxMan.

The whole method is pretty mechanical and could easily be automated. PgcDemux has commandline-support. BeSweet too. If MuxMan + VobBlanker would also have commandline-support, then you could do everything with a batch-script or a few clicks (if you had a GUI-tool for this).
What i would REALLY like to see is the integration of PgcDemux into VobBlanker. Both tools are from jsoto. VobBlanker could then call BeSweet + MuxMan! And you would save a lot of manual interaction, selecting things, clicking around, copying VOBs, ...

I would like to thank especially jsoto for his tools VobBlanker + PgcDemux! Without them this all wouldn't be possible!

Feedback is welcome!

Greetings,
Malcolm

Last edited by Malcolm; 11th April 2005 at 09:28.
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Old 4th November 2004, 11:33   #2  |  Link
2COOL
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Re: Working Guide: Changing LPCM / AC3(5.1ch) to AC3(2ch) / MP2 before Backing up a DVD

CC

Quote:
Originally posted by Malcolm

4. Open ifoEdit. Choose Menue -> Author new DVD. select the demuxed video-track. select all audio-tracks you have created with BeSweet (take care for the right order: 0x80, 0x81,..). select all demuxed substreams. select the Celltimes.txt that PgcDemux has created. Create the DVD.
You may want to point this out.

NTSC: Use ReJig
PAL: Use IfoEdit/ReJig

Re-author with NTSC files have been reported to be buggy. Also, ReJig is still free!
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Old 4th November 2004, 17:33   #3  |  Link
Shalimar
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Kickass

I'll test this as soon as I've got a chance.. I've got a DVD here just waiting for a solution like this.. all of the audio on the entire thing is LPCM *_*

Many thanks to both you and 2cool for the note (since it's NTSC for my area).

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Old 4th November 2004, 23:20   #4  |  Link
jsoto
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Ah!
@Malcolm
I never forgot your request. PgcDemux is the first step to do it and more... Can you imagine why does it support CLI?

@all
No, multiangle is not supported by VobBlanker (and it is not in my mind, too complex...), so although PgcDemux supports multiangle, you cannot apply this guide in this case.

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Last edited by jsoto; 4th November 2004 at 23:24.
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Old 4th November 2004, 23:24   #5  |  Link
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Quote:
But since i never had the need to do this, i'm not sure if these are the right values.
Please let me know if they are not. I've checked this in VobBlanker many times, and seems to me it is ok. So, I've used the same code for PgcDemux.
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Old 5th November 2004, 00:00   #6  |  Link
Malcolm
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Ah!
@Malcolm
I never forgot your request. PgcDemux is the first step to do it and more... Can you imagine why does it support CLI?


Hola Jesus! Qué tal?
(Last week, i had my first spanish course! You know, i was on holidays in Spain 3 weeks ago!)
Nice to hear that you didn't forget my request!
Actually i WAS clever enough to realise myself that it might have been me that motivated you to write PgcDemux and add commandline support..! I just didn't had the time to send you a message yet. (i discovered PgcDemux just yesterday!) Thank you very much for that! I'm sure you will get a lot of reward from other users for writing this piece of software!
Keep up the good work!!

bye,
Malcolm
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Old 5th November 2004, 00:23   #7  |  Link
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Hmm I'm having Pgcdemux kick out an error on every single vob I try to work with here.. very strange *_*

start it up as directed and it is almost finished then error popsup: "Unrecognized pack" followed by a warning about finishing with an error.

logfile dosn;t seem to tell me a damned thing about the error either

Logfile:
~~~~~~~~
[General]
Number of Video Packs=104717
Number of Audio Packs=40587
Number of Subpicture Packs=0
Number of Nav Packs=849
Number of Cells=1
[Audio Streams]
Audio_1=0xA0
Audio_2=None
Audio_3=None
Audio_4=None
Audio_5=None
Audio_6=None
Audio_7=None
Audio_8=None
[Audio Delays]
Audio_1=0
[Subs Streams]
Subs_01=None
Subs_02=None
Subs_03=None
Subs_04=None
Subs_05=None
Subs_06=None
Subs_07=None
Subs_08=None
Subs_09=None
Subs_10=None
Subs_11=None
Subs_12=None
Subs_13=None
Subs_14=None
Subs_15=None
Subs_16=None
Subs_17=None
Subs_18=None
Subs_19=None
Subs_20=None
Subs_21=None
Subs_22=None
Subs_23=None
Subs_24=None
Subs_25=None
Subs_26=None
Subs_27=None
Subs_28=None
Subs_29=None
Subs_30=None
Subs_31=None
Subs_32=None



Any ideas would be appreciated!

Shal
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Old 5th November 2004, 00:52   #8  |  Link
jsoto
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Hmmm. I've to add more info in the log. I was thinking in the delay audio/video and not in bug tracking when I did it.

Well, PgcDemux has been able to process a total of 146153 packs (299321344 bytes). so the offending one should be the number 146153. Please check with VobEdit what kind of pack is it.

Or, may be you can cut the file with Cutfile (see my sig) just around it, i.e. from pack (Initial block ) 146150 to (Final Block) 146160 and send the output file (22 KB) to me. (Use the default 2048 bytes block size)

EDIT:
Sorry, I forgot to mention you have to look for the offending pack 146153 blocks after the starting cell sector. Do you need help on this?

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Last edited by jsoto; 5th November 2004 at 00:58.
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Old 5th November 2004, 01:02   #9  |  Link
Shalimar
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Accoring to vobedit pack # 146153 is: [Padding Stream] , 07ec

However this is happening with all vobs for this DVD.. very strange *_*

I'll check the others as well shortly to see if they are labeled as the same type of pack

I'll c&p in the pack if u like or cut the file to send as soon as i finish feedin my face

Shal
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Old 5th November 2004, 01:12   #10  |  Link
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Sorry if it sounds too simple... Did you decript (rip) your VOB?
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Old 5th November 2004, 02:42   #11  |  Link
Shalimar
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Quote:
EDIT:
Sorry, I forgot to mention you have to look for the offending pack 146153 blocks after the starting cell sector. Do you need help on this?

jsoto
Unquote


Umm yeah a lil help might come in handy
I'm more than familiar w/ripping/editing but replacing audio is a new trick for me as is your program

And of course it's ripped using dvd decrypter

Shal
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Old 5th November 2004, 05:20   #12  |  Link
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Well I ran more tests and every single vob for this DVD caused the same error other than Video_TS.vob which refused to process at all. It appears that it has no cells and therefore is refused for processing. There is however 7 menu entries 5 of which have cells allocated (1 each). Interesting bugs I've found perhaps or maybe a fubar dvd mastering job? *_*
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Old 5th November 2004, 07:45   #13  |  Link
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Yet a few more thoughts while i work instead of sleep as I should be doing

Output for thr audio (here at least) is done with the extension lpc which isn't recognized by besweet of course. Fix of course is a simple rename. Besweet wizard still refuses to actually transcode the file for some reason I havn't found yet. However the gui does transcode it to AC3 w/o complaint (once it's renamed of course). I havn't set it to drop the bitrate at all so in my case at least it produces an AC3 file using 383Kbs. Even so it's averaging easily 4:1 ratio

As for the menu vob mentioned in an earlier post I can demux it but each of the menu items have to be done seperately instead of as a single stream. O.o; (tedious that way)

Now given I don't have an answer for errors that occured earlier I can't even say the files produced are actually "flawless" but the m2v's all play (in MPC). Also all of the celltimes.txt files are blank (0 byte) other than those produced from Video_TS.vob's menu items which also produced subpic (sup) files.


Now once Jsoto has a chance to pop back in here and perhaps clairify this:

Sorry, I forgot to mention you have to look for the offending pack 146153 blocks after the starting cell sector. Do you need help on this?

I can do some more tests and send materials to him if needed.

One way or another we'll get the bugs worked out.

And of course a HUGE thanks to both Jsoto and Malcolm without both none of this would be possible! >

Shal
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Old 5th November 2004, 20:45   #14  |  Link
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Open your VTS_XX_0.IFO in IFOEdit.
In the upper window, select your PGC: VTS_PGCITI-->VTS_PGC_X

Now, in the lower window, scroll until Cell playback table and look for the Cell 1 : entry point sector. ÇThis is the initial sector (block) where your cell starts. Add 146153 and go to the resulting pack in Vobedit.



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Last edited by jsoto; 2nd January 2005 at 00:09.
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Old 5th November 2004, 21:00   #15  |  Link
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Ok done.. (for some reason i thought u meant in vobedit.. a sign i needed sleep perhaps?)

Entry point sector is 0 (Vob 4 same as the log file posted)

I'll check all of the others now and see if it is the same.

Also the LPCM file saved might be bad. Nothing I've tried here for playtback gets me anything but static sound.

Shal
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Old 5th November 2004, 21:32   #16  |  Link
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All of the other vobs have been checked (same method) and all of them show as: [Padding Stream] , 07ec

I didn't check the main movie however since it's a multi-vob set. (Is it safe to assume adding up the pack totals would be appropriate to find the pack# needed in the last vob of the set?)

I didn't check the menu for this yet (Video_TS.vob)
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Old 5th November 2004, 22:23   #17  |  Link
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These are the offending packs: [Padding Stream] I really didn't code them... (sorry...)

Thanks for your report. I'll be off line during the weekend, but I hope I'll fix this soon.


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Old 8th November 2004, 23:32   #18  |  Link
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Well I've found a second dvd using LPCM here. I can send u info from it as well if needed.

Shal
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Old 9th November 2004, 08:07   #19  |  Link
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Ok tests done and results sent.

Now here's a dumb one for u.. BeSweet w/gui wizard refuses to actually process anything for me *_*
If I use the GUI it will process but it I don't see a setting (maybe I'm goin blind demmit) for output bitrate (would like to drop it to 160 from 320 since it's mostly voices only for this dvd). GUI will process and make a valid AC3 file.. Wizard only pops up the logfile immediately w/o adding anything to it. O.o;

Ahh one step at a time eh?

Shal
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Old 9th November 2004, 08:30   #20  |  Link
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well i am going blind *L*
found the downsample setup for besweet gui though the damned wizard still acts the same for me.

Conversion underway!
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