Two audio tracks playing at the same time?

[churchie04]

So i'm about to watch Lord of the Rings : Fellowship of the Rings Extended Edition with my mom. I've seen the movie many many times and would like to listen to one of the commentary tracks. Well of course she would hate that.

That's when I got the idea , would it be possible for DVD players to possibly have two lasers? One reads just like a normal laser, the other is able to read a different audio track. It could output that second audio track to a head-phone jack on the dvd player.

It's just an interesting idea and I want your opinion on it.

Let me know what you think.

[BJ_M]

they could not be in sync with each other - unless one laser output was delayed - which would be possable ...

be easier and cheaper to just use 2 dvd players and start them at the same time ..

[filmteknik]

It would not be necessary to have two lasers as there is just one data stream coming off the disk that then gets divided up into video and various sorts of audio data streams. A manufacturer could design a player to do what you want. In fact it might even be possible with really clever firmware to do it without any physical change although this might be a stretch--like maybe have normal movie sound going out the 5.1 output but route the commentary track to the L & R output or something like that.

It's more likely that someone could implement something like this with a computer playback setup, depending on what audio options are (like is it even possible to run two audio cards or have a mainboard integral audio system active when a sound card is in use). If so then special player software could do this.

It's actually not an unreasonable request. How about being able to play multiple languages at the same time? All kinds of useful possibilities here.

[jimmalenko]

It's just an interesting idea and I want your opinion on it.

Let me know what you think.

Personally I don't really rate your suggestion. It's not something I'd find useful

[rkr1958]

What about ripping the audio track you want to listen to, convert it to MP3 and listen to it using an MP3 player w/headphones. Or you could convert it to a wav file, put it on CD and listen to with a CD player w/headphones.

[filmteknik]

Or copy the disk and play from a 2nd player entirely. All sorts of methods. None of them elegant. It would be nice feature to have built in.

[BJ_M]

Or copy the disk and play from a 2nd player entirely. All sorts of methods. None of them elegant. It would be nice feature to have built in.

what i suggested already , when you can buy a throwaway dvd player for 30$ , seemed like a plan ..

[churchie04]

All good suggestions.

I never really had the intention of actually doing it, just wanted some educated guesses on whether hardware manufacturers could make it possible.

Thanks for all the feedback.

[Nelson37]

Best idea I've seen on this, and could be easily implemented.

encode audio tracks as left and right channel of same stereo track. Then just disconnect appropriate output on amp. Use plug converter on other channel for headphones.

[poloman]

7 years later and I have a similar question.... although I want to do it through the PC. I am building a Home Theater (big 3d projector and all.) what I want to do is, Play a move from the computer thought the projector, audio in English, but have a port for head phones that would be in Russian (since my wife is Russian). Yes I realized (after registering ) that this is not a computer help site. but maybe someone might know this answer, or maybe point me in the right direction.

[Cornucopia]

Assuming:

You've got a DVD that ALREADY has both English & Russian soundtracks authored...

Most elegant thing to do that doesn't rewire your setup or expect non-standard players from manufacturers:

1. Rip both audio tracks from the movie (along with the video track)
2a. Mix the English & Russian tracks EACH to mono (1 ch), and put/Pan E on Left and R on Right and create a new combined track.
or (slightly more difficult)
2b. Mix the English track 3 channels (L-C-R) and the Russian track to 2ch/stereo (L-R), and put the English on the Front portion and Russian on the Back portion of a 5.1ch combined track.
3. Re-mux the video with the newly combined audio, author & burn (or just play direct).
4. If playing from a PC, plug the headphones into the Surround channel (LR,RR) plug, temporarily disconnecting the normal surrounds.

Scott

[poloman]

Scott,
I will try them both and play around with them. There is no rush on it, just thought that it would be nice to watch some 3d movies in both languages if we had some company wanting to check out the projector.

Thanks for the fast response and advice