Use Auto GK or DGIndex to Demux to MP3 or WAV

[loninappleton]

Fab gave a failure to get subs and I checked all the right boxes.

I'm making another attempt at getting the .idx file to 'take' in AGK. It is at least taking a satisfyingly long time to complete.

There are four boxes in the subtitle pane only one of which can be selected and they all say the exact same thing. This sort of situation is maddening since it is a 'variable hole' that might mean anything so far as getting a completion.

I'll' keep you informed though I have done all the steps and the .idx seems to have been found properly. At 1.8 mb I can only guess it is the right size for a sub file for content that is 95 mins.

[manono]

There are four boxes in the subtitle pane only one of which can be selected and they all say the exact same thing. This sort of situation is maddening since it is a 'variable hole' that might mean anything so far as getting a completion.

Right, which is why, when there are multiple sub tracks and I'm having trouble figuring out which one it is, I find it much easier to get them all at once using VobSub Configure or PGCDemux, and then check them out quickly to find out which it is. With AutoGK you can get only one at a time and if you choose the wrong one you have to wait all over again for it to demux the next one before then checking it out in the Preview.

[loninappleton]

No success on this for all my efforts.

I have deleted all the duplicates, commentary tracks and everything else on this.

I have retained one avi of the right length for the main file.

I have found the .sub file for this dvd in the agk_tmp folder.

Trying to play a preview before wasting more time produced an error in the Media Player program itself at line 21. and quits.

At this point I have to know if some of these projects fail in the Auto Gordian Knot program from your experience. Everything fails and I am tired.

But I don't want to give up since I have seen the subs load from the DVD itself while watching it on the stand alone player. I have another pass at adding the .sub file going. This is the first time I have worked with the .sub file rather than the .idx Right now I'm just confused.

[loninappleton]

No success on this for all my efforts.

I have deleted all the duplicates, commentary tracks and everything else on this.

I have retained one avi of the right length for the main file.

I have found the .sub file for this dvd in the agk_tmp folder.

Trying to play a preview before wasting more time produced an error in the Media Player program itself at line 21. and quits.

At this point I have to know if some of these projects fail in the Auto Gordian Knot program from your experience. Everything fails and I am tired.

But I don't want to give up since I have seen the subs load from the DVD itself while watching it on the stand alone player. I have another pass at adding the .sub file going. This is the first time I have worked with the .sub file rather than the .idx Right now I'm just confused.

This pass failed this time in Virtual Dub which issued an error " line number 22."

copying these things out is tedious since it won't go into notepad so here is the best I can get out:

Virtual Dub Error
AVISynth open failure
TextSub:"Can't open C:\Program Files\AutoGK\Myfile\agk_tmp\Myfile.sub"
(C:\Program Files\AutoGK\Myfile\agk_tmp\Myfile_agk_comptest.av s, line 22)


Surely these errors have happened to others. It appears to be some nested folder problem.

[loninappleton]

And before the AGK log closed it gave this error:

EXCEPTION: Cannot open file "C\Program Files\AutoGK\Myfile\agk_tmp\frames.log".
The system cannot find the file specified.

[loninappleton]

We are talking over each other. I am putting this down until tomorrow. But it appears that a fresh start would be better. These errors have come up before but I did not copy them out verbatim before.

[manono]

Virtual Dub Error
AVISynth open failure
TextSub:"Can't open C:\Program Files\AutoGK\Myfile\agk_tmp\Myfile.sub"
(C:\Program Files\AutoGK\Myfile\agk_tmp\Myfile_agk_comptest.avs, line 22)

Is this the same problem you had before - choosing a text SUB file where none exists? And you should have used the drop-down box to choose the IDX? Sure sounds like it to me.

That in itself isn't an AutoGK error. However, in cases when AutoGK itself is acting up, the usual remedy is to uninstall/delete everything and do a fresh install.

[hello_hello]

No success on this for all my efforts.

I have deleted all the duplicates, commentary tracks and everything else on this.

I have retained one avi of the right length for the main file.

I have found the .sub file for this dvd in the agk_tmp folder.

Trying to play a preview before wasting more time produced an error in the Media Player program itself at line 21. and quits.

At this point I have to know if some of these projects fail in the Auto Gordian Knot program from your experience. Everything fails and I am tired.

But I don't want to give up since I have seen the subs load from the DVD itself while watching it on the stand alone player. I have another pass at adding the .sub file going. This is the first time I have worked with the .sub file rather than the .idx Right now I'm just confused.

Maybe you're not going about it correctly. When you've ripped the DVD correctly and opened the appropriate IFO file with AutoGK it should list the subtitles it finds in the right subtitles pane. Normally you'd select one of the subtitle tracks and use the preview function. AutoGK should say it's preparing the subtitles (or something to that effect) and indexing the video etc, then it'll open the preview. The subtitles should appear in the preview as part of the video. If for some reason you didn't select the correct subtitles, select a different subtitle track and try again.
I think AutoGK will let you select more than one subtitle track. What happens when you do, I can't remember (whether it hardcodes one and extracts the other to a separate file etc) but I guess normally you'd only select one of the subtitle tracks (if there's more than one) to encode into the video.

Crtl+F8 lets you use external subtitles but you shouldn't need to use it while encoding a DVD containing subtitles, as any subtitles would be selected using the subtitles pane instead. If you happen to be trying to load subtitles AutoGK has previously extracted into it's temp folder that's probably a recipe for disaster as AutoGK empties the temp folder with each new encode (unless you change the output location each time).

[loninappleton]

Ok. I have more time than money. Yeah that dealing with the tmp folder is a real problem.
tmp folders are noramlly deleted not emptied after use and the fact that there are things you need in it is frustraitng.

I have recently redone the AGK install and AVISynth went in etc. If there's a 'can't find the file error' then a recently emptied folder (unawares to me) is giving the errors.

When opening the subtitle box the .sub file (not .idx) was found and a target directory was visible. But... and heres' where the file that wasn't there may have occurred... I did select one from the agk_tmp directory. So no sooner than start is hit, the sub file was deleted?

Perhaps the marking of this disk has added to the problem: subtitle tracks showing up-- a total of four- which are all identical _and_ a main title file which also has a duplicate commentary of exactly the same length where only the numbered place is different.

Knowing that the Preview should show everything will allow me a different approach.

I will not be playing with the audio here but only trying to get the Japanese audio and Eng subs to come in together from a fresh rip. At this point starting a new thread on this topic is not a good idea. I'll try to describe what I'm doing as I go and beginning again with this new information.

[manono]

When opening the subtitle box the .sub file (not .idx) was found and a target directory was visible.

And where did you get a SUB file? AutoGK made it? Then it's not the text-based SUB file, and if you choose it your encode comes to a crashing halt. How many times do I have to say it that if you have VobSubs (IDX/SUB) you hit the drop-down box and choose the IDX? A text-based SUB file for a whole movie might be a couple of hundred KB in size. The SUB part of the VobSubs (graphic-based) might be 3 or 4 MB in size. Big difference.

AutoGK doesn't perform the OCR necessary to create a text-based SUB file. And you've said somewhere that you don't download subs from subtitle sites (although, given all the trouble you're having with this job it might not be a bad idea). It extracts the DVD subs (VobSubs - IDX and SUB).

[loninappleton]

I redid the job today starting with DVDShrink as described above. Got the VideoTS file from that and loaded it into AGK.

From memory I recalled that the #4 main file (called main file-- there's also a #5 main file with identical enth which is commentary.) The four subtitle check boxes appeared all marked English wide identically.

This time I select the second check box rather than first or fourth which I had tried previously. the Preview option opens when the targer file folder is entered.

Select Preview and the log starts. It clearly shows adding subs when it is doing it.

After that is done, Select Preview to view the content.

>> This time the subtitles have shown up in Preview. While this is loaded I should be able to Cntl/F8 for the Sub box and load the .idx.



Also going to download that PGCDemux from above to see if that gives
any clue as to why the second subtitle selection worked when all this other did not.

M., I have used .srts and even tried to re-time one which I didn't get very far with in AegisSub for the same sorts of multiple things that have stymied me with this-- unknowns such as PAL sub with NTSC video and other headaches available from download third party sources.

[loninappleton]

With the program load from the Preview run above now I could do the Cntl+F8.
Press Control+F8 opens a thrid field at the top of the program where Source and Target file are designated.

Control+F8 shos an empty third field between the other two.
The Arros and File Icon at screen right will take you to agk_tmp
Open agk_tmp
A Myprojectfile.sub will be visible
Go to the bottom of the pane in Windows (XP is my OS) and request "all files" as is common in Windows.

Only then does the .idx file show up.
Select that .idx then > Add Job

You see the job added in the lower right pane of the AGK program
Click on Start.

Lower left you see the log of program actions.

The job is processing.

[manono]

If you've found the right subs and have demuxed them through AutoGK and then seen them in the Preview, there's no need for the CTRL/F8 trick.

[loninappleton]

If you've found the right subs and have seen them in the Preview, then there's no need for the CTRL/F8 trick.

Hmmm. Well that would mean that the selected sub visible on screen was ready to go.

I'll have to see what I get from using the Cntl+F8. I hope it's just a different way of getting the same thing. It would shorten things up if the on screen info was ready to go.

[loninappleton]

Error report.

During this run

Vob Sub gave the same error ending with the words "line 23" which I typed out above.

I will try to reload the job from the preview stage and with the Cntl+F8 field remained closed.

[manono]

Maybe, if you're planning on using CTRL/F8, move the subs out of the temp directory to somewhere else.

[loninappleton]

loninappleton,
could you look in the AutoGK installation folder to see what the name of the utility AutoGK uses for decoding the audio might be? I can't remember and it's driving me nuts. I'm sure it starts with "A". Acid, or Avid or something like that. If you can't find it I might have to install AutoGK again myself so I can look and stop it from bugging me.

Was re-reading this and overlooked your request for info from the AGK iinstall folder. I'm looking in c:\Programs\AGK\tools and in there is a series of files named

Azid

which is close to what you asked for. Any more needed, continue in the thread.

Lon

[hello_hello]

Was re-reading this and overlooked your request for info from the AGK iinstall folder. I'm looking in c:\Programs\AGK\tools and in there is a series of files named

Azid

Thanks for that. It was just bugging me trying to remember the name.
http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/showsoftware_azid_87.html
If I remember correctly Azid is the utility AutoGK uses to downmix multi-channel audio to a stereo wave file. I think there's another utility called normalise.exe which it then uses to normalise the wave file before converting it to MP3 with LAME.

It appears to me using CRTL+F8 is causing your subtitle problem when trying to encode DVD subtitles. I'd guess at some stage AutoGK is extracting the DVD subtitles (if you've selected any in the subtitle pane) and then during a subsequent encode/preview you're using CTRL+F8 to add the extracted subtitles (in the temp folder). Only as soon as you start the encode/preview AutoGK is probably emtying the temp folder so the external subtitles you selected via CTRL+F8 no longer exist, producing an error.

There's something else you might want to look at. It just occurred to me AutoGK has an option to use only forced subtitles, so if you select a subtitle track which contains forced subtitles, or no forced subtitles, with the "display only forced subtitles" option checked you may see no subtitles at all, or only the forced subtitles, which would probably result in the bulk of the subtitles not displaying at all. I'm pretty sure the "display only forced subtitles" option is under Advanced Settings.
There's also a second option there labelled "Use External Subtitles". It's different to using CTRL+F8. If memory serves me correctly it extracts the subtitles to separate idx/sub files rather than encoding them into the video (it probably saves them to the same location as the output AVI), so if you want subtitles to be encoded, I'm pretty sure you'd want to make sure "Use External Subtitles" is unchecked.

A single subtitle stream can contain normal and forced subtitles, but sometimes a sub file will contain normal and forced subtitles in separate streams. At least that's how I remember it.... I don't work with subtitles much.

CRTL+F8 lets you encode existing subtitles into the video, but I'm not sure it's able to load idx/sub files for encoding as it probably expects a single subtitle stream (usually in the form of an srt file), whereas idx/sub files can contain more than one stream and CTRL+F8 doesn't give you the option to select the correct one. To be honest I didn't think CTRL+F8 would allow you to load idx/sub files for encoding so maybe doing so is another reason AutoGK is producing an error.
If when you use CTRL+F8 to load external subtitles and idx files aren't visible (you need to select "show all files" in order to load them), I think that's pretty much proof CTRL+F8 doesn't support loading idx files. If sub files are visible then I guess CTRL+F8 does support loading them, but I'd also guess it just uses the first subtitle stream it finds in the sub file (there's often more than one).

When you load a DVD with multiple subtitles (there's more than one subtitle stream in the subtitle pane) does AutoGK let you select more than one? I'm vaguely remembering if the "Use External Subtitles" option is unchecked it won't (so you won't try to hardcode more than one lot of subtitles), but I can't remember for sure.

Here's a few links explaining AutoGK and encoding subtitles if they help. The pics in the first link are from an older version of AutoGK so while they might look slightly different to the current version, the principle is the same.
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/autogk.htm
http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/dvd_to_avi_using_autogk.cfm
http://www.downloadatoz.com/howto/use-autogk,1651.html

[loninappleton]

Lots of ifs and buts in all that up there which sounds like a juggling act. Truth is, I have put off inspecting the last encode after getting the Preview to work.

Maybe as you say, trying to make the prog do something it doesn't want to like > all files > .idx is just never going to go.


If all this is old business to the staff of videohelp what programs are recommended "today"?
In other words, what have you moved on to? (unless it doesn't realate to videohelp at all)

When these things work it seems like alchemy to me-- taking audio and video apart etc.
When it doesn't work. well, like Dirty Harry says, "A man has to know his limitations."

I'll see if I got any subs tomorrow.

[hello_hello]

If you're wanting to output Xvid/AVI I still think AutoGK is a good choice. Personally I've not had any major problems encoding DVD subtitles with AutoGK. It really should just be a matter of opening the ifo file, selecting the appropriate subtitle stream in the subtitle pane if you want to encode them, and checking/unchecking the option to "display only forced subtitles" according to whether you want only forced subtitles or all of them etc.

I pretty much only use MeGUI these days as I mainly encode to x264/MKV. It uses much of the same tools as AutoGK although it's not as "auto". For DVD subtitles MeGUI includes VobSubber under the tools menu which you'd use to extract the appropriate subtitles from the ripped DVD files (extracted as idx/sub files).
Not that I generally work with subtitles much, but once they're extracted I use Subtitle Edit to convert them to an srt file for encoding. As I generally only hardcode forced subtitles I use SubtitleEdit to convert just the forced subtitles to an srt file in order to add them to the encoding job without the rest.

[loninappleton]

I have the install manual for MeGui and wanted to get that going. I wanted to move to the mkv format as well and used Vidcoder/Handbrake a couple times. I stopped because I could not get a good result. There were artifacts-- I'll call them pixelations-- for lack of something better on mkvs made from MakeMKV which I used to rip the DVD.

[loninappleton]

The suspense is over. Most recent procedure was successful. AGK picked up the DVD subtitles.

I did install PGCDemux and it gave 4 numbered .sup files dumped out to my desktop.
How does one read/analyze why these substreams which appear identical to AGK worked as selection number two rather than one or three or four?

M., I read the readme and there's no instructions in it. But it is apparently a tool developed by/through videohelp.

[hello_hello]

How does one read/analyze why these substreams which appear identical to AGK worked as selection number two rather than one or three or four?

If you've extracted the subtitles open them with Subtitle Edit for a look.

[loninappleton]

One wonders why one has to go to a separate program to see the output of the first program.
I will have a look.

[hello_hello]

One extracts the subtitles to a separate file, the other lets you import that file and convert the subtitles to another format. When you open the extracted subtitle file with Subtitle Edit, you should be able to preview each subtitle stream it contains without having to go through the actual OCR process.

[loninappleton]

I just did some practice with Subtitle Edit. This is very helpful for the setup of correct subtitle streams when they are not clearly marked. There was one shorty at the beginning I didn't understand-- something to do with teseract-- but #2 which was my useable one followed by the sub enhanced for hearing impaired and finally a sub for the director's commentary track.

I have not abandoned the guide notion by any means but still have to organize materials.

I had another subtitle job where I was trying to repair the timing of the subs. I had to suspend any kind of work on that. But I think I could go back to it now and first off determine with GSpot if it is NTSC or PAL based and how timing would work when the subs and the video format are switched/combined. I tried Aegis Sub for this. Perhaps there is a Subtitle Edit help group. There might be a simple answer I have missed as here: using Subtitle Edit to analyze the content before going ahead on guesswork.

[loninappleton]

If LPCM audio is selected both in DVD Shrink and Auto Gordian Knot, what kind of output in audio is delivered is the Advanced Options are set once again to MP3 VBR 128?

I am running a test on that now as practice for fine tuning the guide elements.

also after rereading that element about audio MP3 being deleted if not 'captured' while encoding I find I do not understand the meaning.

[loninappleton]

Doing some more practice with this and hopefully building a guide as I go.
I'm able to do more from memory. subtitles however still seem like guesswork.

I used PGCDemux to get the sup files by selecting the .ifo. Then I loaded each in turn into SubEdit to analyze the content. The first two looked closed caption style with [door opening] and other sound brackets for the hearing impaired on the first two.

There are designations for wide by two and for letterbox by two

Regular dialog was on the last two and that looked the same. I selected the third one which had the right sub and with the selected Japanese audio but I was guessing. I checked all four once more and did not see any translated commentary track.

The point is that there are three variables on these foreign language jobs with-- nine possibilities (I guess) but here on a new job of a similar animation it was still sort of pick and choose even with these additional demux and sub edit tools.

[hello_hello]

If LPCM audio is selected both in DVD Shrink and Auto Gordian Knot, what kind of output in audio is delivered is the Advanced Options are set once again to MP3 VBR 128?

It'll output MP3.

also after rereading that element about audio MP3 being deleted if not 'captured' while encoding I find I do not understand the meaning.

Neither do I. Where did you read that? If the audio is converted to MP3, the MP3 file should be located in the AutoGK temp folder in the output directory.... at least until you preview another video or run another encode, in which case the temp folder may be cleared.

[loninappleton]

If LPCM audio is selected both in DVD Shrink and Auto Gordian Knot, what kind of output in audio is delivered is the Advanced Options are set once again to MP3 VBR 128?

It'll output MP3.

also after rereading that element about audio MP3 being deleted if not 'captured' while encoding I find I do not understand the meaning.

Neither do I. Where did you read that? If the audio is converted to MP3, the MP3 file should be located in the AutoGK temp folder in the output directory.... at least until you preview another video or run another encode, in which case the temp folder may be cleared.

I might have misunderstood something but it was further up in this thread (as I recall) and I remarked on how odd it was. If I find it again I'll quote it.

The practice sessions are going better and as long as there is a tool like The Levelator for adjusting for voice in live performance I would continue to use that.


For preparation you described using AnyDVD in the background while decrypting. Is there any instruction on doing that procedure? Or is it load AnyDVD into the tray (as I have seen) and just running the decrypter program of choice such as DVD Shrink or DVDFab Decrypter?