Improving Audio?

[Sakuya]

I have an AVI with bad audio. The sound is really muffled, very different from other AVIs. I know it's not the encoder's fault. But, is there any way to fix or at least improve the audio somewhat? Here are the specs:

Name: 0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-1 Layer 3
Bitrate: 136 kb/s (68/ch, stereo) VBR
Fs: 48000 Hz

Also, I've noticed that the audio is about maybe 1 second FASTER than the video. So the voice comes first and then the mouth moves. Is there a way to fix that? I know it's a small difference but it gets a bit annoying in the fast-paced action scenes. Any help is appreciated!

Edit:
I found some of the audio filters in Virtualdub useful. So I applied a gain (now set at 5) and a resample of 100. It sounds slightly better on the computer, but I still have to author to DVD before I can test on my DVD player. Anyway, I also set the interleaving in Virtualdub to delay the audio 400 ms. It's now right on the dot!

I then frameserved it into TMPGEnc. Now at this point, I didn't know if Virtualdub will transfer all of my audio settings into TMPGEnc and then where TMPGEnc will sort of...change things. So for now I did a video-only conversion and I will save the audio as a WAV in Vdub. Will the audio delay settings be saved into the WAV? Also, since I need to convert the WAV into AC3, I can use ffmpeggui right? Will converting ruin any of my audio settings?

[Sakuya]

Ok, it seems the audio was faster than the video because of Virtualdub who says it has improper VBR audio. It also says it might introduce up to 835 ms of skew from the video. I have checked that the audio plays perfectly in sync using Windows Media Player 6.4.

But, the filters I did before have proved to be pretty good and takes away a bit of the muffled-ness. However, Vdub causes the out of sync. Is there a way to keep the sync but add the Gain and Resample filters.

[bugster]

TmpGenc does not like VBR audio. Do what you suggested and save the audio out as an uncompressed wav from virtualdub, use that as the audio source when you encode with Tmpgenc.

[Sakuya]

Thanks. Since the audio has been altered by Vdub to be slightly out of sync, I can use the audio delay in Vdub right? Then I save to WAV and then use that as the audio source in TMPGEnc. Will the audio delay save into the WAV also? And will TMPGEnc ruin my audio filters?

[Sakuya]

Now that's over with, I have another question so I'll just ask it here. Before, I convert my MP2 files to AC3 for DVD using BeSweet and it works fine. But, I now found a simpler tool called ffmpeggui. I installed it and it works great. But now when I try to go back to BeSweet, I can't get it to output AC3 for some reason. Why is that? Is it because ffmpeggui is hoggin it? Anyway, BeSweet is not that important anymore since I have ffmpeggui right? Should I uninstall BeSweet?

[fmctm1sw]

AFAIK besweet and ffmpeg use the same AC3 encoding app. I never had both installed at the same time, so I don't know if there are any conflict issues.

[Sakuya]

I was using both since BeSweet had the volume boost and other options that ffmpeg doesn't.

[fmctm1sw]

goldwave does the best job of changing volume that I have seen (in a relatively cheap program). I like it because it will play the changed wav in real time and display volume on meters.

[Sakuya]

I have a piano piece of music in MP3 format that I would like to convert to AC3. This is for use as the background music for a DVD menu. It works when I open the VOBs in DVD Shrink but it won't play the sound on my DVD player. Why is that?

[fritzi93]

I have both ffmpegGUI and BeSweet on my computer, and use them regularly with no issues. I'd be surprised if that's your problem.

[Sakuya]

I followed a tutorial and did a proper conversion in BeSweet. It works again. The only problem now is to get it to work on my DVD player.

[bugster]

I have a piano piece of music in MP3 format that I would like to convert to AC3. This is for use as the background music for a DVD menu. It works when I open the VOBs in DVD Shrink but it won't play the sound on my DVD player. Why is that?

I don't know if it has been fixed, but the ac3 encoder was removed from a recent release of BeSweet because the files it generated were not 100% compliant and could not be played in some DVD players, some Panasonics were the main culprits if I remember correctly.

[lordsmurf]

A bit slow, but an answer for the first post:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/restoration/audio/soundforge/soundforge.htm

[Sakuya]

That page says you need to download the SoundForge Presets Manager. Is that all I need? Or do I need the actual SoundForge? Is there another solution?

[Sakuya]

I burned my first episode (with the added Vdub filters) to DVD and I do not notice any difference! I tested most of the filters in Vdub and none of them provides what I need.

I found another post that deals with this problem but I am having some trouble in Audacity. The post is at the top of the list right now in the Audio topic.

[lordsmurf]

do I need the actual SoundForge? ?

Yes, worth it. I've been on it since v4, upgraded twice now.

[Sakuya]

Do you know how long the trial is? I think I might try it just to see how it works. But I definitely won't be purchasing it, at least not right now.