Dual-language audio VCD movies to single-language MPEG?

[monkeyjoe]

I've got a couple dual language movies on VCD I want to back up onto my PC or burn as VCD/DVD.

These VCDs have a different language on each channel of the stereo soundtrack: English on the left channel, Mandarin on right channel; then you are supposed to use Balance on your player/stereo to choose which language you want to hear. (neither my laptop nor plug-in speakers has Balance control).

Any tips on how to capture these VCDs onto my hard drive in MPEG/AVI format with just one language (i.e. just one channel of the stereo soundtrack)? Tips on how to 'double' that single channel to play back in both channels?

Thank you.

[oddbod77]

No problem, lets tackle these one at a time.

Firstly you do not use the balance control for choosing the soundtrack, all VCD players (hardware and software) are able to play the soundtrack in stereo (if applicable) or 2 speaker mono.

In older versions of Windows Media Player it is easy to change the setting just start media player (if you have 2000 or XP click "run" on the start menu and type mplayer2 into the box) now drag the movie file from the VCD (it is in a folder called MPEGAV the file should be called AVSEQ01.DAT or very similar) and drop it into media player. The VCD will start playing.

Now in the 'View' menu click on 'Settings ->' then 'MPEG Audio Decoder' in this window you can now choose between channel 1 or 2 or both (for stereo VCD's) if it does not change immediately then stop the video and restart it. Other players have a similar option and you will have to read the documentation to find out how to change it.

To copy a VCD to your hard drive you need a tool like VCDGear or ISOBuster both are easy to use and have good instructions. I recommend either of them.

Any decent sound editor can turn a mono soundtrack into a stereo one, the trick is stripping it out modifying it and putting back together with the video. This can be quite tricky, so, bearing in mind what I have written above are you sure you really want to do this??

[monkeyjoe]

hi thanks for the help oddbod77.
yes. i did use VCDGEAR to make a mpeg file, then used TMPGEnc to de-multiplex. the problem is i do not know how to kill off the chinese channel & keeping just one english channel. both VCDGEAR & ISObuster doesn't seem to have the option to delete a right or left channel. pls help. thanks.

[oddbod77]

ok, since you have the MPEG demultiplexed you may as well bin the audio portion as that isn't going to be much use (not that many audio editors support MPEG audio so let TMPGEnc do the hard work).

Load the MPEG (mpg or mpa file if you decided to keep it) into TMPGEnc and choose File->Output to file->WAVE file now make sure the audio format is 'PCM 44.100kHz 16 Bit Stereo' NOT MONO otherwise the two channels get mixed together. Now load the wave file you just created into an audio editor (I use CoolEdit which can import MPEG audio but if you like your software free try Audacity)

Once the track is loaded choose split stereo track as shown:


Now copy the English track to the clipboard, delete the Chinese one, paste the copy of the English track back in (so you have two mono tracks now) ensure one track is set to left channel and the other to right channel. Now select 'Make Stereo Track' from the menu where you did 'Split Stereo Track' and save it.

All that is left now is to re-encode the audio to MPEG with TMPGEnc (ensuring 'Stream Type is set to 'Audio Only') and remultiplex it with the video.

Any problems just holler.

[monkeyjoe]

wow thanks alot oddbod77,
will try your method. But is there any other audio software can edit in MPEG format rather then WAVE?

thanks again.

[oddbod77]

Not that I'm aware of, even professioanl level tools like CoolEdit (now called Adobe Audition) work by decompressing the MPEG audio to a WAV temporarily. There may be a program out there that can do what you require in one step but the results will be no better.

Just realised I shouldn't have used the term WAV as it is just a container format, I meant audio editors decompress encoded files to Linear PCM format.

[Cornucopia]

If you "edit" you audio, you're gonna end up with a re-encoded mpg.

If you want to keep the quality the highest and really only are changing things so that you can hear the correct language at playback, it would make more sense to just leave it alone and change the hard/soft-ware player settings as previously mentioned.

Scott