Cutting Audio as much as I have cut video

[skullfullomagots]

Hi
I seem to be the first person to come up with this kindda situation.
As a procedure to reauthor a DVD, I extracted the audio (AC3) and video as m2v. Here is the problem I face. How can I "intelligently" cut the same audio parts as I have cut the video parts? Is there any simple (or for that matter complicated) way to do this?

Moving forward, I converted the original DVD home video as AVI and would like to edit it. The question is, do I lose quality in the process of converting the DVD to AVI and then back to DVD? If so, how much (say in terms of percent)

The reason why I cant use the original source file is because it was someone else who had recorded the film and converted to DVD. So the only thing I can use is the DVD now.

Suggestions are welcomed.
Currently used softwares are: -
DVD2AVI
CinemaCraft Pro
VirtuaDub (AVI conversion and editting purposes)
and may be some more I cant think of right now.

Cheers

[Soopafresh]

Off the top of my head, I suggest remuxing the video and audio into a "regular" MPEG2 file and then doing your cutting within an MPEG editing app.

I've tried the new TMPGEnc Editor app and it seems pretty good. It'll probably do what you need in this case.


http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tme.html

[skullfullomagots]

Aaahhh! My fault! I missed on giving one more piece of info and that is I would like to author the final DVD in Maestro so I would need to have the audio file seperate so I could mux the audio and video just for the sake of editting and then I would have seperate it. And that is what I would like to skip

Do you know anything else?

[Soopafresh]

I envision A/V sync problems if you edit the two files seperately. Perhaps someone has a better solution.

[skullfullomagots]

Yup! I know.. and that is what I am wondering how to control.. I am looking forward to a program which can edit audio and video simultaneously in the a timeline sort of fashion.. I cant describe it any better... I am trying to get my hands on Adobe Encore DVD. I think that should solve my problem but looking for ingenius ideas anyway

but thanks anyway

[FulciLives]

MPEG-VCR by Womble Multimedia can edit MPEG-2 files with muxed AC-3 audio.

Once you are done editing you output to a new MPEG-2 file with muxed AC-3 audio. No re-encoding takes place except a very tiny little bit at the edit points (if the edit points are not "I" frames).

You can then demux to M2V and AC3 files for your DVD Authoring step if your DVD Authoring program will not accept a MPEG-2 file with muxed AC-3 audio.

However MPEG-VCR will NOT give you as much control in editing as other programs do like Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas 5 etc. but I am unsure if these programs can edit AC-3 audio. If not then you can convert the AC-3 audio to PCM WAV for editing purposes then convert it back to AC-3 audio. The loss in quality should not be very noticeable if at all.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[freestyler]

Have you tried using DVD Maestro's built in trim functions?

The only limitation here however is your cuts will only be GOP accurate (not frame accurate).

[jimmalenko]

I missed on giving one more piece of info and that is I would like to author the final DVD in Maestro so I would need to have the audio file seperate so I could mux the audio and video just for the sake of editting and then I would have seperate it. And that is what I would like to skip

Let's just think about this for a minute, shall we ?

If you do your editing on a program stream (two elementary streams muxed together), you are editing both the video and the audio at the same time. Once finished your edits, save out to a new file, then simply demux to make the input suitable for your authoring program. Doesn't this sound more logical/easier/faster/less stressful than demuxing, making edits in the video file on its own, and then trying to keep track of these edits so that you can separately apply them to the audio stream on its own, at exactly the same places so synch isn't disturbed ? ... and then (IMO) frigging around with different snippets if the cuts aren't quite applied in the right spots ?

Much, much easier IMO to use something like MPEG-VCR or any other MPEG editing program to cut both streams at the same time, then demux at the end.

[freestyler]

If you're just making straight cuts use Maestro's built in cut feature and then use the create sync track feature to sync the audio.

[jimmalenko]

https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?guideid=638&howtoselect=3;6#638 might come in handy also.

[MrDazzle]

easiest way is to cut the vobs then demux then use meastro .... i use this way to reauthor my stuff

you wont believe it

a avi-tool can cut vobs ---> http://www.vidomi.com/

just go to options and make a hook on "ignore all settings and use MPEG copy mode"

after you cutted the vobs you can demux it for use in meastro

(BUT, i used a lot tools to demux tmpgenc etc. etc. and meastro often doesnt accept the streams, sometimes the video sometimes the audio but i found a tool who can demux it accurate so meastro never complain, but its on a german site and you need to compile it yourself

http://www.lucike.info/index.htm?http://www.lucike.info/page_projectx.htm

it even extract subtitels etc. it separates all streams which it will find


the tool itself is in english and easy to handle. i can send you the compiled version too if you want and if you have problems that meastro doesnt accept your streams)

btw. there are several tools outside who can cut vobs too, but they dont cut accurate enough for meastro ... try it out




and your other question ... all re-encoding is quality loss, it depends on your settings to encode to tell you a percentage AND to re-encode 2 times --> time consuming as hell

the method i explained above let you reauthor it without a bit quality loss