AVIs with more than 2 audio streams.

[MarcAlbero]

Hello everybody.

I'm trying to backup a DVD provided with 3 audio streams, spanish, german and english. My problem is that, when I put all three tracks into the AVI (e.g. using AVIMUX), the resulting file doen't work fine. If I change the stream during playback (with MicroDVD), there is audio/video desynchronization. If I move to another point of the movie, the desynchronization appears again! It works only if I start the film in one stream and don't touch anything!!

Note that the files I use as streams are already compressed mp3 files. Could AVIMUX work if I multiplex uncompressed WAVs? It would take a huge amount of space in HD, anyway...

I have tried with Nandub. It works fine, but only with 2 tracks. And I don't want to leave the third one out!!

I have also tried to put a WAV header to the mp3 file (using wavemp3( and do the multiplex with graphedit, using the directshow filter AVI/WAF File Source to input the video and audio streams to the AVI Mux filter. I got the same desynchronizations with MicroDVD, and also using graph files and having the Windows Media Player read them to play the different streams.
Curiously, the Graphedit method worked perfect again when I only used 2 streams. No desynchronizations at all. Just perfect.

NOTE: in the AVIMux filter, there are some switches you can play around with. They all seem to have a lot to do with audio synchronization, but everything is useless. When you put three streams, it just doesn't work.

I can't seem to get it right!! I would give up and let the second and third streams out of the AVI, having MicroDVD use them to substitute the main audio stream. but it also leads to desynchronizations (and strange, loud noises).

Can somebody tell me, whether there is a limit to the number of audio streams an AVI file can carry? Did anybody got more than 2 streams in an AVI without desynchronizations?

Please, somebody help me. I have spent a lot of time with this issue, and I'm feeling terribly frustrated.

[hannibal]

hello
i dont now much about multiple audiostreams, but i beleve,that the problem is microDVD only. 2 streams working perfekt, but 3 streams making prohblems.... and the problem appears only after the scrolling into the movie... i am sure thats microDVD. mayby micro DVD is decompressing all audiostreams at the same time wether if you have 2 or 3 streams and you only hear one stream. it could be that 3 audiostreams together with the divX stream are to hard for the computer... to hard so that microDVD doesent find the correct start-point after scrolling
thats what i beleve
sorry for my bad english
bye, hanni

[benderman]

For 3 audio-streams I first make 3 files with video+audio, one for every audio-stream and than save the 2nd and 3rd audiostream as wav (with VirtualDUB). Than i multiplex with graphedit or simply copy all wav-files to on directory.
On my 400MHz-Celeron it workes fine even if I store audio and video in seperat files.

[MarcAlbero]

Hi Benderman,
this one's for you (but I thank you too, Hannibal!!)


So, if I should use WAVs, there is still one doubt in my head: I strip the streams from the DVD in WAV. I sync them with VirtualDub, and I store each film. On storing, must I compress the audio stream, or just store the films with the audio in WAV format? After that, when extracting the synched audio streams, in which format should I store them? WAV or mp3? I guess mp3, since the next step is multiplexing, being AVIMUX the only program that multiplexes 3 streams, and avimux does no compressing taskes, so the adio must be compressed before.

I guess the best is, that you explain me the process more accurately, step by step. Will you? Thanx Benderman!

The problem with your solution is the amount of space required. My HD is unluckily far too small for that. For this reason, can't I work all the way down with compressed files? I mean:

1- I strip the audio streams from the DVD, compressing them simultaneously to MP3. I use Graphedit with the LAME directshow filter for this purpose. This saves a lot of space!

2- I use Nandub to sync one of the MP3s and the divx video stream. I save the resulting film. Then, I extract the audio from that film and store it in MP3 (with Direct stream copy int the Audio menu). I remove the file. This operation is repeated 2 more times with the resting streams. I end up with the divx video stream and 3 mp3 compressed audio streams.

3- I do the multiplex. ONE QUESTION: WITH WHICH PROGRAM SHOULD I DO THE TRIPLE MULTIPLEX?? AVIMUX?? NanDub just accepts 2 tracks!!

Benderman: if you agree that MP3 can be used in the whole process, that's a good new, but the bad new is that I'm quite sure that I've tried exactly that way before (I read it in Nicky Page's guide for multilanguage DIVX), and it didn't work.

Maybe the difference is exactly that, that you use extrictly WAVs, which can carry synch information better thatn mp3.

But I don't have enough space in my HD for that...

C u!

[benderman]

Sorry for the mistake. By talking about wav I meant mp3-wav.
Here comes the procedure for 3 audio streams...

1) What you need: 1 divx-avi, 3 audio-streams (raw pcm or mp3)
2) Use VirtualDUB to sync every (mp3-)wav-file with the video. If the audio wasn't already compressed with mp3, do it now. Now you got 3 divX-videos each with one audio-stream compressed with mp3.
3) Open 2nd and 3rd video in VirtualDUB and save audio as wave (still mp3-compressed with wav-header). Delete video 2 and 3. Now you have got 1 DivX-video with the first audio-stream and 2 wav files with the 2nd and 3rd audio-stream.
4) If you want to multiplex the audio so you get one big avi-file with all streams you need to use graphedit. It should also work with 3 streams. I don't do that, because the resulting file will be bigger than the three input-files and at least it is not really nessecary. I always put the divx-avi and the audio-streams in different files on one cd and use one of these methods:
a) MicroDVD: can handle as many wavs as you like. Can automaticly copy the wavs to the hdd for slow cd-roms.
b) use Graphedit to make two graph-files (size is only a few kb). Each graph-file points at the videostream and one of the wav-files. If you save the graph-file to *.avi you can directly open it in WMP (maybe not in all version)