Multi Audo Channel Authoring

eadsja · Post by **eadsja** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 8:26 pm

Okay, here is a toughie...

I know through DVD authoring you can create 2 audio tracks... (Spanish and English) and I've had some success doing just that...

But the problem is, it's not realistic to distribute .VOB's or .ISO's for video watching (not a whole lot of people had drive emulation available to watch such Huge Monstrocities)....

So who knows what containers support multi channel audio and where can I find a guide to use em?

Here is the premise: 1 AMV visual sequence - 2 Audio Tracks (contrasting in style) = Unique Novelty AMV where you can hit a button and flip back and forth between the music all you want and it still works....

Gepetto · Post by **Gepetto** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 8:41 pm

Interresting. I've thought of doing that myself, but I was never able to find the right thing to do. Not enough inspiration, or not enough brains .

I tip my hat to you for having an AMV idea that might work with dual audio.

MKV and OGM are usually the formats used for dual audio distribution over the internet. MKVmerge is a program you can use to add multiple audio streams to mkv files. It comes with mkvtoolnix.

But for what it's worth, I've even seen AVIs with dual audio output. It gets a little buggy, so I reccomend using MKV or OGM, since they are containers designed to handle multiple streams. MP4 containers should work too.

eadsja · Post by **eadsja** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 8:58 pm

What kind of technical issues, from your experience, do you see that I might run into...

2nd, how easy or difficult is it to switch audio tracks with those containers?

Willen · Post by **Willen** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 2:54 am

OGM is kinda dead in the water concerning continued development. Especially since it was initially designed as a container for OGG Vorbis audio and Theora video. Although it will accept Xvid and MP3 fine, it will not contain h.264/AVC. MKV, on the other hand, will play nice with just about everything. Although my support is behind MP4, I do see continued use of MKV.

As to switching of audio between the different containers, I think that the media players and/or the person's computer hardware will be more of a factor in how quickly or smoothly the change occurs.

Gepetto · Post by **Gepetto** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 7:07 am

In most players, all it takes is right-licking the video window, going to the "audio track" tab and making your choice. The only ones I've run into that don't have that option are Winamp and Windows Media Player, both of which will play whatever track comes in first.

mkvmerge has a problem with a specific type of AAC audio, but there's a checkbox that fixes the problem, so if your syncing is affected, all you really have to do is check/uncheck it and export again. Other than that, there aren't any technical issues that you wouldn't run into with a normal 1-audio track AMV, unless maybe (and I don't know this for sure) you could have problems if you compress your audio tracks in different formats, e.g. one in mp3 and the other in aac.

Gepetto · Post by **Gepetto** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 7:08 am

Gepetto wrote:In most players, all it takes is right-clicking the video window, going to the "audio track" tab and making your choice. The only ones I've run into that don't have that option are Winamp and Windows Media Player, both of which will play whatever track comes in first.

mkvmerge has a problem with a specific type of AAC audio, but there's a checkbox that fixes the problem, so if your syncing is affected, all you really have to do is check/uncheck it and export again. Other than that, there aren't any technical issues that you wouldn't run into with a normal 1-audio track AMV, unless maybe (and I don't know this for sure) you could have problems if you compress your audio tracks in different formats, e.g. one in mp3 and the other in aac.

Damn no-edit button.

Willen · Post by **Willen** » Sun Aug 13, 2006 8:12 pm

Gepetto wrote:Damn no-edit button.

I like your original post better.

maciko · Post by **maciko** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:00 am

Simple do what all the Asian VCD titles do pan the stereo files to 2 mono files. I.E. Spanish L+R to L and English L+R to R.
Then use the ballance adjustment to listen to either L Spanish or R English.

Sure it's mono, but hey it's not like most people care anyway.

Gepetto · Post by **Gepetto** » Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:58 am

maciko wrote:Simple do what all the Asian VCD titles do pan the stereo files to 2 mono files. I.E. Spanish L+R to L and English L+R to R.
Then use the ballance adjustment to listen to either L Spanish or R English.

Sure it's mono, but hey it's not like most people care anyway.

They do that? Crap. Multi-channel is so much better.

Willen wrote:I like your original post better.

Children, don't lick your video files without adult supervision.

maciko · Post by **maciko** » Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:06 am

Gepetto wrote:They do that? Crap. Multi-channel is so much better.

Yes, Well VCD only has 2 channels. What else can they do?