How to Rip Foreign VCD's that has Dual Audio Tracks?

[box2216]

Hi,

I just started to clean out my old VCD collection and wanted to rip them to my hard drive. The problem is that its all Chinese VCD cartoons which has dual audio tracks. A mandarin and cantonese track. I tried looking around for a VCD ripper that can rip these .DAT files and isolate only 1 audio stream. I tried the program Handbrake and VCDGear, but they rip the entire video track with both languages heard at once. I want to be able to just rip 1 audio stream so my kids can easily click on the file and watch them without having to fiddle with the left and right audio selections.

Is there a program that can do this without having to go through a bunch of steps?

Thanks!

[aedipuss]

they didn't have 2 audio tracks. they had one stereo track with different languages in left and right. nothing is going fix that automatically as there's no separate id to find. you need to do it yourself. demux out the audio, delete one side, copy the other to both left and right save and remux.

[box2216]

which program can accomplish demux-ing the audio? the quickest way would be best as i have at least 40 old VCDs. =(

what does demux stand for btw?

[manono]

Demux=Demultiplex. Used in this sense it means to separate the audio out from the VCD. One way is to load the DAT into DGIndex. Then File->Save Project. If you want the video demuxed at the same time, go File->Save Project and Demux Video.

[box2216]

ok just downloaded DGIndex and loaded the .DAT file into the program then i went and selected Save Project and Demux Video. Now i have a .d2v file. What do I do with that?

[box2216]

Isn't there a paid application where it can just let me select which audio track i want and i just click a button and finish?

[Cornucopia]

To correctly rip the discs, I would use: ISOBuster (with "filter M2F2 sectors" tool), VCDGear, or VCDEasy

Those will get you CLEAN (non-sectorpadded) *.DAT files, which can NOW (after the sector cleaning) can be simply renamed to *.MPG.

To demux, I would use: TMPGEnc.

That will get you *.MP2 (MPeg1, Layer2) audio files.

Open *.MP2 in Audacity and remix the stereo track into a mono track from only 1 of the 2 channels (either the Left or the Right). Then save as MP2, MP3, etc.

Remux into the *.MPG. Done

Scott

[Cornucopia]

Isn't there a paid application where it can just let me select which audio track i want and i just click a button and finish?

NOPE.
Though I daresay you could probably write an ffmpeg or AVISynth script that could do that (for free), but it wouldn't be easy.

Scott

[manono]

Now i have a .d2v file. What do I do with that?

Delete it. Didn't you also get audio and video files?

[jman98]

Do what Cornucopia suggested in post #7 (I would use VCDGear) or you will likely just be spending a lot of time AND not accomplishing what you want to accomplish.

[box2216]

wow thats so many steps... is this how its typically done?

so i converted the .dat file to VCDgear now i have to extract the audio files with TMPenc

then with those audio files i have to re-encode it with audacity and embed that into the mpg files?

[jman98]

Yes, that's how it's done. Almost nobody in the US, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand works with VCD. VCD was never a commercial format in those places, with the exception of perhaps a handful of discs. The reality is that there's little interest any more in this ancient video format. For the most part it was really just a Hong Kong thing to put two languages, one in each speaker, on a VCD soundtrack. I've got VCDs from other places that only have 1 language, that of the country where the disc was made and sold, on the VCD. I've got VCDs from mainland China and Taiwan that only contain Mandarin soundtracks. Nobody ever cared enough to write a program to make it easy to extract 2 language VCD soundtracks into separate audio tracks. Even the guy who wrote the great VCDEasy program stopped making updates about 3 years ago and his program won't work on any release of Windows after XP.

[jman98]

By the way, you don't say how old your kids are. If they are perhaps 10 or older, maybe you could learn to do this and then teach THEM how to do and task them with completing this time consuming task. Just tell them that if it's important to them they can learn how to do it themselves. Or you could just take the lazy approach and teach them how to play the VCDs directly in a DVD player (Philips makes cheap players that still support VCD) and show them how to push the correct buttons on the remote control to just get one soundtrack playing. If a DVD player supports VCD it should support that soundtrack option too.

[box2216]

thanks for the insight. i didnt know this audio format was only done in HK. yea i want to be able to rip these old cartoons onto a hard drive and just play it from my tablet. these are ancient cartoons from the 90s and i dont wnat to buy it all over again just because its on DVD.

[Hoser Rob]

Isn't there a paid application where it can just let me select which audio track i want and i just click a button and finish?

Never, ever assume paid software is better than free unless you're talking about serious stuff meant for pros and costing hundreds of $$$. Sometimes not even then.

From what I can see there are more complaints on this board for programs that cost, say, $50-$100, than for the free ones.

[jimdagys]

wow thats so many steps... is this how its typically done?
Isn't there a paid application where it can just let me select which audio track i want and i just click a button and finish?

These kinds of comments are not made from Yuppies; they are made by the new "20 somethings".
When they begin to rule the world, look out.

[box2216]

thanks for all the help... so i guess im going to have to use VCDGear to convert the DAT files then use TMPGenc to isolate it to just one channel.

Now here comes the other part.. Since movies that are on VCD, they are split into multiple CD's. Which program can stitch these files together without much work needed?

thanks

[Brad]

TMPGEnc has a join function.