Commentary tracks on home videos?

[filmjax]

I would like to add commentary tracks to some student films and other home videos I made in high school. I use MovieFactory 2, and it looks like the only way to do that in that program is to place the movie on the DVD twice... once with regular audio and once with commentary replacing the original audio.

Are there any programs that allow you to just select a different track of audio for home movies?

Also, can anyone recommend a good audio recording program? I already have a mic, I just need something that'll let me record a .wav for longer than 60 secs.

[Tommyknocker]

I know Gold Wavfe will let you record auido until you run out of disk space. When you select File-->New, enter how long the audio file will lAST.

[filmjax]

Ok I've ruled out:

Sonic MyDVD
Ulead MovieFactory 2
Pinnacle Studio 8

None of these allow you to simply add additional audio tracks to existing video. Anyone know of any programs that will?

[ptmurphy]

Why rule out Pinnacle Studio 8?

It will let you add second audio from a microphone to do voice-overs. You can add music, whatever you want.

[filmjax]

Why rule out Pinnacle Studio 8?

It will let you add second audio from a microphone to do voice-overs. You can add music, whatever you want.

Yes, but it won't let you make an entirely different audio track that you can simply switch to on the DVD. You still have to burn the video to the DVD again, with your newly recorded audio.

I'm looking for something that'll let you simply add another audio track to one piece of video that you burn to a disc.

[Tommyknocker]

Video Studio has the video track, an audio track, and a music track.

[shito]

Yeah, you´re all right, but I think, what filmjax is looking for is a way to author two different, selectable audio tracks to a movie. What for example Studio 8 does is, it mixes the three possible tracks together. The only influence the author has is the volume levels, but the audio tracks can´t be switched later on. It´s just one audio track, made up of the three combined.

@filmjax: If I understood you right, I´ve been looking into the same thing. Only solutions I came up with were pretty expensive, namely Pinnacle´s Impression Pro or Reel DVD, stuff in the 500 $- 1000 $ range. If I got you wrong, just ignore me. 8)

Greets
Konrad

[filmjax]

Right, I mean think of it as a Hollywood DVD. When they put the movie on the disc and, say, three commentary tracks to go with it, they don't burn the movie to the disc FOUR times. The movie is there once with numerous audio options instead.

That's what I'm looking for. I don't want to have to put a home movie onto a DVD twice... once with normal audio and then again with a commentary track for audio. One video file, two audio options.

[Vejita-sama]

DVD Maestro lets you add up to 32 (IIRC) audio steams when you author.

[shito]

DVD Maestro lets you add up to 32 (IIRC) audio steams when you author.

Is that prog still available? How much is it? I´ve been checking around, no success, though.

Konrad

[thxkid]

its not that hard use the right channel for music/audio and the left channel for commintary, mix them together when you capture the video, use your stereo, loop the video and one channel useing your video source your cassette or CD for the other audio channel run them into your capture card you got 2 seperate tracks, any DVD player can choose the R or L channel of a DVD, plus you can have both running at the same time if you care to. Simple and cheap

[shito]

..., any DVD player can choose the R or L channel of a DVD, ...

Really? Never heard of that feature. My LD-player lets me do that, my DVD (Pioneer 737) does not, for sure.

Besides, like that one wouldn´t be able to put two stereo-tracks on, right? If the commentary for example features more than one person, one might want to place them apart from each other in the sound field, which couldn´t be done with the procedure described above.

Konrad

[ClarkJeff]

filmjax,
Pinnacle Impression Pro will do what you want. I've used it for authoring videos with a director's commentary on the second audio track. It supports up to 8 audio tracks. These are actually separate tracks selected via menu or the remote Audio button. Impression Pro also supports up to 32 subtitle text tracks and 2 video angles, but I've never tried either of those. The retail price is high, but you can pick it up on eBay for < $200 and I also saw it new in a brown box at some online video shop. It has it's bugs, as does every other package, but works well for me. You do have to give it elementary streams, so may need to use TMPGEnc or the like. Hope this helps.

[metoo2]

Are there any programs that allow you to just select a different track of audio for home movies?

Also, can anyone recommend a good audio recording program? I already have a mic, I just need something that'll let me record a .wav for longer than 60 secs.

Musicmatch.com will work perfectly for you. Set up Windows and Musicmatch to record audio from the recorder, set Musicmatch to encode to highest-quality mp3. Open up Record within Musicmatch, make sure that the source is correct, click the 'record' button, and when finished click 'stop'. Use Musicmatch's convert feature to convert the mp3 to wav.

Alas, if you want to mix your commentary over the video's already existing audio track, then you're on your own. Two programs I'd recommend you investigate further: mp3cut (found on a freeware site) and Goldwave's sound editor (alas, I can't specifically remember the name).

To make your DVD player play the video's audio track or your commentary track sounds like a menu feature thing to me.