DVD video non-native audio

[clovejoy@plexusengineerin]

To all,


I've tried to locate what I need through these forums but have been unable to do so. I have a DVD movie that I'd like to overlay with a totally different soundtrack. For example: Movie "A" authored using Movie "B"'s soundtrack. Meaning: watching movie "A" but hearing movie "B". I know this can be done but do not have the technical expertise to pull this off. If anyone has any ideas on where I can go for a start or maybe an article which has this type of information, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,
Carl.

[killingspree]

hi and welcome to the forum,
ok, i get you're point, but there's a few more questions i have before answering the 'how to'!

a) you have the movie on DVD... what do you want the final format to be? DVD, SVCD, DIVX/XVID?

b) what format is the soundtrack in, and what format do you want it to be in? AC3, MP3, PCM?!

c) are the movie A and the soundtrack B of the same length?

d) (out of personal curiosity :)) is it just a different language for the same movie, or are the two items of completely different origin?

kr
steVe

[clovejoy@plexusengineerin]

Thanks for the reponse. Ok. Here's the answers to your questions and again thanks.

1. DVD format
2. This is tough to answer as I've not ripped the soundtrack yet. The sound is from a music CD not a movie. What audio format does DVD use? AC3, MP3? I'm just not sure about the audio portion of this.
3. I haven't checked the length of the soundtrack but I'm sure the movie is longer.
4. It is the movie "The Wizard of Oz" and the soundtrack is "Dark Side Of The Moon" by Pink Floyd. I own both copies and have been told by countless sources that the soundtrack and the movie go together quite eerily. :) I'm not sure if any of these answers will help but I'd love to get this figured out.

Thanks again,
Carl

[Dimmer]

Wow, Wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon - that's quite a combination! I like both the movie and the album, but I never thought they'd go nicely together. You ought to keep Over the Rainbow though since the movie is indeed longer than the album.

Anyway, you'll need to upsample CD music from 44.1kHz to 48kHz and either keep it as a .wav file (takes a lot of space though) or convert to AC3. These are two standard DVD audio formats although mp2 is allowed for PAL projects. Just for a case, make the soundtrack exactly the same length as the movie.

If you want to keep movie only (without menus), you can use DVD Author feature of IfoEdit. Demux the video stream from the movie into .m2v file from the original VOBs with VobEdit for example. Use this .m2v file along with the audio stream in IfoEdit.

If you want to create your own menus, you can use TMPGEnc DVD Author. Again, add .m2v and audio, and then set up chapters, menus, etc.

Keeping entire original DVD intact with its own menus but different soundtrack can be problematic. It's been discussed quite a few times around here but as I understand there is still no perfect solution at the moment.

[malum]

In addition to the above you'll need to loop the audio otherwise it'll run out halfway through the movie.

You are also going to need to sync the start of the audio to the Lion's Roar to get the effect that you require.
even then you might miss depending on whether your source is NTSC or PAL as the frame reate is diferrent and therefor the length of the movie is diferrent although not by much so you might get away with that one)

[clovejoy@plexusengineerin]

Thanks. I'm going to give this a shot and see if I can make it work. I'll post back in a few days to let you know the status of my success. Thanks for all the help I really appreciate it.

[clovejoy@plexusengineerin]

Can you recommend software to pull this project off in regards to the audio process? I'm fairly familiar with IfoEdit and the other DVD tools but don't really mess with audio all that much. You mentioned upsampling and converting to AC3 (which I'd prefer over .wav for the space issues) but wasn't sure what would be the best app for that functionality. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Carl.

[Dimmer]

Great software for this job would be BeSweet along with AC3Machine (GUI for BeSweet) you can find among audio tools on the download page (http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/software.htm) on this site. You can change the sampling rate and encode to AC3 in one step. Just unzip both programs in one folder and run AC3Machine. It has a link to a guide right on the GUI if needed.

[malum]

Any sound editor will do for adding the beginning of the track to the end of the first track (if you see what I mean)
Do this before conversion as it will be easier. then chop the end off so it's the same length as the movie. Then convert to AC3 using bewseet. (If you have room then leave it as a 48khz wav it will sound much better.)

[clovejoy@plexusengineerin]

Thanks! I tried using BeSweet but get errors. A "DOS" shell pops up for a split second then closes. Acts like it has a problem with the command line parameters or something. BeSweet.log displays the following:

Using hip.dll v1.19 by Myers Carpenter <myers@users.sf.net>
Using Shibatch.dll v0.24 by Naoki Shibata & DSPguru (shibatch.sourceforge.net).
Error 85: support for ac3enc.dll had been removed due it its suckness!
Quiting...
[00:00:00:000] Conversion Completed !

Logging ends : 03/03/04 , 19:40:18.

Any other tools you can recommend?

[Dimmer]

Looks strange. In case you want to give BeSweet another try, here's a command line from AC3Machine that works for me:

BeSweet.exe -core( -input C:\sample.wav -output C:\sample.ac3 -logfile C:\BeSweet.log ) -ssrc( --rate 48000 ) -ac3enc( -b 224 ) -profile( The AC3Machine v0.4 )

Apparently, it doesn't use hip.dll. Log file says:

Using Shibatch.dll v0.2 by Naoki Shibata & DSPguru (shibatch.sourceforge.net).
Using AC3enc.dll v0.2 by Gerard Lantau & Dg (http://ffmpeg.org).

I'm pretty sure BeSweet wouldn't be so popular if they dropped AC3 support.

Anyway, there is a lot of audio tools that can convert sampling rate, for example Nero Wave Editor that comes with Nero. As mentioned above, if you have enough space on DVD, leave the sound in .wav format.

[KpeX]

Originally posted by dimmer
I'm pretty sure BeSweet wouldn't be so popular if they dropped AC3 support. Yes, AC3 encoding in BeSweet is no more - the ffmpeg ac3enc is very low quality. Read more on this topic in the audio forum, it's been covered many times. If you insist on using this encoder, use BeSweet v1.4 stable.

[malum]

Are there other freeware AC3 converters about that offer better quality?

[KpeX]

No. Unfortunately, the only high quality encoders are commercial, due mainly to licensing issues. See the Ac3 FAQ #2 (link in my sig) for more information on Ac3 encoders.

[malum]

Cheers

[clovejoy@plexusengineerin]

I'm having an issue with the video. I've used the steps outlined above and have been able to produce a semi-working video with the music soundtrack but the video has issues. What I mean is when the movie plays the video will not move for about 1/2 second (what soneone would see if they pressed the still-frame button on a DVD remote) and then it jumps a few frames forward (8-9 frames maybe). This repeats ad infinito all the while the music flows fluidly. The audio is fine, no problems. I'm not sure how they created movies in the 50's but I'm wondering if that's the issue. Any ideas?

Again, thanks!!!!

Carl.

P.S. I pulled the video out using VOBEditor and the music was oversampled at 48kHz and stored as .wav.

[clovejoy@plexusengineerin]

Does anyone know if there is a way to view a m2v file? I think the issue might be in demuxing the video. I need to verify that the video file is in fact ok and it isn't the DVD authoring that is messing up the playback. Is there anyway to demux the video out and store it as mpeg2?

[oddyseus]

u can load it in powerdvd, It will play fine. U can demux the video in vobedit.

[clovejoy@plexusengineerin]

Ok, the m2v file and wav audio files are perfect but when using IfoEdit AuthorDVD feature the video playback is very choppy. Does anyone know if the IfoEdit authorDVD feature has problems or known issues?

[Dimmer]

Are you trying to play it right in the IfoEdit or in PowerDVD? Can't complain about authoring abilities of IfoEdit, but don't rely on the built-in DVD player to assess the quality, use PowerDVD or whatever software player. Also, you might want to check that you don't exceed maximum allowed DVD bitrate, which could happen if you have two or more soundtracks in PCM format (.wav).

By the way, they were showing The Wizard of Oz on TV few days ago, and I decided to capture it and add the DSOTM soundtrack. It's totally cool! Thanks for the idea. There is indeed a lot of sites that point out how to sync the album with the movie and what to watch for. Naturally, I used Scenarist, so I didn't have any issues adding the second soundtrack.

[clovejoy@plexusengineerin]

Ok, I'm still having a bit of a video issue. It's still very jerky and skips even though the m2v file plays perfectly. What is the easiest way to determine the total bit rate? Does the total bit rate include both audio and video or is that just for the audio? Would I need an audio "filler" during the start of the movie until DSOTM starts on the 3rd roar or will the video just play without a sound track? I was hoping this was going to be a easily learned experience but I'm now seeing that I was wrong. This is turning into quite an ordeal as I've been at this damn thing for quite a while now. I'm not going to be able to purchase any software so I will have to try to pull this off with "Free/Share" ware. If it can't be done then I will thank everyone for trying to help me and drop this project. I can always put the DSOTM CD into the player and que up TWOO on the TV and play them simultaneously.

Regards,
Carl.

[Dimmer]

An easy way to see the bitrate is opening the VOB in TMPGEnc - MPEG Tools - Demultiplex. You'll see all the streams with their bitrate. Stereo PCM (.wav) is always 1536kbps. The total of all audio and video shouldn't be above 9.8Mbps.

Even though sound can start in the middle, I suggest you add a filler in the beginning to make the soundtrack exactly the same length as video. That'll be much more reliable in your case.

[jtinney]

I'm not trying to be smart or anything, but (other than the thrill of mixing video with audio and producing a project to be proud of) wouldn't it be much easier to just put the dvd in, mute the sound and play the CD at the same time. You'll get the same effect.. just hit loop on the CD player and it will even loop it for you. If you're just wanting to hear the album with the DVD... there you go.

[Dimmer]

Originally posted by jtinney
I'm not trying to be smart or anything, but (other than the thrill of mixing video with audio and producing a project to be proud of) wouldn't it be much easier to just put the dvd in, mute the sound and play the CD at the same time. You'll get the same effect.. just hit loop on the CD player and it will even loop it for you. If you're just wanting to hear the album with the DVD... there you go.Of course, authoring a DVD, especially with two audio tracks, is a thrill of its own. That's what people around here get their kicks from. Besides, you have to start the album at the precise point to ensure full effect. Plus, you have to use two players. So if you enjoy things being done properly, and since you authoring a DVD anyway and can add an extra sound track, then why not.