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Creating KVCDs with selectable commentary track?

Re: Creating KVCDs with selectable commentary track

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikewithe

How would the disc author control the second audio track in such a way that the source(main) audio track's colume would be decreased while commentary was selected etc.?

It's not possible that way. It is not even possible on a DVD that proposes a lot more features than a VCD.

On both support you must do 2 audio tracks, the regular one and the comment one with the regular faded in the background and author a disc with two audio tracks (the same way as if it is two different languages). The user just select it using the "audio" button of his remote.

To be precise, VCD does not allow this, but SVCD does. It supports 4 audio tracks. To create this you just have to do a multi-track MPEG using for instance the "Multiplex" (not "simple multiplex") tool of tmgenc (menu file -> mpeg tools) and then author your SVCD with VCDEasy.

I did not really understand if you will write something or if you ask me to write a step-by-step guide. In the second situation, I never did that myself, I just answered to your question. And will be happy to answer to all others that you can have.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikewithe

The first question that I have is does TMPegenc express have the multiplex features that you are describing? If so, where? I cant find them.

It should have but actually no-one, or close to that, is using this version that does not allow to use text templates that we need to share our settings with all the people here (and is also needed for tools like CQMatic).

In Tmpgenc 2.54, this is in the "File" menu as said above. ive a look at the same place in TmpgXpress.

But else you can use other muxing tool (mplex, bbmpeg).

You are pretty fast to experiment things :).

It's good to know that this is working with MPEG1 as tmpgenc is better at this than MPEG2 (for low bitrate at least).

Nice guide :ok:

You're working with AC3 files? I would first decode them to WAV for processing in Audition. It's better to encode the commentary track to MP2 with BeSweet (using BeLight or BeSweet GUI) and tooLAME.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikewithe

To be honest, one thing that has always bugged me about this site, is the fact that most of the folks here are stubborn when it comes to finding new and, dare I say it, easier ways to create KVCDs. Why should I stick to antiquated methadology when newer, perhaps better, tools make themselves available?

It's because the key to quality, lies in the codecs :)
For example, no matter what commercial program is used to create MP3s, if it doesn't use LAME, then the results will never be optimal, because LAME is the world's best MP3 encoder. Period!.
Same applies to MP2 audio. For MP2 audio, the best is tooLAME, BeSweet or HeadAC3he, because they all rely on the same basic libraries.

-kwag

You come here asking for help and then get pissed off when someone tries to help you getting the most out of your work? Nice attitude.

I see no reason to change the way I work just because a new trick comes around - until the new one provides better quality than the one I'm using right now. Go and tell the people at hydrogenaudio.org that LAME isn't the best MP3 encoder and they'll just die laughing.

Or you could simply prove your point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikewithe

2. Once opened save the audio as "main.mp2"(listed under MPEG in the "save as type" drop down) with the following options [options are available by clicking the "options" button in the save dialog]
Compression -> Layer2
Psychoacoustics -> Model 2 - AT&T
De-emphasis for decoder -> None
Data Rate/Compression Ratio -> 128 K
UNCHECK the four boxes at the bottom, this will prevent non-audio information from being included in the file. This will result in the creation of an mp2 file about 80mb in size for 90 minutes of audio.

(step 2 assumes that you installed the mp2 encoder following the instructions from the website above)

3. Close and re-open audition (small bug in the mp2 encoder only allows one file to be exported and then it must be reset)

4. open the saved "main.mp2" file

5. Reduce amplitude by 10db (effects -> Amplitude -> Amplify/Fade -> 10db cut)

6. right click the waveform and "Add to multitrack"

7. click the multitrack tab

8. right click the audio in the multitrack window and "mixdown to file (mono)"

9. click the multitrack tab

10. Clear all audio from multitrack (Edit -> Remove Clips)

11. Go back to main view and right click the audio and "Add to multitrack" (this puts
the newly created main audio mono file into the multitrack)

12. Open the commentary track and "Add to multitrack"

13. By clicking and dragging the commentary track you can move it back and forth along the timeline to sync it with the main audio

14. Click "Edit -> Mixdown to File -> All Clips (Mono)"

15. save this newly created mixdown as "Commentary.mp2" (Use the same settings as in step 3 above but this time use 96K as the bitrate) [using this bitrate you should end up with a commentary track about 60mb in size for 90 minutes in length.

Your big mistake is here. Saving to a lossy format two times? A big no-no.

I love loosing my time that way...