Eliminate a VCD Audio Track

[andyt415]

Hello, I have a VCD movie that has two language tracks and my VCD/DVD player doesn't have the ability to select the correct one. No problem on a PC with Windows Media Player since I can select the track, but not on my DVD/VCD player. I was wondering what I have to do to take one of of these language tracks out and re-burn the movie to a new VCD with only one language track. I noticed there is a .DAT file that contains the movie and audio in the MPEGAV folder. What software can I use to open this file and take out one of those tracks and so that I can subsequently burn it into a new CD? I have disk burning software. Thanks.


Confused and need help.

[mats.hogberg]

You use VCDGear to get the mpg out of a VCD.
Odd thing is, IIRC, VCD doesn't have more than one audio track. Bilingual VCD usually have one lang in each stereo channel.
Anyhow, once you've edited the VCD mpg, you recreate (or rather author a new) VCD with VCDEasy.

/Mats

[AlanHK]

Before you go to the bother of reauthoring, try clicking the Audio button on your DVD player remote.

On a DVD this steps through the different audio tracks available.

On a VCD it may (all the ones I've used in Hong Kong do this) go from stereo (both channels) to mono-left (language 1), mono-right (language 2). That's how you're supposed to select the sound track. A friend rescued a bunch of bilingual VCDs from his trash after I showed him that.

If you do need to reauthor, and have a DVD burner, you can combine several VCDs into a single DVD (most movies are divided into two or three VCDs).

Use SVCD2DVDMPG (a free version is available), for instance.

In any case, you can use Audacity to split the sound tracks.

[jman98]

I strongly second AlanHK's advice. You may well be able to only play one track and just not know how to do it. Telling us what your DVD player is would have been a good idea as someone might have read your post, had the same model, and known how to do it.

I will warn you that in the past I have tried to eliminate one channel from a dual language VCD and I was never able to successfully reauthor the VCD with VCDEasy. I am not a newbie and I've used VCDEasy dozens of times, but I have no idea at all why my attempts to do this have failed, but they have failed every time I tried to do it. Maybe you'll have better luck.

[andyt415]

Hello you guys,
Yes it is a Hong Kong VCD with three language tracks, one mandarin, one Cantonese, and one Combined. I wonder what the combined is for anyway. I was only interested in the Cantonese. I will see if I can locate the button on my remote and do as stated. If There isn't, I may have to come back here and ask some more questions. I will let you guys know. Thanks.

Andy

[AlanHK]

Yes it is a Hong Kong VCD with three language tracks, one mandarin, one Cantonese, and one Combined. I wonder what the combined is for anyway.

Actually, there is only one soundtrack, stereo. But in Hong Kong and perhaps elsewhere, the need to have alternate languages led to the widespread convention of using the left and right channels for separate (mono) soundtracks : eg Mandarin and Cantonese; or Cantonese and English; Japanese and Cantonese. As I said, all VCD and DVD players here have a simple way to separate the tracks because of this. But if you can't, then playing it as normal stereo is going to give you both at once.

[andyt415]

Hello Alan,
I was able to figure my remote so that it plays one language. Just curious, are you saying that each language will be in Mono while the combined language (both combined and is hard to hear) will be in stereo? Does it mean that when I hear only the Cantonese I will be hearing mono and not stereo?

-Andy

[AlanHK]

Hello Alan,
I was able to figure my remote so that it plays one language. Just curious, are you saying that each language will be in Mono while the combined language (both combined and is hard to hear) will be in stereo? Does it mean that when I hear only the Cantonese I will be hearing mono and not stereo?

-Andy

Yes. The "stereo" soundtrack is made by combining two mono soundtracks.
Playing it as "stereo" just plays them simultaneously, one from each speaker. I can't think of any reason to do that deliberately.

It's just a hack to get alternate soundtracks in a format that didn't allow for them.

[andyt415]

This is bad no? I am only hearing Mono instead of stereo? I don't want Mono, I want stereo.

[AlanHK]

This is bad no? I am only hearing Mono instead of stereo? I don't want Mono, I want stereo.

There isn't any.

On a VCD you can have one only stereo soundtrack. Through this trick you get two mono ones instead. You should look for the DVD version if you want true stereo.

But really, if you didn't know you were listening to mono till you read this, it can't be that bad.

[tomlee59]

This is bad no? I am only hearing Mono instead of stereo? I don't want Mono, I want stereo.

You really have to adjust your expectations realistically. VCD is low tech, and the right way to look at it is that it's amazing that you get video and sound to fit on a CD that was originally designed for sound only. To expect multiple stereo language tracks on top of all that is asking for a lot.

VCDs and VHS tapes have a lot in common. This hack of supporting multiple languages by putting one language on each channel was first done with VHS (and probably Beta, too). I have a collection of old American cartoons that have English on one channel, and Japanese on the other.