Best Way to Accomplish This? MP2 to AC3 from DVD to DVD.

[TenaciousJP]

Hello.

A friend of mine recently made a DVD from an old VHS tape. It's a series of performances that a few friends and I made. I'd like to copy this DVD and give a copy to another friend who was in the performances. The only problem is that the audio on the DVD is in MPEG-2 format. It plays fine on my DVD player, but from past experience, I know that my friend's DVD player only plays PCM and AC3 audio.

Also, due to the age of the tape, the sound is a bit low on the DVD. It's excellent quality, but just a bit low.

Because of the amount of video on the disc (over 2 hours), I think that converting to AC3 would be the best option. Is there any way that I could redo the DVD with AC3 audio, and possibly even normalize the audio so that it is louder?

Thanks for your help.

[yoda313]

Well you could rip the audio via dvddecrypter in streamprocessing mode.

Then you can use besweet to convert to ac3.

Programs like audacity can boost audio.

[TenaciousJP]

Cool! A response from Yoda, one of my favorite members.

I was thinking of ripping the video/audio in streamprocessing mode like you suggested, and then using BeSweet.

I definitely need to boost the audio, since BeSweet encodes are a bit softer in volume, it seems... meaning that the original file (WAV, MP2, etc.) is louder and the AC3 file is lower for some reason.

Would I just do a normalize effect on the audio, or what? Also, I had no idea that Audacity could work with MPEG-2 sound. What format should I export the final boosted file to?

[yoda313]

Cool! A response from Yoda, one of my favorite members

Thanks I didn't know I had a fan club

Also, I had no idea that Audacity could work with MPEG-2 sound

Apparently it doesn't my mistake. It handles wav, aiff, au, mp3, and ogg vorbis files.

I'm sure there are freeware editors that handle mp2. A little searching should dig one up. I'll see if goldwave does it.

[yoda313]

Ok looks like I found a freeware one for you in our tools section here at videohelp.

mp3directcut does mp3, mp2, mpa and a few others. It also has gain and normalize features too.

Good luck.

[TenaciousJP]

Thanks for the link to that program.

So, I would just normalize it?

Normally, when I work with things, and I just mess with the gain and turn up the volume of a sound file, it often leads to crackling/distortion. I've never had that problem with normalizing, though.

Thanks.

[Wile_E]

Besweet is probably lowering audio, because AC3 dynamic range is usually compressed down to -31db. Though I could be wrong. There was a thread on Videohelp here somewhere discussing this problem.

[TenaciousJP]

Besweet is probably lowering audio, because AC3 dynamic range is usually compressed down to -31db. Though I could be wrong. There was a thread on Videohelp here somewhere discussing this problem.

Just remembered this thread. Sorry I took so long to reply.

Do you happen to have a link to the thread? Or do you remember the title of the thread?

[celtic_druid]

BeSweet can boost and normalise as can HeadAC3he,

[TenaciousJP]

BeSweet can boost and normalise as can HeadAC3he,

Once again, I'm sorry for neglecting this topic. I've been busy with work and holiday matters.

Would I normalize by checking the box next to "Normalize the Wave File" under the SSRC tab in BeSweet? Also, does the file have to be Wave format, or does it normalize anything?

[Richard_G]

Rather than splitting the audio and re-encoding it, with the possibility of ending up with it out of sync, download the free trial of Ulead DVD Moviefactory or DVD Workshop. Import the entire DVD and then, making sure you've set the project output settings for AC3 audio, create a new DVD. As long as the 'do not encode compliant files' is checked it won't touch the video and only re-encode the audio.

Workshop allows you to play with the audio levels but I'm not sure if Moviefactory does.