Dark City Project-Edit AC3 soundtrack

[apostrophe]

Now that I discovered that its possible to edit existing DVD's I am developing a hobby interest in "improving" certain movies in my sci-fi collection. It's my understanding that it is ok to make a personal backup of a movie you own. I don't see anything there that says it has to be a perfectly identical backup copy.

Anyway, "Dark City" is a pretty good old sci-fi thriller. The only trouble is, as cited in the commentary, the studio powers made them add some narrative exposition to the beginning of the movie because they were afraid that "people wouldn't understand it". Basically it is a "spoiler". And, then, they wondered why the movie, essentially, bombed. It spoils the whole mysterious gradual reveal, like saying who done it in a who-done-it movie right at the beginning.

I discovered that I can buy the movie sound track on CD. In the movie there is a couple minutes of tacked-on "spoiler" narrative by Keifer Sutherland with his back turned as the camera pans down unto the city. The music builds to a close-up scene of a watch ticking.

What I want to do is replace the tacked-on spoiler voice-over soundtrack with the instrumental from the CD. I'm hoping I can somehow synch the musical score the the original and then fade in/replace or else the ticking watch would also make a good transition point.

I have DVD Remaker pro and various AVS software. As well as other odds and ends I've been scavanging on-line such as ifo-edit and vob edit...

I think that I need to convert the CD soundtrack music to AC3 from the audio MP3 on the CD.
For starters, right?

Then, what? How to extract the piece of ac3 I want? Will a remaker let me replace part of the AC3 directly or do I need to de-multiplex the VOB's.

I've tried de-MUXing software. OK. I get a collection of seperate .sub, ac3, and mpg files, but then how to put them all back together again? The final challenge seems to be how to sneak a changed VOB back into an existing DVD's structure.

Any ideas or tips will be welcome. There are a couple of other movie "tweaks" I have in mind if I can learn a bit more, although, sadly, I'm coming to the conclusion that no amount of editting can save "Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon" It helps to cut the monster sequence out of the beginning but here is a case of the whole being less, much less than the some of its parts...

[Baldrick]

You can put together the old video(mpg,m2v), subtitles and new ac3 with muxman. Then use vobblanker to replace the new authored vob with the original to keep the menus. See https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/277950-How-to-add-new-subtitles-to-an-existing-DVD (scroll down to Author to a new DVD with Muxman).

[jman98]

Now that I discovered that its possible to edit existing DVD's I am developing a hobby interest in "improving" certain movies in my sci-fi collection. It's my understanding that it is ok to make a personal backup of a movie you own. I don't see anything there that says it has to be a perfectly identical backup copy.

While it is generally accepted and there are some court cases to support that you have the right to make a personal backup, in the USA Hollywood has NEVER accepted or agreed with this idea. But you're not going to run afoul of anyone here for doing this. Hollywood would probably argue that you don't have ANY rights to do that, despite legal precedents suggesting that you do. Just a bit of pedantic legal stuff to keep in mind.

I think that I need to convert the CD soundtrack music to AC3 from the audio MP3 on the CD.
For starters, right?

CDs are not in MP3 format. They are in WAV format. I understand what you want to do, but I have no idea what programs can possibly do this for you. It probably won't be easy. I have a commercial product I use to generate AC3 files if I need to do that, but it can't edit any sound. You may have to convert the AC3 to individual WAV files for each channel and do your replacement that way and then convert it back to AC3. Baldrick's suggestion is right but it's for AFTER you've done the editing and replacing.

[apostrophe]

You can put together the old video(mpg,m2v), subtitles and new ac3 with muxman. Then use vobblanker to replace the new authored vob with the original to keep the menus. See https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/277950-How-to-add-new-subtitles-to-an-existing-DVD (scroll down to Author to a new DVD with Muxman).

Thanks. Excellent help. It's good to have the right tools on hand. Hard to figure out what could actually be useful for a given task. Should keep me busy for a while.

My main field has been factory automation. I guess that I am in the habit of always looking for ways to adapt existing tech to changing conditions. Exploring new possibilities with DVD's is a new creative outlet for me. BTW, I see you are in Sweden which I believe is home to ABB , one of my favorite robot makes to work with.

[apostrophe]

While it is generally accepted and there are some court cases to support that you have the right to make a personal backup, in the USA Hollywood has NEVER accepted or agreed with this idea. But you're not going to run afoul of anyone here for doing this. Hollywood would probably argue that you don't have ANY rights to do that, despite legal precedents suggesting that you do. Just a bit of pedantic legal stuff to keep in mind.

Well, just to be safe, let's consider the things I propose as purely hypothetical.

CDs are not in MP3 format. They are in WAV format. I understand what you want to do, but I have no idea what programs can possibly do this for you. It probably won't be easy. I have a commercial product I use to generate AC3 files if I need to do that, but it can't edit any sound. You may have to convert the AC3 to individual WAV files for each channel and do your replacement that way and then convert it back to AC3. Baldrick's suggestion is right but it's for AFTER you've done the editing and replacing.

I guess the challenge of figuring out how to do something creative with what one has on hand is what makes an intellectual/artistic challenge like this interesting, and, dare I say, fun.

I still have an old VHS tape of a 1920's sci-fi movie "Metropolis" somewhere. I think I paid around $50 for it years ago. I hope that it hasn't deteriorated too much. It is a "silent" film and it seems possible that the copyrights may have expired. It's quite the classic. Way ahead of its time. The organ music dubbed in on the tape release is a bit much though. One could imagine a another nice little project to add an orchestral musical score and subtitles. Or even get some aspiring actors to overdub actual dialogue as well.

Just speculating here...


Adding this next part after posting - hope it won't confuse

You're right - I still don't have a way to convert WAV to AC3.

I have Nero and Ulead Editors. Wish they had just VOB only output. Worse still, you lose all subtitles. Actually maybe not so bad. Could possibly restore subtitles using Baldrick's suggestions.

I suspect that a commercial product such as you mention that would represent utopia for me would be DVDlabPro? Unfortunately, can't afford right now. I do continue find myself with some free time on my hands for experimentation though (suffice to say, due to current employment conditions where I reside) .

[DrunkenFist_Lee]

I think it's great what you're doing with Dark City. There is a director's cut out there, although I don't remember if it has that narration or not. (Sounds like what they did to the original release of Blade Runner, by the way..) You might want to research that director's cut before you take on this project, could save you a ton of time?

Also, regarding Metropolis, I remember reading very recently that they've just discovered & restored previously lost new footage back into the film. I believe it's already scheduled for a US dvd/bluray release. Have no idea what version of a soundtrack will be on the disc, but I've heard different releases of the movie in the past have had different soundtracks. Originally it was silent, so a proper release would have that as an option, at least.

Years ago, I was actually toying around with the idea of creating my own ambient score to the movie. That idea quickly faded, after I put some thought into how much WORK that would actually be, haha.

[Supreme2k]

The director's cut does not have the commentary. You "project" has already been done. It is actually a much better film than the theatrical release.

[apostrophe]

I think it's great what you're doing with Dark City. There is a director's cut out there, although I don't remember if it has that narration or not. (Sounds like what they did to the original release of Blade Runner, by the way..) You might want to research that director's cut before you take on this project, could save you a ton of time?.

Hitting the mute button for a couple of minutes works too. Just not a very elegant solution.

Hopefully my financial situation will improve at some point and I can think about buying stuff again. But, this is more about the intellectual fun of learning how to do something unusual than just getting a movie. I find that it helps the process if one has some kind of goal or useful purpose in mind.

Also, regarding Metropolis, I remember reading very recently that they've just discovered & restored previously lost new footage back into the film. I believe it's already scheduled for a US dvd/bluray release. Have no idea what version of a soundtrack will be on the disc, but I've heard different releases of the movie in the past have had different soundtracks. Originally it was silent, so a proper release would have that as an option, at least..

I think that in the old days, although the film was silent, it was up to the individual theatre to hire musicians of various sort to provide musical back score. I don't know if the movie studio furnished sheet music or whether they just cued off some sort of boiler plate pieces on the fly... The organ music on my copy seems to lacks a certain verve, shall we say.

The movie itself is interesting just from the set design standpoint. The conceptual architecture and art deco futurism of the period. Very cool. Presumably the pop group "Bee Bop Deluxe" had permission when they used scenes from the movie on their record album covers a few years ago.

It's the first human-form robot movie predating STNG and the "Terminator" series by more than half a century. T4 "Salvation" is an excellent movie BTW. The first two, especially T1 are a good example of how NOT to do a DVD menu. IMO.

Years ago, I was actually toying around with the idea of creating my own ambient score to the movie. That idea quickly faded, after I put some thought into how much WORK that would actually be, haha.

I have an older copy of cakewalk and was thinking the same thing for a while too. Here again the same challenge of AC3 files.

[apostrophe]

The director's cut does not have the commentary. You "project" has already been done. It is actually a much better film than the theatrical release.

Yes, I heard. That's good then. Also, it's nice to know we agree, I was on the right track, after all.

I may still try, just for the fun of trying stuff. For example, I now know that trying to enable karaoke mode doesn't work to try to kill the narrative that way. It is apparently a flag there simply to signal hardware that still needs specially recorded seperate tracks to actually work.

I haven't gotten too far, so not too much wasted. Although I'm starting to accumulate a nice collection of stone knives. To paraphrase the ST character "Spock", "When dealing with bear skins you can't have too many stone knives". That's how some of these little software programs seem. They're either made too easy to the point of being useless for any thing special or they take a lot of knowledge, skill, and practice to utilize properly.

A lot of the same tools will come in handy with my current work-in-progress obsession "Aeon Flux". (The newer one with Charleze Theron, not the old animated one). Using remaker software is a little like working on a fine china cabinet with an axe, but, although it's taking a lot of tries I'm actually pleased with the results so far.

The movie is already quite good to start with. The DVD menu with the lead-in is an example of the BEST DVD animated menu ever. Very cool. I would never want to change anythiong about it. Although it loops like so many others, it's actually enjoyable to sit there and let it play. Leave it to MTV to get musical menu play right. I gues that's because "it's what they do".

My problem with the new movie is that they carried much of the "cool" stuff in and left behind most of the tacky stuff from the old but now the plot has some residual thematic buzz-kill. It's a great mystery thriller , solving the mystery of "disappeared" citizens, liberating people from a despot which is muddied by a weird message of "people need to die to make way for the new..." Without being a spoiler myself, it's still not bad, as is, beautiful set design, the whole thing is very artistic and creative, but certain remnants from the old don't really work and with them de-emphasized, we have a great movie.

Here again when one starts making little cuts, when they're right, things just seem to fall into place. For example there is a scene in the beginning where she releases a fly. Apparently they tacked in a text date on the screen which too me, was not only unnecessary, the futuristic setting seems more believable if we imagine more like an eon or eons has gone by rather than just a few centuries. Better to just leave the question open. Sure enough, now, I somehow ended up with a pretty much seemless transition. Just as the fly experiances freedom again we flash to white and a scene of the city, where the people that are being held in thrall, needing relief, freedom... In spite of the fact that the remaker doesn't claim to actually support seamless transitions. Seems to confirm that original bit really wan't supposed to be there.

Actually this forum is supposed to be about editting, isn't it. Sorry. As much as I like talking about the movie itself.

The editting issue now is, one more little thing. Replace some exposition text right in the beginning.

This is similar to the other task only the opposite. Instead of replacing sound and leaving the video, now I want to replace a more-or-less still text scene while leaving the audio intact. Apparently you can't just "set to still" and paste a bitmap in.

There used to be all kinds of little paint programs around. Now I can't seem to find a multi-font paint program that can do white on black.

I had to "export frame" in the remaker (to bitmap), Open it in MS Paint. Then export a white blank bitmap to HP Photo & Imaging. It only does black on white. Entered and arranged my lines of text. Much to my surprise and, well, delight, the movie uses "Arial 11" font . "It matched "! woo-hoo! Still had to doctor the color though. Oh well.

Back to Paint. Paste image. Invert Color. Then to Nero to make a "slide show without menu". I get a 5 sec VOB. Remaker let me replace block with it but I lost sound. Close, but no cigar.

I think that I am going to have to extract the movie only. Trim to all but the block in question. De-mux. Swap in the new "slideshow" as an mpeg. Somehow try to get the lengths to match with the AC3? than try to re-mux back into a compatible VOB. Reload the whole movie, then try to replace block again...

Whew! Are we having fun or what?