Program to edit DVD audio?

[katzdvd]

Ok, I know this has been covered ad nauseum on here, but I have never attempted to do it, so the information has passed me by...

What do I need to edit the audio track on dvd files? I have ISO's at the moment, but I am considering converting everything to Divx to save space...

Thanks for any info - suggestions!

[UncasMS]

when you convert to avi what excactly is NOT possible with whatever software you will use for the conversion?

you should be able to set compression rates for examples inside the tool used for the conversion - what else do you want to "edit"?

[katzdvd]

Sorry, I wasn't referring to the compression rate.

I should have been clearer with my question. I want to edit "off color" language from my movies. An occasional word here or there that would be unsuitable for young children's ears...

[UncasMS]

i think you better load the entire video (video + audio) into an video editor (womble, corel, pinnacle) to "dub" those parts.

of course audio editors like "audacity" or the like will let you edit the parts as well but you will always have to look very carefully and the whole running time of both streams (audio + video) so you dont end up with an asynchronous result

[r0lZ]

Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD has the possibility to edit the volume of the audio track by drawing a curve in the timeline bar. But it is not very precise, it can process DVDs with only one audio stream, you will lose the original menus and bonuses (except if you import the modified title in the original DVD), it is not free, its GUI is extremely bad, and I'm not sure its AC3 encoder is good! But you may want to have a try anyway...

[paglamon]

you will lose the original menus and bonuses

and I'm not sure its AC3 encoder is good

He wants to convert to DivX(most probably .avi and not .divx). So, he loses menus anyway. And I think he will be happy with an avi with mp3 audio. But yes, the GUI of WVWDVD is not one of the better ones.
VideoReDo is another option.
The freeware option will be to feed the file into Virtualdub(with mpeg2 plugin and AC3ACM decompressor installed).Then save the audio as wav. Feed the audio into Audacity.Mute the offending parts(DO NOT CUT THE PARTS).Save the new audio and use that audio in Virtualdub while encoding the file to DivX/XviD + mp3.

[katzdvd]

All good info., I will consider my options here. I guess I don't really care about losing the menu functionality, so I may do as suggested here.

He wants to convert to DivX(most probably .avi and not .divx). So, he loses menus anyway. And I think he will be happy with an avi with mp3 audio. But yes, the GUI of WVWDVD is not one of the better ones.
VideoReDo is another option.
The freeware option will be to feed the file into Virtualdub(with mpeg2 plugin and AC3ACM decompressor installed).Then save the audio as wav. Feed the audio into Audacity.Mute the offending parts(DO NOT CUT THE PARTS).Save the new audio and use that audio in Virtualdub while encoding the file to DivX/XviD + mp3.

A question; On a pc that is a couple of years old, how long is the processing time for doing something like this? I know this is a very broad ranging question, but can you give me a ballpark idea?

[paglamon]

The problem will not be the PC specs.Most of the time will be spent in editing out the offending words because you will have to manually locate the parts in the audio which have these words. There is a way to help in finding the words if there is a subtitle file with the DVD. If there is a sub, rip it using Subrip and save as a .srt file. Now you can open this file in a text editor and "search" for the offending words.This way you will be able to locate the specific timecode at which the words appear and thus will be able to go to that part in the audio easily.

[r0lZ]

I agree with paglamon. The important thing to consider is the time YOU spend.

The encoding time depends greatly of the encoder, and of the quality options. To have a reasonable quality, it is better to encode in 3 or 4 passes. In the good old days before I switched to DVD-only rips, my computer was working between 8 hours and a full day to encode a movie to XviD. Now, with my Q8200 Quad CPU at 2.33 GHz, it should take less than a couple of hours. I suppose also that the encoders have been optimized.

Anyway, it's still a long process, and given the price of the DVD+Rs, I strongly suggest to keep the original DVD format. You can demux the original DVD, modify the audio and re-encode it, and remux the main movie with muxman. That's much more rapid, you will keep the original video quality and chapter points, and you should not have any audio/video sync issues.

[paglamon]

You can demux the original DVD, modify the audio and re-encode it, and remux the main movie with muxman. That's much more rapid, you will keep the original video quality and chapter points, and you should not have any audio/video sync issues.

Absolutely the way to go.....