Merging pieces of audio and video?

[VideoBeginner]

I have some TV episode clips where the audio is in English, but the video quality is terrible. I have the same video clips in great quality but are in Spanish.

The problem is that the commercial breaks are different lengths, so it's not a simple cut/paste/sync audio file into the video file. I need to be able to slice it up and move each section a second or two this way or that. But I don't even know what I am technically looking for.

I tried searching for things like "Audio/Video editing software" and "audio/video mixing" but keep getting basic editors like VDub and Avidemux or software with little description or no screenshots, taking me nowhere fast!

If not specific suggestions on what can do the job, can someone at least tell me what terms I should be searching for?




EDIT: Wow... I just realized I haven't been here in over a year! I guess that is the benefit of getting helpful, clear advice that I am able to carry on using later.

[therube]

I'll just state, in similar circumstances, muxing audio from one with video from another...


Sometimes muxing goes just fine & is a very simple process.
(I'll typically use Video to Video Converter (http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Video-to-Video-Converter) for that; Tools | Audio/Video Mux.)

Sometimes there are "speed" differences that need to be accounted for.
(I'll typically use eac3to (http://www.videohelp.com/tools/eac3to) for that; -speedup or -slowdown options.)

Sometimes you may also need to delay or gain to make things sync properly.
(eac3to can do that also; +/-###ms.)

Sometimes even though you do things "right", it just doesn't work out.
You could be spot on in the beginning, but then things start drifting & by the end, you end up with nothing usable.

I've never attempted to cut & resync clips.
My thought would be to cut the "commercial" version, hopefully ending up with a same length clip as the "not" commercial version, then pull the audio from the one & mux with the video from the other.

Video to Video can do some cutting, but that part of the program is less that ideal, IMO.
And cutting brings its own sets of problems.


I would search for Cutter (http://www.videohelp.com/search?q=cutter) or Commercial-Removal (http://www.videohelp.com/search?q=commercial+remove).

[VideoBeginner]

I do know that there are no issues with speed differences between the two, so that is not a problem. My current process is first a quick editing out the unnecessary audio and video if needed (in most cases, there is no physical commercial, just the wipe out and back in). Then I insert the MP3 from of the audio into the video which is running in Avidemux. From the start it is out of sync, so I use "Shift" to line them up.

But here is where it gets tricky. I open the MP3 file in an audio editor, adding silence or cropping audio by the amount of my shift so the two match up again. No problems there. If I was to save the new file and load it into Avidemux, the audio would be in sync until the next break (there are about 4 to 7 breaks per video and 45 videos *sweating*) and then I would start the process over again. Technical issues like not being able to save the same MP3 because it is currently running in Avidemux (read-only) means 6 steps just to get the updated MP3 saved and re-loaded.

So, instead, I keep the audio file open in the MP3 editor, and keeping in mind how much I have to shift at each break, calculate and add it to the MP3 and save once at the end. (eg: first shift, the audio needs to move forward by 1,500ms, so I put that in Avidemux's Shift and add 1,500ms silence into my MP3 editor. The next shift needs to go back 300ms, so I change Avidemux from 1,500 to 1,200 and cut 300 from the MP3 file. All of this while trying to figure out the exact adjustments each time in the first place.)

Do you see the headache yet? LOL

[wonkey_monkey]

Personally I'd use Avisynth. I'd cut the ads out of the English version with trims and splices until I was happy with the audio, then stack it on top of the Spanish video before doing the same to the Spanish version so you can see how things are lining up (or not).

David