don't know what to do [VHS to MPG conversions need some work]

[catsmeow]

I converted 29 mini VHS tapes to MPG files. There are some problems I need to fix.

The capture software didn't support capturing in mono sound. The tapes weren't stereo. I didn't have a mono to stereo adapter cable so some of the MPG files only have 1 channel of sound. I need to fix that so there is mono sound from the right and left speakers. Also, normalizing the audio would help, if that's possible.

I accidentally captured some of a television show in the middle of capturing a mini VHS tape. I accidentally switched the inputs during mid-capture. I need to edit out the TV show.

I need software to do those two things but I don't know what to use. Is there a program that can identify the encoding and bitstream rate of the MPG files? The files probably are MPEG-2 but I'm not sure. After I fix the problems I need to burn the home movies to DVD.

[jagabo]

MediaInfo can tell you what codecs were used.

Mpg2Cut2 can cut out unwanted portions -- but only at key frames which usually occur about every half second in MPG files.

Audacity with the ffmpeg source plugin will read the audio from the MPG files, convert one stereo channel to mono (or duplicate the channel with audio to the silent channel), and export as MP2 or AC3. But you'll need another program to mux the resulting audio with the original video.

[catsmeow]

Thank you for helping me.

I used Audacity to change the stereo audio to mono then exported the audio as WAV. That was the default file format. Though, I'm having trouble finding a program that will mux the original audio+video MPG file and the new WAV file. I tried a couple programs: Muxman and TMPGEnc. Seems like they don't support my MPG file.

[manono]

Seems like they don't support my MPG file.

Authoring programs work with elementary streams (separated audio, video, chapters, subtitles). Many do it behind the scenes, so-to-speak. For Muxman to reauthor your DVD you'll have to demux first. One way is to open the MPG in DGIndex and go File->Save Project and Demux Video. It'll give you a D2V project file you can delete, and separate video and audio files. Then take the M2V video file and your new audio track(s) and add them to Muxman for authoring. This assumes the assets are already DVD compliant. If not, Muxman will throw an error.

[catsmeow]

Thank you. After my last post I thought maybe that was the problem- that I needed plain video. I started trying something with VirtualDub-MPEG2 but I'll stop that and try DGIndex instead.

[catsmeow]

Rather than authoring files for a DVD is there a way to take out the audio tracks of my MPG file and put in the mono audio track so that I finish with an MPG file that has video and a mono audio track. Or, maybe duplicate the one track with audio over the second track. Rather than burn multiple copies of DVDs to distribute to all family members I'm thinking of just copying the MPG files to flash drives for the computer-savy members of the family.

[manono]

You'd rather make MPGs? Then use ImagoMPEG-Muxer.