need help understanding demux amp; remux understand, original, question, another

andy

first off, i've done this process and had it work. but, while thinking about it theres some things i don't understand. when i extract the audio wave file from an avi file with virtualdub, am i really extracting it or am i just copying it. i think i' m just copying it, which then brings up the question as to what happens when you remux it. lets say i extract the audio file and convert it from wave to ac3, then add it back to the original video. am i adding another audio file or is it overwriting the file that was there, assuming it was never really removed before just copied.

Depends what software you're using, but typically demuxing
is 'making a copy of the stream(s) you want out of an existing file'
and remuxing is 'mixing stream(s) of your choice into a new file'

Basically what you said in your original post.

Depends what software you're using, but typically demuxing is 'making a copy of the stream(s) you want out of an existing file'

Demuxing is moving a stream (ie, video, audio, subs, or whatever) outside your clip (outside the container to be more precise). If your video editing application calls it extracting, i assume does the same thing.