Aurthoring DVD with external audio track?

[guitardan]

Hi, I've recently decided to re-author DVD so that I can use a different audio souce with it. It's something that was shot with a camcorder but I have a very good, clean audio source which I would like to sync up with it. I'd like to do this without losing quality and if possible with programs I have or freeware.

Since this may have many steps in different subjects I thought I'd post it here.

I was going to use virtualdub to sync the sound but I need to convert the original DVD to a format that virtualdub (or any other recommended program) can use without losing quality or changing the aspect ratio, frame rate etc. Then I can export the new file in lossless quality and use an authoring program to make the final DVD (I don't mind if I have to make it 2 discs)

But it's converting without the loss in quality and syncing the sound that's troubling me.

If there's any simple ways to do this project I'd appreciate the advice.

Thanks in advance.

[guns1inger]

Might I suggest a smarter approach ?

Use VOB2MPG to extract the mpg from the DVD structure
Open the mpg file using virtualdubmod or vitualdubmpeg2 or avidemux
Sync the Audio to the video
Export the sync'd audio as uncompressed PCM wav format
Encode the audio to AC3 using Aften and EncWav2AC2
Author using your original mpg video and the new audio

Absolutely no video quality loss as you do not re-encode the video at any stage.

[guitardan]

cheers mate, I will try that.

[guns1inger]

What do you intend to author with ?

You might want to use DGIndex to demux your mpg file back to elementary streams when it comes time to author.

[guitardan]

well I've got Ulead Movie Factory 5, but I'll have a look at DGIndex

[guns1inger]

DGIndex is just for demuxing.

GUIForDVDAuthor is a free and can do a lot more than Movie Factory. No templates though. On the upside, no risk of it needlessly re-encoding.

[guitardan]

cheers for the advice.