[X-Apps] Extracting Audio from DVD

[John McGilvary]

Thanks, that was good info, and helped mucho.
John

On Jan 6, 2004, at 4:45 AM, Said Nuseibeh wrote:

> Hi John.
>
> Someone helped me with the very same issue awhile back. I will copy the
> messages below (Sorry for the wierd order).
>
> Good luck,
> -Said
>
>
> On 1/2/2004 1:25 PM, John McGilvary (jmcgilvary at mac.com) wrote:
>
>> Any specific apps folks like, and anything special I should know about
>> the process?
>
>
> --------------------
>
>
> Upon your lead about DVDExtractor I discovered two more sources of  
> info:
> http://mornmist.2y.net/~blibbler/tutorial/basic/
> and
> http://visionlab.harvard.edu/resources/DV/ripping.htm
>
> Everything went fine except that I now have two 1.3 gb files of audio.
> The stereo channels extracted separately into two files of different
> size: 430mb and 184mb! Using mAC3dec I converted these two AC3 files to
> AIFF though, strangely, they both converted to 1.3 gb. I now have two
> stereo AIFF files with the same data on each channel. I've tried
> combining the selections from each file that I want within SonicWorx  
> but
> the synching is quite difficult. I haven't yet found a way to delete  
> one
> channel and replace just that channel with its counterpart from the  
> other
> file.
>
> Is it normal that the .VOB extracted audio files are split stereo
> channels? Do you have any suggestions for obtaining a single stereo  
> file?
>
> Best Wishes,
> -Said
>
>
>
> On 6/22/2003 6:10 PM, Evan  wrote:
>
>>>
>>>
>>> Oooh. Thanks for this info.
>>>
>>> Can you also advise how to extract tunes from a commercial DVD  
>>> Video? I
>>> have a wonderful "1GiantLeap" DVD with wonderful mixes not on the  
>>> CD. It
>>> would be nice to have some of them more portable.
>>>
>>
>> Not hard - do a quick search for a DVD extractor - DVD extractor is  
>> one at
>> http://www.afterdawn.com/software/alternative_platforms/mac_software/ 
>> dvd_e
>> xtractor.cfm
>> Although if you live in the US, you're not technically supposed to
>> download it, due to some copyright stuff.  Hooray for Australia.  But
>> back to the topic - if somehow you acquire this program, you drop your
>> DVD in and locate the title --> chapter that you want to extract, tell
>> it to demux 'private' (audio) streams, and extract away.  Might take a
>> few tries until you find the track you want, but these things happen.
>>
>> When it extracts a pcm file, it'll just be a raw audio stream, you  
>> need
>> a program that will import them, and they'll be 48 kHz/16 bit/Stereo,
>> you'll have to downsample it to 44.1 kHz to go to CD.  I used  
>> SonicWorx
>> PowerBundle and did all this on a G4 Yikes, but there must be some  
>> free
>> software out there that lets you specify an aribitary sampling rate.   
>> I
>> know that Bias Peak does (which has a downloadable LE version), but I
>> can't remember if it lets you open a raw audio stream.
>>
>> As for decoding an AC3 file, i'm not sure how that's done - all the
>> music DVD's I've ever ripped have had an Linear PCM stream, most do
>> because of the sound quality issue.  Here's a link to a decoder,  
>> though -
>>
>> http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac3dec
>>
>> I'll get out of your way now, I'll see you later
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Evan.
>
>
> -------------
>
> Said Nuseibeh wrote:
>
>> Thanks Evan.
>>
>> Everything went fine except that I now have two 1.3 gb files of audio.
>> The stereo channels extracted separately into two files of different
>> size: 430mb and 184mb! Using mAC3dec I converted these two AC3 files  
>> to
>> AIFF though, strangely, they both converted to 1.3 gb.
>>
> This is probably because AC3 files are compressed using an adaptive
> coding algorithm (very similar to variable bit rate MP3's) - often,
> there's much less audio information in the rear channels, so the files
> end up being smaller.  But when you decompress them to AIFF's, they end
> up the same size because AIFF's encoding is completely linear.
>
>> I now have two
>> stereo AIFF files with the same data on each channel. I've tried
>> combining the selections from each file that I want within SonicWorx  
>> but
>> the synching is quite difficult. I haven't yet found a way to delete  
>> one
>> channel and replace just that channel with its counterpart from the  
>> other
>> file.
>>
>>
> If you can be bothered sitting through a 12 meg download, get Pro Tools
> Free from http://www.digidesign.com
> It lets you edit and shift around up to eight tracks of audio at a  
> time,
> and it treats stereo files as two mono files, so if you import a stereo
> file, the program will split it into two mono files - then you pan one
> all the way left and all the way right.  The big advantage of this, of
> course, is that you can edit the two (or up to eight) channels
> completely independently of each other.  Then when you're done, you can
> 'bounce' it all down to a normal stereo track, ready for CD burning.
>
> You can download the manual for PT Free from the Digidesign website,
> it's a fairly full-on read.  If you need to know anything and can't be
> bothered filching through a 500 page PDF file for it, just drop me a
> line...I've been using the full 64 track version for about five years
> now, you get to know these things work....=]
>
>> Is it normal that the .VOB extracted audio files are split stereo
>> channels? Do you have any suggestions for obtaining a single stereo  
>> file?
>>
>>
> The only time I've ever had to do this, I've used DVD's that had Linear
> PCM audio tracks, so it was ready to go after a quick
> sample rate conversion.  But the above should help.
>
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