Use PGC Demux for Audio extraction

[newpball]

Do you have some sample audio you would like to share and explain what you like to have filtered?

Converting lossless audio formats several times and running some questionable "fixing" software and then on top reducing filesize by even more compression, does not seem to be the path that will give you a better quality in the end.

Would you agree with that?

By the way did you check if your source has an alternative PCM track. If so, use that, much better quality! AC-3 is substandard audio quality, and "surround hype" won't make up for it, it's like eating bad soup, even 5 portions of it won't make it any better!

I assume your AC-3 source is stereo?

[loninappleton]

Pulse Code Modulation-- not sure about that.

As to samples I suppose I could make one using the extracted audio before doing anything with the mkv content and snipping a bit with Audacity or Goldwave. Never did it to an online source via attachment.

But in one of my other threads on audio hello_hello had some comparison samples he made
for his own listening and posted them to VH. I do not know how to search for those adequately. He posts in a lot of query threads.

Historical dramas have big war scenes wherein tympani is used to make the sound of cannon
and military drum (same size as a tom tom in a drum kit are heard as well.) And just for the sake of late night viewing, I have come to dislike being startled by some scene change. Hence wanting to get the audio to _one_ level. A good example is the opening of the play The Tempest where sailors are shouting on the deck during a storm (of tympani for the thunder.)
You get the idea by now.

[newpball]

Pulse Code Modulation-- not sure about that.

A straightforward mediainfoxp will tell you that.

[loninappleton]

Ok I'll run the MediInfo again.

Today I am using that example of The Tempest in a clip I have.

I have loaded the .wav into Audacity and am running Leveler at max everything. But I need some
fine tuning of that since I don't know the settings for voice. I used "heaviest" in the Leveler option and - 80db
which is also the max.

It may be possible just to proof the audio by ear but I'd like to take the next step and Save the Leveled .wav
and get that back into the clip mkv.

The gui performed the extraction. Which of the numerous mkv toolnix progs.etc does the remux job?
I've seen the name Muxman mentioned.

And in VirtualDub 1.7 which I recently began to use, the .wav can be selected directly. This time I will track the log file which I never can locate afterwards.

What is the recommendation with any of these options? Also I'd like to start using MeGUI for some simple operations.
I've recently upgraded its programs again.

One step at a time though.

[loninappleton]

I made some tests by ear just listening to audio for levels change between that Level process in Audacity and the origianl Levelaor job.

Any bias aside the Levelator sample when the scene changes from storm to the daughter's speech clearly brings up her audio.

I could make a 6 minute sample of each audio to bring in to this thread.
Using the familiar Audacity can I say make an audio clip from the beginiing of file and snip at 6 minutes numerically then save? I have had no end of trouble int he past setting start and end markers with hairline graphics. In sum, I uuslly save the wrong part. Is there a start at 0, stop at 6 minute dialog in Audacity? I'll poke around myself too.

At the bottom there are some numeric boxes but I don't know how to use them.

[manono]

Which of the numerous mkv toolnix progs.etc does the remux job?

MKVMerge with a GUI.

I've seen the name Muxman mentioned.

If the audio and video are DVD compliant, then Muxman will make a little DVD of it. Or use ImagoMPEG-Muxer to make an MPG.

[loninappleton]

No need for DVD.
I had MeGUI going this afternoon. Either Toolnix or the mux routines in MeGUI should work.

Speaking of work, I have no idea what is meant by 'workers' in MeGUI. Macro routines?

[Detmek]

No, worker in MeGUI is job list. By default, MeGUI uses 1 worker and one job at a time can run. But, if your CPU is not fully used you can assign second job in antoher workder and it will run in parallel with first job. Until you learn how to use MeGUI don't try to use more then one worker.

For muxing with MKVToolnix use mmg. Its a GUI for mkvmerge.

[loninappleton]

Making an Audacity clip.
I made an attempt to get a clip saved and failed.

The boxes at the bottom, ok I was able to start at Zero and end at 6 mins.
The Grayed area showed the clip. The clip played and stopped where it should
I used Export to save the clip. That failed. I should have a .wav marked 'sample' saved but what appeared to happen
was the export started to save the whole 2 plus hours.

I have snipped part of the Audacity manual which talks about the selection process to read over.

Give details on how to use the numerical edit/save only.

Meanwhile I'll try it in Goldwave but haven't used that in a long time

[loninappleton]

Progress. I have two samples. The edit was much easier in Goldwave.

Going to try to upload files which I recall is also not easy. The two samples will be in one folder (because I'm moving them between my homenet PC's.

What happened next:

I used the upload files and browsed to the two samples, one for each box showing. After many minutes
the samples of about 75mb each (6 minute .wav) refused to upload.

What is the use of the other option My Files?

[loninappleton]

Audacity is a bit easier now that I found Export Selected rather than Export plain.
I saved a clip in that successfully.

What you will find in the clips (when they get to VH) is that Levelator is noticeably better in bringing up
the woman's voice at scene change which is at about 4 mins, 45 secs. Last night I started to proof the whole performance and the level stays in a range where I do not need to fiddle with volume once set. On this point another speaker uses a loud voice all the time. The Levelator keeps that in a decent range as well.


But I still don't know how to upload those samples. If the difficulty continues perhaps you can PM me and give an email address for an attachment. I've run into this inability to upload to VH before.

[manono]

But I still don't know how to upload those samples. If the difficulty continues perhaps you can PM me and give an email address for an attachment. I've run into this inability to upload to VH before.

Click on the 'Upload files/Manage attachments button below where you type in a response. Then you'll be shown a new box where you 'Browse' to the WAV file, click on the 'Upload' button, and finally 'Close this window' when the upload is complete. You can do a 'Preview Post' to make sure the link to the WAV file is there.

[loninappleton]

I got that far and a yellow message comes up that says uploading files please wait.
But it never shows any indication of completion. For example if I used the quick reply form here, I'd want to see them in the same post.....

will try here:

This time I see 'sending request to forum and a progress bar half completed....
I can't see how closing the window when half done would do any good-- still waiting for the
request to complete.

I finally just closed it. It's not working.
Any other option I'll try but not this any more.

[manono]

Upload it to some filesharing site like MediaFire then. However, although the upload to here usually works (even if it might be really slow sometimes), it doesn't always work, in my experience. You might try again later on.

[loninappleton]

I will try it before I turn in later.

[loninappleton]

Crimeney.

Mediafire is more software to install. What's that thing that looks like a baseball in my tray?

[loninappleton]

test for upload

One item said done and then the second stalled. I closed and am seeing if the one got there in any way

[loninappleton]

Well the upload system seems to be frustrating and useless.

[loninappleton]

Tried mediafire. It seemed to be too busy and I'm not interested in 'cloud things' of any sort.
My offer stands to send the two clips as an attachment.

Will be going back to this job and using the tips above for MeGUI and other tools to combine audio.

Virtual 1.7 has a default to load .wav. This can be used without further conversion once the Levelator runs and saved as their file called output.

[loninappleton]

I am on the trail of this project completion now even though the thread topic has been answered. If a new topic is required let me know.

1.) Make a work folder with my 2.5 hour mkv @ 800mb which should contain all the subtitle files
and in the same folder have the 1.6 Gb .wav which,

2.) after looking up some size variances, I'll see if I can get the audio into an Ogg Vorbis format. I've always had curiosity about it. If that fails, mp3 is the remaining option.

3.) Following that I'll review the merge procedures to put humpty together.

[loninappleton]

I set up this job in mkvmerge but I have questions.

The mkvmerge command line index of instructions seemed long and not redily understandable.

I loaded my mkv.
I put the .ogg file in the program using attachment.


The completed file marked as myfile (1) showed up in my work folder.

But at this point I started to look at file sizes.

My mkv is small for 2. hours 20 mins at 810mb

the Ogg audio is 130 mb

The completed merge file was, in rough figures, 930. It runs and I'm going to
do more proofing of the audio.

Would not a 'merge' operation replace the original mkv audio and so maintain the 810mb size? There's no delete and replace operation in what I did in mkvmerge.

Also since the job completed very quickly I'd like to be sure the job ran correctly but no log file in mkv merge is an option that I could see. How can that be checked? An extract perhaps?

I've gotten so used to listening to the samples, some of the sound with original may be 'blending' and indistinguishable for me. I hope not. The job so far has all the things wanted: small size, all the subtitles selectable and (?) the Ogg audio which has been processed.

[Detmek]

1. Don't use command line. Use mmg.exe. Its a GUI.

2. Do not add audio as attachment, use Add button.

3. If you want to exclude a stream just uncheck box in front of a stream you want to exclude from new file.

4. mmg (mkvmerge) will not replace your old file, it will create new one because it needs old file to get streams. And in case comething goes wrong you still have old file.

[El Heggunte]

If a NEW topic is required let me know.

Do you still have any doubts

[loninappleton]

I will take an admin's advice on starting something new. Continuing here avoids the
very common net problem of the needle in the haystack-- a bit here, a bit there until you give up. That's for anyone reading in the future.

For now I'll stick with this flow of question and answer.

[loninappleton]

@detmek

My problem is after loading mmg.exe or the gui (looks the same) is I cannot find my
.ogg processed file.

I tried append and some things but was just trying to get the .ogg in there.

mmg.exe does not automatically find an ogg file in the work folder.

I don't know that loading MeGUI would be different.

Is .ogg a recognized file type?

I will try an extract to see if a demux shows my .ogg. MKVextract will be another new operation for me.

[loninappleton]

Extract and al;l that was unsuccessful-- everything greyed out and not working.

On mkvmerge I did the following

ADD mkv original with subtitles and acc audio (whatevs)
ADD my .ogg audio file in the same window

Result:

Vorbis shows up as the last entry in the selection window you indicate above.
If I untick everything but the Vorbis file and select mux will the job complete?

[loninappleton]

Finally a logfile:


mkvmerge v7.8.0 ('River Man') 32bit built on Mar 27 2015 16:18:02
'C:\Users\lon\Desktop\testfileforOGG work folder for mkvmerge\The testfileforOGG new test April 28 for ALL subs mkv.mkv': Using the demultiplexer for the format 'Matroska'.
'C:\Users\lon\Desktop\testfileforOGG work folder for mkvmerge\The testfileforOGG new test April 28 for ALL subs mkv Microsoft Wave Sound Format English Delay 67ms.output.ogg': Using the demultiplexer for the format 'Ogg/OGM'.
create pack at 2051
'C:\Users\lon\Desktop\testfileforOGG work folder for mkvmerge\The testfileforOGG new test April 28 for ALL subs mkv Microsoft Wave Sound Format English Delay 67ms.output.ogg' track 0: Using the output module for the format 'Vorbis'.
The file 'C:\Users\lon\Desktop\testfileforOGG work folder for mkvmerge\The testfileforOGG new test April 28 for ALL subs mkv (2).mka' has been opened for writing.
The cue entries (the index) are being written...
Muxing took 26 seconds.

The muxing time at 26 seconds is disturbing.
What does the log mean?

[Detmek]

It means mkvmerge created MKA file, which indicates that file contains only audio. And yes, mmg supports ogg files.

Here is an example how to replace AAC audio with MP3 audio and save file as MKV. Not really that hard.

[loninappleton]

Ok I will look at your example.

[loninappleton]

Ok now give it to me in steps.
You may see my irritation at this.

That foolish 5 second how to with no audio went by so fast I couldn't even follow it.

If it's not that hard, spell it out.