How to DVD rip in stereo not surround?

[danoman2]

I'm new to DVD ripping so please bear with me. I am not sure if the problem I talk about below is the same as vidkid's posted problem.

Hey folks.

I ripped about 5 DVDs last week. But when I played them on my DVD player, the audio was out of whack. If you had the volume high enough to hear dialogue, the other sounds were thunderous when they hit. i.e. if a bus went by or there was music in the background.

I am playing them on a regular TV that supports stereo but isn't surround sound. So my theory is that I am ripping the sound as 6 channel, surround sound. And that in playing them on a regular stereo TV, that causes the audio to get outof whack like it is.

I have DVD Decrypter, DVD Master and Smartripper. I have looked at the options on all of them but I can't see how you can choose the stereo audio when you rip the vobs.


As an example, I put Casino into my DVD player. I load up SmartRipper. I choose vts_01 / Title 1/ Angle 1.

If I go to Stream Processing tab, it tells me there is Audio English AC3(6Ch) 48Khz. And the same for French. I assume the (6Ch) means sound uses 6 channels. The thing is there is no choice for 2 Ch. But if I go look at vts_02 (which is the extra features on the disk I am guessing), the only choice there is for 2 Ch.

Any advice? If I can't do this at the rip level, what level should I do it at and what tools should I use?

Thanks,
DANO

[Truman]

What do you want to do? Do you burn DVD, (S)VCD, DivX?

[danoman2]

Sorry. I use DVDx to create a Divx file from the VOBs, then use TMPGEnc to convert it to VCD compliant MPEG. I then use Nero to burn that to VCD.

DANO

[Truman]

I don't know anything about DVDx. But definitily it is a waste of quality and time to convert to a temporary DivX.

Maybe it helps when you normalize (95%)the audio in TMPG (advanced tab> audio effect)

So I can not help you with the audio encoding as long as you want to stay with DVDx. If you like to do video and audio seperately (I assume, this is possible with DVDx), try this:
Smartripper> stream processing> demux to extra file
Azid decodes the .AC3 to .wav
Downsample and normalize with ssrc
Encode to .mp2 with tooLAME

Ssrc and tooLAME you can use as external tools in TMPG as well.

DVD2AVI creates beside the project file, that you can load to TMPG directly, a audio file. DVD2AVI's audio routine allows AC3 decoding, downsampling and normalising.
It is very easy to use and gives you an excellent *44,1kHz.wav file.

[danoman2]

I made a mistake in my reply. DVDx puts it directly to mpeg. I then use myFlix to break the mpeg in half to put on two VCDs.

I have tried so many applications and methods that I got them mixed up.

I didn't go the DVD2avi route before because it had the extra step of having to create an avi then converting that to mpeg.

Thanks,
DANO

[Truman]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
I didn't go the DVD2avi route before because it had the extra step of having to create an avi then converting that to mpeg.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
No, TMPG accepts the dvd2avi project as video source.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Truman on 2001-11-05 12:35:28 ]</font>

[Whoosh25]

Truman is right DVD2AVI doesn't convert the vob file to an AVI. DVD2AVI just decodes the vob into an audio file and a very small ".d2v file".

There's an option for the type of audio when decoding.

The .d2v file serves like a guide for TMPEnc but it still uses the original vob files as the source.

[danoman2]

This is great help guys.

I just grabbed some VOBs off one of my DVD and am trying to run DVD2AVI. Is there a guide you have or on this site that you can point me to the options I should be checking off in DVD2AVI. There are quite a few under the Audio and Video menu items.

Also, to downsize/sample (especially from dolby 5.1 to 2 channel audio) do you have guides on how to use azid or ssrc?

Thanks.

[Hollywood004738]

Audio-> Dolby Digital-> Decode
Audio-> Normalize
Audio-> 48khz>44.1khz-> Ultrahigh

The audio from DVD2AVI with these settings should be sufficient for you.

[Hollywood004738]

As for video, Do you use NTSC or PAL?

[pinoy2201]

here is a good guide to use azid with its gui go here
http://209.186.117.125/azid-guide.htm
and for the dvd2avi audio settings here:
http://www.flexion.org/video/DVDConv/DVD2AVI/dvd2avi-audio/

THank felxion.org and doom9.net for this great guides

[vitualis]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-11-05 08:11:57, danoman2 wrote:
...the audio was out of whack. If you had the volume high enough to hear dialogue, the other sounds were thunderous when they hit. i.e. if a bus went by or there was music in the background.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Something is very wrong here... Dolby Surround encoded audio will not by itself create this effect when compared to normal stereo audio (i.e., non-Dolby Surround encoded).

Indeed, most modern audio CDs have Dolby Surround encoding. Dolby Surround encoded audio should sound fine over ordinary stereo.

It sounds like during the DD5.1 --> Dolby Surround encoded stereo downmix, the other channels got amplified relative to the centre channel (which is where the dialogue usually is).

On both the common methods of ripping DVDs (DVD2AVI and FlaskMPEG) you can turn off the downmix to Dolby Surround (i.e., you only get stereo). However, this may not solve your problem... Perhaps you've got an errant normalisation setting somewhere. Try just turning it off. If you are watching your VCDs on the TV, you can simply just turn up the volume a bit more if it's relatively low.

Regards.

[danoman2]

Hollywood, I have an NTSC TV.?

Under Video->YUV/RGB, it is PC Scale by default. Should I change that to TV Scale since my final target is VCD to play on my TV?

Vitualis, turning up the sound won't work because the problem is the dialogue and sound effect/music tracks are out of whack. If I turn the volume up to hear the dialogue, when a sound effect happens the sound is blaring. So you grab for the remote to turn it down, then have to turn it back up after the sounds are done. It makes for a very unenjoyable movie viewing experience.

I was using DVDx to convert the VOBS to mpeg, so maybe it isn't very good and handling the DD conversion well.

The only setting I see in DVDx related to sound is in the Input menu choice. You can pick your track, which I leave as the default. It is usually English (AC3 6Ch), with sometimes a French choice.

Then you pick the quality (i.e. high) and Volume. Default is 3 but I have tried using 5 as well. I think that is just overall volume anyway.

I'll give DVD2avi a try today with the suggestions given.


Thanks again for all the help folks!



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: danoman2 on 2001-11-06 07:49:23 ]</font>

[vitualis]

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On 2001-11-06 06:41:10, danoman2 wrote:
Hollywood, I have an NTSC TV.?

Vitualis, turning up the sound won't work because the problem is the dialogue and sound effect/music tracks are out of whack. If I turn the volume up to hear the dialogue, when a sound effect happens the sound is blaring.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

I apologies if I didn't make myself clear.

Your problem sounds like a dodgy DD5.1 --> Dolby Surround downmix was done. Or, it may have been the result of normalisation/dynamic range compression gone wrong.

I'm not familiar with DVDx itself, but with FlaskMPEG and DVD2AVI methods, you can turn off normalisation/etc. People normally have these set because the audio on DVD tends to be quiet.

In reality, most audio on CDs (that we are used to) is too loud.

Thus, I'm suggesting you turning off any normalisation settings (so that the audio should be back to normal). If the resultant audio is then quiet on playback, you can just turn up the volume (this was what I meant originally).

Good luck.

[danoman2]

Ahh, that makes sense Vitualis.

Thanks.