Making a commentary track for a dvd?

February 7, 2008 8:45 PM

I have a commercial DVD (the content of which I own the rights to) and I have an mp3 (which I also own the rights to). Two questions: How can I make another "video" using the visuals from the dvd and the audio from the mp3? Then, how can I turn this final file into an .avi? Further, what if I want to run the DVD's audio track at a diminished volume beneath the audio of the mp3, therefore using the mp3 like a commentary track? I'm on a Mac.
posted by dobbs to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Well, really you need FCP and DVDSP.

In a perfect world, we'd have the raw video in FCP. In an imperfect world, you'll use MPEG Streamclip to rip the DVD back as a DV file.

In FCP you'll have the stereo track (original) and your commentary (MP3...again, it'd be best if it was an AIFF file, but still, MP3 will be good enough.)

I'd probably then dupe tracks 1+2 to 3+4.

Then add the MP3 tracks in FCP to audio tracks 5+6. Lower the volume of the original tracks (which are on 3+4).

The rest is really easy at this point.

Export to compressor the video, with tracks 3-6 muted (leaving only the original audio.)
Use whichever MPEG-2 + Dolby Audio setting you want.

Then export to compressor only tracks 3-6 (with 1+2 muted) . Run this through the same Dolby audio link (but ignore the video)

Send out your compressor batch.

In DVDSP, create a track with your original movie (and it should autolink the audio). On the second track put your commentary.

Create two buttons on the DVD menu - one which (on the advanced tab) plays the original audio.
A second button which will play the second audio track.

Now your viewer can either hit whichever track they want to listen to, or they can press their audio button and switch between tracks.
posted by filmgeek at 10:20 PM on February 7, 2008

Technically, there might be a better way to handle this by decompiling the DVD, via something like this DVD Demuxer.

I've never used it...it should give you higher quality (after you match the audio type) but it's way hairier to deal with (think of the analogy of command line vs. GUI)
posted by filmgeek at 10:23 PM on February 7, 2008

Well, really you need FCP and DVDSP.

Well, you need something like FCP & DVDSP. Personally, I find both extremely annoying, which is why I do all this with other cheaper/free tools on a PC rather than on my Macs.

(The following is a general outline of what you want to do, not a howto on particular tools.)

But the basic idea is correct - something to extract the video & audio tracks from the DVD structure (.vob files) to plain MPEG2 video + audio tracks, an editor to chop/change/align the video with your new audio, and something (usually the same editor) to save them in an .avi with whatever codec you choose (point: AVI is a file structure, not a compression type - you can put MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX, XviD, whatever-format-you-want inside an .avi).

Neither DVD nor AVI directly support mixing multiple audio tracks together on playback* (a given player may do it by chance, but there's no flag or switch to guarantee it). To mix your MP3 audio with the original, you'll need to load them into an audio editor (stand alone, or in your video editor) and do a mixdown to your final stereo audio tracks.

Come to think of it, you can do it with short movies (< ~60 mins) in iMovie. Don't ask me how though; I don't use it because of certain filesize / playtime limitations.

(* Offhand, I think the Matroska .mkv container can control mixing of multiple audio tracks on playback, but I don't know of a .mkv splitter that supports it.)
posted by Pinback at 11:54 PM on February 7, 2008

If you're comfortable with command line tools, mencoder and sox can do all of what you're talking about and more.
posted by flabdablet at 3:50 AM on February 8, 2008

Can I ask why you want this to be an AVI? If you don't want a DVD, but instead are just interested in local playback...

Use MPEG Streamclip to rip back to video + audio formats that can be editing.
Use (the old) iMovie to add + mix the tracks.
And then you'd convert to AVI.
posted by filmgeek at 6:44 AM on February 8, 2008

There's plenty of video editing tools out there that will do this easily. I'm a big fan of Adobe Premiere (even though it's a tad buggy at times). You can also use a classic like VirtualDub. Here are the steps usually involved:

- First thing you need to do is decode/decrypt the DVD into a usable format. (DeCSS is where it all started)

- Once you have your DVD files saved to your hard drive in decrypted format, you can use any video editing tool to splice video and add a mp3 soundtrack. It would be best to work with the decrypted VOBs directly...as you will then avoid re-encoding the same video. (but if disk space is a concern there are DVD decoders that dump directly to avi's that can then be extracted from)
posted by samsara at 10:33 AM on February 8, 2008

(missed the part about being on a Mac...so the software will be different but the steps basically the same)
posted by samsara at 10:35 AM on February 8, 2008

Thanks all. The whole thing seems way too complicated. :(
posted by dobbs at 12:45 PM on February 8, 2008

REALLY Quick’n’dirty method: Playback your DVD and your mp3 simultaneously on your Mac, adjust start times and volumes, then capture the result using video screen-capture software. Convert the result to .avi. You won’t have much control, but it’ll be simple.
posted by dpcoffin at 10:07 AM on February 9, 2008