which audio should i keep?

[sturmie]

aiight, i'm tryin to get a standard together for when I make backups of my DVD9 discs to a DVD5 and was wondering, which audio should i keep? AC3 Stereo and AC3 5.1 or just the AC3 5.1? i just kept the AC3 5.1 audio for Blue Crush and could swear that my surround sound wasn't as good as it has been in the past. i know it's personal preference, but i would like to know other's opinions.

also, tell me if this sounds about right for my setup:


-rip the DVD to the hdd w/ DVD Decrytper...well, duh


IN INSTANTCOPY
-check "remove dvd-rom content"
-go thru each "title" and uncheck all subtitles (except english), AC3 stereo and all non AC3 5.1 audio
-compress the video on each "extra" title down to 30% (i don't care much about these)
-bump up the quality of my main title as high as it will go...hopefully around 75% or so


sound about right?


thanks for the info....sturmie

[KaoS]

Well, it depends

I personally keep DTS, but if you are going to share your DVD with someone that does not have a DTS capable system, they will just hear .. well.. nothing when they play it.

If you want to keep the best sound possible while still making sure it is compatable with all of your friends and anyone else that may watch it, then use 5.1 (since 5.1, Dolby Digital) can still be heard on non DD systems.

However DTS audio tracks will only play on DTS systems

[sturmie]

so what's the plain "AC3 Stereo" then? i understand that the "AC3 5.1" is the typical "surround sound", but will i not get true surround w/o the "AC3 Stereo"?



just wondering....sturmie

[ZeroLimit]

I lend my friend a dvd and only had DTS 5.1 and she hear the movie with no problem so I always keep DTS 5.1 up to you guys

[fusion007]

the ac3 stereo part is say your tv doesnt have 5.1 surround on it you could plug the stereo leads from your dvd player into the back of the tv and get full stereo sound its as simple as that.the dts track can contain 3x the audio information that dd does so i tend not to keep it cos it takes up too much room ie you lose some video quality,dts is very simular to dd but it is a true sound copy of the origanal film print amplified thus large in size..

[fusion007]

"i just kept the AC3 5.1 audio for Blue Crush and could swear that my surround sound wasn't as good as it has been in the past."





5.1 is a little quiet so i usually keep both the 5.1 and the stereo to get the best sound(the ac3 stereo is very small).

you may have noticed on some dvds or in fact some standalone players that even though the sound effects(explosions etc)may be loud the vocals are sometimes quiet so thats another reason i keep the stereo.

[mpucoder]

There is no need to provide a 5.1 and 2.0 mixdown on a DVD, the player can perform the mixdown itself. This makes it very unlikely that the 2.0 track is the same content as the 5.1 track. Usually it is another language or commentary. Listen to it first.

[drphobus]

if i have it right

AC3 stereo = up to analog dolby pro logic if you have the decoder witch only needs left and right stereo leads

AC3 5.1 is a digital system and use a coax or optical lead as well as standerd stereo but to get 5.1 ( or dts ) you must have suitable hardware

my awnser would be keep the 5.1 as one day your upgrade to a amp that can handle it and its a world apart from old analog systems

[MackemX]

Originally posted by fusion007

you may have noticed on some dvds or in fact some standalone players that even though the sound effects(explosions etc)may be loud the vocals are sometimes quiet so thats another reason i keep the stereo.
are you talking about a downmix or 5.1 output having quiet vocals fusion007?

on a 5.1 it depends on how you can adjust your individual speakers settings either in the SA or amp

some you can indivudually adjust your centre volume (vocals) so it's louder and some you can't so reduce the surround sound and then increase the master volume to compensate and again this will increase the centre volume. I don't if you can do the same with a downmix

I'm fussier about pic quality than sound quality and would prefer the extra MB to go towards the movie than the DTS soundtrack. If I really want to listen to a DTS movie I'll just pull out the original on special occasions :)

the difference between 5.1 and stereo is far greater than the difference between DTS & 5.1 so I agree with drphobus and suggest to keep 5.1 and get hold of a cheap 5.1 to benefit from the extra enjoyment of 5.1 asap

[sturmie]

what if there's more than one AC3 audio track? in The Sum of All Fears (a different one i'm tryin to back up now), there are 3 AC3 audio tracks at 175mb each...if i get rid of all 3, it's a difference of 72% to 60% (if i keep all 3) on the video quality....which one of the 3 do i need? or, do i need all 3?


thanks....sturmie

[MackemX]

play the DVD in a player (standalone or PC) then skip thru the audio's and note which ones you wanna keep in the order they are when you press the audio to skip them, so say streams 1,3,5 were the ones you wanna keep that's it

there will be other simpler ways to check which audio is which also, but I can't remember at the mo :(

if you have a 5.1 setup you may feel its not necessary to keep the AC3 tracks although when it downmixes the volume is affected (I think)

[sturmie]

Originally posted by MisterX
play the DVD in a player (standalone or PC) then skip thru the audio's and note which ones you wanna keep in the order they are when you press the audio to skip them, so say streams 1,3,5 were the ones you wanna keep that's it.

what's the difference usually in these audio streams? is there any reason to keep more than one?

Originally posted by MisterX
if you have a 5.1 setup you may feel its not necessary to keep the AC3 tracks although when it downmixes the volume is affected (I think).

would this be the reason why in my Blue Crush test, the surround sound volume is a little lower than normal?...i didn't keep any of the AC3 Stereo audio for that copy. also, what is meant by "downmixing the volume"?


thanks for the help...sturmie

[Scarpad]

what I'm finding mostly on Warner disks is that if I keep just the AC35.1 sometimes the extras like Docs and trailers will have no sound. Anyone else find this? It happened on Training Day as one example and Oceans Eleven as another.

[MackemX]

Originally posted by Scarpad
what I'm finding mostly on Warner disks is that if I keep just the AC35.1 sometimes the extras like Docs and trailers will have no sound. Anyone else find this? It happened on Training Day as one example and Oceans Eleven as another.

are they separate titles?

if they are try checking the audio for all Titles before processing. IC is useless at selecting audio automatically

If they are are in the same Title there's nothing much you can do, unless you try modding the IFO's

@sturmie, only keep them if you really need them, 5.1 or AC3 are normally one of the tracks most people keep, I keep the odd Director's comments sometimes

the sound is quieter, because the range of sound in 5.1 is greater than AC3. The loud parts are loud yet the quiet parts (vocals) are quiet but AC3 levels them out more (I think)

[Scarpad]

These predicaments were on Warner Disks using Ifo Edit to strip the extraneous streams and then doing the entire disk with DVD2One's full movie copy.

[MackemX]

I see the error now

you should now use InstantCopy to remove streams as it does the job poerfectly whereas before it had some remapping issues

what you uhave done is removed the stream using Ifoedit which has resulted in the remapping of the audio tracks. Have you tried pressing the audio button when these trailers are playing?

Use IC from now on as they have fixed the audio so that if you remove a stream it doesn't affect the original stream structure

[Scarpad]

no, but having to press the remote button would be a pain, Instant copy is an Option just a lengthier one.

[MackemX]

sorry, didn't notice you used DVD2one

before you burn then just go into the IFO for extras an copy the stream info from stream 2 into stream 1, very simple to do and will be the answer to your missing audio :D

if you need pointers just ask

[Scarpad]

not sure I know what you mean...

[MackemX]

from Trilights Tips n Tricks guide http://dvdguides.trilight.net/
SOLUTION: You need to change the stream numbers for that particular PGC in the IFO file. Open the IFO in IFO Edit. Expand the "VTS_PGCITI" in the top window and you will see your PGC's listed. If you select them, you will see stream information in the bottom window. You can change your audio stream status numbers to change what audio is played. The default settings change in increments of 256 and are as follows:

Audio Stream 1 Status: 32768
Audio Stream 2 Status: 33024
Audio Stream 3 Status: 33280
Audio Stream 4 Status: 33536
Audio Stream 5 Status: 33792


Let's say the actual audio you were wanting to play was located in stream 4 when you reauthored. Change the Audio Stream 1 Status to read "33536". You can disable all other audio tracks for that PGC by changing their stream numbers to "0".

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46983&highlight=monsters is my query with soltution about changing audio, before I learnt how easy it was to mod :D

basicall all you will do is copy the numbers from the AC3 stream into stream number 1

[2COOL]

I also wrote a guide noting this. Correcting Language Buttons After Stripping Audio(s) (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=46909)

Though it was used mainly with backups with menus, the procedure can still be used in movie-only too.

[MackemX]

my post in Ifoedit forum querying audio - 24th February 2003 20:35

2COOL's guide - 24th February 2003 02:06

just show's that people don't look hard enough! cos that was probably only a few posts below mine!

[sturmie]

so if i have three AC3 Stereo audio streams on one disc to chose from and select only the one of them as a part of the re-encode process, what would happen? do i just have to burn it once w/ all three and then determine which AC3 Stereo (1,2 or 3) sounds the best?


thanks....sturmie

[MackemX]

you need to check which stream is which 1st by playing the DVD or looking at the IFO

the 1st AC3 is normally the main audio
the 2nd a foriegn language or cast commentary
the 3rd either a directors' or cast commentary if the 2nd was foreign

then decide which ones to keep

[sturmie]

Originally posted by MisterX
the 1st AC3 is normally the main audio
the 2nd a foriegn language or cast commentary
the 3rd either a directors' or cast commentary if the 2nd was foreign
that's exactly the info i was looking for :).




thanks for the help...sturmie