How to replace an audio stream with another

People,
I have a VOB that includes video, audio (LPCM), subs and button information. What's an easy procedure to replace the audio stream with another (an ac3 stream)? I can't demux/remux because I'll lose the button info, so what's another solution?
Thanks!
Jeanl

Convert the audio to AC3 within the VOB itself.  BeSweet should be able to do this IIRC, Jean.

Regards

not that I can see. besweet offers to extract from the vob and convert to ac3, but not to put it back into the vob... I don't really know how to remux an audio stream into an existing VOB!
Jeanl

Maybe you could try to remux everything with muxman, and restore the menu buttons infos in the nav packs with PgcEdit's import and export functions?  Not easy if you have a lot of buttons, though.
Also, you may experience some problems if the menus are animated, and if the starting or ending points of the visibility of the buttons are not respectively at the first and last VOBU of the cell, with an highlight time of -1.

Yes, I thought of that, but that's a lot of work because there's 6 cells, and I have to treat them independently... I now realize that what I'm asking for is very quot;specificquot; (remuxing another audio stream in a still menu)...
jeanl

I just did a quick search and found this thread.  I'm trying to back up a DVD that has just one title which is 3 hours in length.  It's an almost full DVD9, and to my suprise the audio for the whole thing is LPCM.  Whoa, it takes up over 2 whole gig!  If I just extract the audio and convert it to, say, AC3 or MP2, I'd love to find a way to replace the LPCM.  I was thinking of doing this before using, say, DVD Rebuilder.

I'm guessing this is not as easy as it sounds.

Sorry I dropped in to add to the question and not the solution ...

-abs

Originally posted by absinthe
I just did a quick search and found this thread.  I'm trying to back up a DVD that has just one title which is 3 hours in length.  It's an almost full DVD9, and to my suprise the audio for the whole thing is LPCM.  Whoa, it takes up over 2 whole gig!  If I just extract the audio and convert it to, say, AC3 or MP2, I'd love to find a way to replace the LPCM.  I was thinking of doing this before using, say, DVD Rebuilder.

I'm guessing this is not as easy as it sounds.

Sorry I dropped in to add to the question and not the solution ...

-abs

In your case, it's much easier:
- Demux (e.g. with vobedit)
- Convert LPCM to AC3 (besweet, use the UI)
- Remux with muxman
- Then replace the old with the new, using vobblanker I think.
jeanl

Originally posted by jeanl
In your case, it's much easier:
- Demux (e.g. with vobedit)
- Convert LPCM to AC3 (besweet, use the UI)
- Remux with muxman
- Then replace the old with the new, using vobblanker I think.
jeanl
Thanks, I will give it a try.

Interestingly, I was just checking to see if I had the latest version of VobEdit and came across a guide to do exactly this:

How to replace LPCM by AC3 before shrinking a DVD

-abs

Thanks for the guide absynthe, indeed, you can remux with IFOEdit using the cell times (that's crucial so you keep your chapters and so on)...
In my case, I have the added annoyance that I want to preserve the button infos, but there's no equivalent of the quot;cell timesquot; for button info, so I'm up !@#% creek...
jeanl

Mmm ... don't know if you'll have any advice on this, but I followed the guide I posted, which was fairly simple (I used SoftEncode for the AC3).  After I updated the IFOs with IFOUpdate and then moved my newly remuxed VOBs to the original folder, PgcEdit gives me the error Fatal error!
PgcEdit is trying to read data after the end of a table.
This means that a Length of Table value is probably wrong.

Please try to fix the problem with IfoEdit.

The missing value may be fixed to 0, but
this could lead to strange results.

Do you want to fix the value and continue anyway?
(NOT RECOMMENDED)

I'm not real sure what to do at this point.  I do notice that, due to the huge amount of space saved with AC3 vs LPCM, I have one less VOB file than before.

Also, DVD Shrink won't touch the files.

-abs

I don't use IFOUpdate, but you can surely fix the problem with IFOEdit.
Load up the DVD in ifoedit and do a mock strip on the VTS of the movie: load the IFO, select VOB Extra, untick Remux, untick strip streams, click OK, (make sure you have a back up of both the IFO and the VOB), then do quot;savequot; which will overwrite the IFO.
THen PgcEdit should read the file OK (and DVDSHrink too).
jeanl

Originally posted by jeanl
Load up the DVD in ifoedit and do a mock strip on the VTS of the movie: load the IFO, select VOB Extra, untick Remux, untick strip streams, click OK, (make sure you have a back up of both the IFO and the VOB), then do quot;savequot; which will overwrite the IFO.
THen PgcEdit should read the file OK (and DVDSHrink too).
jeanl
Jeanl, I think this did the trick.  Won't know for sure until Rebuilder finishes and I can burn and test the disc, but I got no hiccups from PgcEdit.

Thanks yet again!

-abs

@jeanl

Is there not a way you can with PgcEdit, export the button info for each of your 6 cells, demux, convert to AC3 and remux and then import the button info with PgcEdit again?

Regards

Originally posted by blutach
@jeanl

Is there not a way you can with PgcEdit, export the button info for each of your 6 cells, demux, convert to AC3 and remux and then import the button info with PgcEdit again?

Regards

Yes, absolutely. This is my last resort, it's not that bad really, I only have 6 menus to do, but you're right. I need to remux everything together with muxman, then put the button info back with pgcedit...
I just wish there was a demuxing-remuxing program that would also export/re-import button info... I wonder if muxman could do that?
jeanl

Quick follow-up question:  How can I change the internal quot;labelingquot; of a stream?  Though PgcEdit, under stream info, does show my newly replaced track to be AC3, when I play the DVD in a standalone player and press the audio key the TV still displays LPCM (even though it's actually an AC3 track).

Nitpicking I guess, but I'd just like it to be accurate.

-abs

I must say I don't know! I would have thought that DVD players identify streams from their stream ID (which is coded into the audio pack headers in the VOB file), and the stream ID tells you the format (there are specific ID ranges for LPCM, AC3, MPEG-1 etc).
Now, there might be other tables in the IFO that I'm not aware of, r0lZ should be able to answer that...
jeanl

- Demuxing with VobEdit will not work fine with subs if there are more than one VID in subs. Timestamps will be reset to zero. I prefer to use pgcDemux
- I also prefer to replace with VobBlanker instead of IFOUpdate. Not sure if IFOUpdate is able to do the job in all cases (multi-pgc VOB).
- Finally, audio attributes are stored twice in IFOs, one in the VTS_XX_0.IFO and a copy in VIDEO_TS.IFO. PgcEdit and VobBlanker modify both copies when modify the attributes, but, IIRC, an IFOEdit's mock strip not.

jsoto

Originally posted by jsoto
- Demuxing with VobEdit will not work fine with subs if there are more than one VID in subs. Timestamps will be reset to zero. I prefer to use pgcDemux  You're right, much better...
- I also prefer to replace with VobBlanker instead of IFOUpdate. Not sure if IFOUpdate is able to do the job in all cases (multi-pgc VOB).

I use IFOEdit, but you're right again, vobblanker is much more user friendly.
- Finally, audio attributes are stored twice in IFOs, one in the VTS_XX_0.IFO and a copy in VIDEO_TS.IFO. PgcEdit and VobBlanker modify both copies when modify the attributes, but, IIRC, an IFOEdit's mock strip not.
jsoto

eh eh eh, jsoto to the rescue!
jeanl

Originally posted by absinthe
Quick follow-up question:  How can I change the internal quot;labelingquot; of a stream?  Though PgcEdit, under stream info, does show my newly replaced track to be AC3, when I play the DVD in a standalone player and press the audio key the TV still displays LPCM (even though it's actually an AC3 track).

Nitpicking I guess, but I'd just like it to be accurate.
With PgcEdit, right-click on any PGC in the domain, and select quot;Domain Streams Attributesquot;.  In the basic streams setup window, click on the LPCM button.  Another window is opened, where you can change the stream's coding mode, and some other advanced parameters (quantization, number of channels, sample rate...)

Originally posted by r0lZ
With PgcEdit, right-click on any PGC in the domain, and select quot;Domain Streams Attributesquot;.  In the basic streams setup window, click on the LPCM button.  Another window is opened, where you can change the stream's coding mode, and some other advanced parameters (quantization, number of channels, sample rate...)
Hey r0lZ,

I do that, but it already says quot;AC3 (2 channels)quot; (I'm assuming this is the button where you're saying there should be quot;LPCM,quot; but that isn't there).

Nonetheless, my DVD player still displays quot;LPCMquot; when I press the audio button.

-abs