I. What You Will Need
DVD Audio Extractor
This program can be downloaded from the internet–its purpose is to get the audio off of a DVD into a format that can be easily listened to and edited. There might be a free trial version of it–otherwise you’ll have to buy it to get the full program. However, if you’re good with computers you might be able to find a way around its locks. If not, send me a message. I’ve talked to other members about some of the other programs that have a similar purpose. If you know of any of these, post their names under this thread.
Audacity
This program is entirely free, and the tools from it that are needed are not too difficult to use. However, you may have to download the expansion pack of plug-ins to get all the available tools. This will be the program that you do your editing in, and will also be used to export your completed files
The DVD of the movie you want to work with
Believe it or not, some people try to make complete scores for movies without even having the DVD to get original sources from. If you don’t have the DVD, you should probably try to find it first.
The original official release of the soundtrack
The majority of movies released do have a soundtrack that could have been bought around the time of the movie’s release. If you missed that, then you can do a search on Google to find a place to buy or download that soundtrack. Having the OST will immensely help you in creating a good expanded or complete score–unless, of course, the OST is full of music that was unused in the movie.
Any and all other releases of music available for that movie
Search for any expanded releases of the score that may have surfaced on the internet. These might include expanded/extended scores, promotional releases, or recording sessions. Try to avoid using someone else’s personal work on a score, as you will likely decrease the quality of your own score.
Also look for unreleased music posted on the composers websites (some examples are Geoff Zanelli’s website and Magic Box Music), as well as any iTunes bonus tracks.
Lots of patience and listening skills that will produce the most accurate sounding tracks.
II. How to use DVD Audio Extractor
Once you have downloaded and installed DVD Audio Extractor and have your DVD available, then you must get all the raw audio off of it.
On the first window, you’ll see a place to select your source at the top. It should already have you DVD selected. In the top left box, you’ll see a list of ‘Titles’. These are the different sections of the DVD. Typically the first one is the main movie and the rest are special features or trailers. When any Title is clicked on the big box on the right will fill up with all the Chapters that are a part of that Title. By default, all of the Chapters of the first Title are always already selected. The bottom left details what language you will be ripping the audio in. I do not have a full understanding of DTS versus AC3. Once you have selected all of the Chapters you want extracted, click next.
The next window details how the audio will be encoded. Using the .wav format will give you the highest quality. To avoid causing clicks between tracks due to different sample rates, you should extract the audio in a sample rate matching that of your original soundtrack. The only way I can see what the sample rate is through iTunes. For Channels, you want to have ‘All 6 Channels’ selected. If this isn’t an option, then you are mostly out of luck. Make sure the checkbox at the bottom is marked–otherwise you’ll only end up with one stereo track of audio rather than 6 mono tracks.
The third window asks for the destination of the extracted files, and also has some other options. The only other one I deal with is the checkbox for ‘Save each Chapter into a separate file’. Normally I keep it unchecked so I can view each Chapter of the DVD in its original length. However, sometimes a song crosses from one Chapter into another, and in some cases when I line these up in Audacity…they don’t play seamlessly together. In this case it would be better to pair the two Chapters together by checking that box. You can only find this problem through trial and error.
The last window is where you finally begin the encoding process. Depending on how many Chapters you are extracting and/or how long each Chapter is, this could take several minutes. The output files will consist of six individual mono tracks. These tracks are as follows:
Channel 1 will be the front left channel. Channel 2 is the front right. Channel 3 is the center channel (this is where most dialogue occurs). Channel 4 is the bass for the sub-woofer (or whatever). Channel 5 is the back left channel. Channel 6 is the back right channel. These two generally have less SFX in them but also the music quality may be decreased (the thing I found with pirates is that it sounds hollow and echo-y, and the back channels are missing percussion instruments).
III. Using Audacity to Edit the Music
So you’ve finally gotten your audio extracted from the DVD. What’s next? The usually long and meticulous process of editing and mixing will now entail. But first, there’s another step that could take a longer amount of time. If you really want to edit your tracks and understand the ways in which each and every cue works, you should take time to import each Chapter into Audacity (usually the two front channels are sufficient, but the center channel is useful in coming up with track titles based on dialogue from the movie). Take the time to listen to all the audio, and document all the cues you hear, divided by Chapter. It helps to provide yourself with a brief description of each cue, unless you already know the music fairly well.
This would also be a great time to try to name all the cues. This will help when you actually save your Audacity projects for editing–it will help in avoiding confusion. In some cases, I group several cues together into one track. Another benefit in doing this kind of analysis is to locate any pieces that from the original soundtrack or other releases, or cues that sound similar to the OST.This will help in using a strategy that I call substitution.
Once you have all cues documented, it is time to begin the editing process. However, sometimes in my first analysis of a score, I separate cues differently from how I view them later on in the editing process. Only skip around to your favorite track that may occur later in the movie if you are certain your track list is. In one of my current projects, I documented 76 cues. It painful later on when I found it easier to group cues 15 and 16 together into one track, meaning then the score would only have 75 tracks. All track names and numbers after 16 had to be adjusted…and then it happened again with track 23. Of course, there might be batch-processing programs that could take away this issue.
The goal in using DVD audio to produce a complete score is to have the audio as closely as possible line up with the existing releases of material as well to maximize quality and minimize sound effects. However, there are many obstacles that the DVD audio may have; below is a list of obstacles I’ve encountered and what I do overcome them.
First off, the plug-ins I use most in Audacity are Amplify, Normalize, Fade In, Fade Out, and Declipper. A tool you must learn how to use is the Envelope Tool, which is just right of the Selection tool near the top left of the programs window. Other vital features to learn are basically everything under the Edit menu, and the ‘Align Tracks…’ sub-menu under Project.
Use Amplify to amplify the DVD’s audio if it too quiet. This plug-in can also be used to ‘un-amplify’ stuff that is too loud. Use Normalize if the DVD audio or OST material is overamplified. Normally, I use Fade In and Out for the tracks that begin or end with DVD audio–this so that even before the music starts or after it ends, any SFX will be slowly faded in or out. Declipper will clip any audio that has gone above the maximum amplitude range, when the track is ‘Quick Mixed’, so it will look nice. Most importantly is the Envelope Tool which will help in reducing SFX.
When you come across DVD audio that either matches or sounds similar enough to something on a release containing no SFX, you should substitute that material in. In some cases the SFX-free material must be clipped or otherwise remixed to line up. Just be patient and look for similar wave patterns by zooming in both vertically and horizontally. This is the step that a lot of people miss. Oftentimes, people will not try to substitute in existing music for the DVD audio, leaving a score that could potentially have had much less SFX.
The music from the DVD audio is way too quiet: Amplify it as much as possible. If this still isn’t enough to fit in with the rest of the soundtrack, you may have to un-amplify some of the existing material. If neither of these work, the problem might be due to a really loud sound effect in the DVD audio. This sound effect can either be clipped out of the audio or removed through other means (see later notes). NOTE: this may lead to an overall quieter score. Having and equal amplitude across the entire score is vital to making it enjoyable to listen to.
There are voice echoes in one or more of the channels: This one can sometimes be a game-ender. If the voice echoes are only in the front two channels, you can always check the back two channels. As I mentioned earlier, these may be decreased in quality and fullness, but typically they have less SFX. However, some DVD audio–like Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes–have voices echoes that extend clear to the back channels. If you run into this, you can include this music but it leads to a distracting listening experience. Alternatively, you can leave it out, in which case your score can only be considered expanded, not complete.
Now suppose there is a really loud or invasive sound effect in the left front channel. You can split the channels and highlight that area of the right front channel and duplicate it. Change this new one-channel track to left, and use the envelope tool to fade out the SFX in the left channel, and replace them with the new mono track. This may cause the stereo quality of the music to go down, but if you have the back channels of the audio supporting it, some amount of stereo should remain. This method works vice versa, as well.
What if there are really loud SFX in both front channels? You can use the envelope tool to fade them both out so only the back channels remain. NOTE: normally the back channels are in general quieter than the front channels, so some extra amplification is necessary. Sometimes SFX may be louder in the back channels than they are in the front. In this case, simply fade out the back channels. Other times loud SFX may reach all the channels you are working on. In this case the problem area can be clipped out by duplicating the tracks after the SFX and moving them up to before the SFX occur and using fading to mix the two sections together. If the SFX occur during an important theme, then simply removing the problem area will mess up that theme. In this case, the entirety of the theme may need to be clipped out.
On rare occasions, you may come across DVD audio that sounds like something on the OST except that it has extra instruments. In this case, you may be able to overlap the two–using only either the front or back channels, depending on if the difference occurs in the back channels–in order to reduce some SFX. An example of this is the track "06-Orders for Davy Jones" on my At World’s score. The overlap begins at 3:34; see track 34 for the original arrangement of that cue.
Well, for now, this is about all I can think of. Like I said, a lot of this will probably be updated or rearranged. If you have any questions, I’ll probably answer them first in this thread and then try to clarify that section of my guide later.
Thanks for the tutorial, Dimensioner! 😉
Apart from DVD Audio Extractor, there’s other methods which are complex.
You can use freeware tools like PGCDemux (use this to demux the AC3 file from the dvd you want, you can select by "chapters" or some such), BeLight/BeSweet Gui (combo, BeLight is CLI (Command Line I-thing), use this to split the the AC3 into 6 separate Mono WAV files), and and then an audio editor of your choice.
When saving the final edit, remember that AC3 is a lossy source, so saving it after editing will degrade some quality, no matter what you do.
If the AC3 is 5.1 with a bitrate of 448kbps, divide that by 6 (per channel), and you’ll get your relative bitrate.
448/6=74.666666666666666666666666666667 per channel.
So removing the center channel and the LFE channel (bass with ultra low frequency for subwoofers), you’ll get 74.6×4
=298.6(repeater). Divide that by 2 for a downmix to a stereo file, you’ll get 298.6/2=149.3(repeater) per channel.
So, saving at about 224/320 is fine, although 320 would be overkill. You could try VBR settings that range within 224-320.
Saving in FLAC would prevent any quality loss. But you should also mention that it’s fake-lossless as well (as most programs split the channels into WAV and not any other format).
!!OR!! that may not work at all!! It might just count the original bitrate of each split chanel: 74.6kbps per channel. The bitrate values may not be incremental. Multiply 74.6 by 2 (for stereo), and you get 149.3.
AC3 bitrate is relatively close to MP3 bitrate.
If you have a bluray rip, you can work with DTS.
Depending on its original format, there may be 2 DTS files to work with: DTSHD-MA or DTS Core.
If you have the original Bluray and can rip the movie, you may or may not have a choice of DTSHD-MA (Superior quality, 24bit, lots of bitrate, 30mbps+?), or the DTS Core that’s a downsized and more compatible version of DTSHD-MA.
DTS Core (in most bluray mkv rips out there) have a constant bitrate of 1.5mbps and is 16bits. Most people won’t know the difference. But the results will be better if you use the DTS Core (or DTSHD-MA). As apposed to AC3, and there’s no loss of quality. (Although programs like MediaInfo will label it as lossy. I guess that’s compared to the studio’s master tapes).
But working with DTS requires more software.
Note that the DTS on DVD’s are not the same as any of the DTS found on bluray. DTS from a DVD is CBR@768kbps/16bit (half the bitrate of DTS Core).
I believe Zoran would have more information on AC3 downmixing from 5.1 to 2.0 bitrates.
You will have quite a struggle ahead of you there. I am working on it myself, and it is a pain. The change in track numbers I was referring to in my guide came off of RotF. It is a challenge and will take up large amounts of space (on your computer) and time and will still come out sounding awful.
If someone needs a tutorial f�r ripping up to 7.1 stuff from Blurays, drop me a line, I might write a tut on this.
If someone needs a tutorial f�r ripping up to 7.1 stuff from Blurays, drop me a line, I might write a tut on this.
yeah, this would be great!!!! 🙂
I do believe I’ve put in some amount of philosophical study into my works. As I said in the guide, if you really want to do a good job you must push yourself to understand all of a score’s themes and how they interact. As for Blu-rays, I thought that many computers could play Blu-rays, let alone that there were any programs that acted as audio extractors. I asked a question about it over half a year ago: Thread 76931, but as you can see, I received very little help. It seems like having 7.1 surround sound would only complicate things further, as the SFX would be more spread out.
And with ASCAP, what is that exactly, and how does it work?
FunnyML, I would be very interested in listening to a set of 8 channels extracted from a Blu-ray. Send me a message and I can talk there.
This is true, especially on new mixes from older movies. But sometimes, they release isolated scores on Bluray and as long as those are available I strongly recommend to use this instead of the DVD counterparts.
And with ASCAP, what is that exactly, and how does it work?
ASCAP is the American Society for composers, sometimes,, they include recording session infos, like cue titles on their site. Like Alex Heffes’ State of Play cues or Jacob Groth’s score for Men Who Hate Women (first Millennium trilogy movie). The titles on the OST are often re-named and differ from the original names.
———- Post added at 06:53 PM ———- Previous post was at 06:50 PM ———-
The following tutorial guides you through the basic process of ripping Bluray audio tracks (up to 7.1).
1) Software needed:
-eac3to (general ripping utility)
-HD-DVD/Blu-ray Stream Extractor (HdBrStreamExtractor.exe) (GUI for eac3to to make things easier)
-ArcSoft’s DTS Decoder (for ripping all channels out of a 7.1 file, without this only the 5.1 core would be getting extracted)
-AnyDVD HD (for removing the BD protection)
2) Download locations:
The following link contains eac3to, HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Stream Extractor and ArcSoft’s DTS Decoder. I didn’t include a working version of AnyDVD HD, so please have a look for it around the web yourself.
LINK REMOVED. Please PM me.
3) Installation:
-download the archive given under 2)
-extract it to a place you like [e.g. C:\]
-open a command prompt (cmd.exe) as administrator
-register ASAudioHD.ax wih the following code:
regsvr32 "C:\eac3to\ASAudioHD.ax"
If you extracted it to a different location, then you have to change the path to the correct location of the file on your system!
4) Using the tools:
4.1 Start
-create a folder on your HDD, where the files should be extracted to
-make sure AnyDVD HD is running
-insert a Blu-ray disc into your drive
4.2 Retrieve Features
-start HdBrStreamExtractor.exe in your eac3to folder, it should look like this:
-click on the marked as #1 button and select the BDMV folder of your Blu-ray
-click on the marked as #2 button and select the output folder you created
-click on "Feature(s)" (marked as #3) to analyze the Blu-ray for existing movies
Note: "Feature Retrieval Completed" will be displayed, as soon as this process is finished.
4.3 Retrieve Streams
Now have a look at the list:
I used the Blu-ray of JUNO for this tutorial. There are three playlists. Notice the durations – 1:36:05, 22:34 and 20:24. The first one is the main movie, the rest are deleted scenes and a featurette, probably.
Hover your mouse over the playlist you like to get more infos to, a small window should appear:
You can find the following information in this window:
-number of chapters the movie is divided into
-video codec, resolution and frames per second, aspect ratio
-audio codec, language, format, frequency
-select the playlist you like to get the audio ripped from, the program will retrieve the streams
Note: "Stream Retrieval Completed" will be displayed, as soon as this process is finished.
Attention: Make sure AnyDVD HD is activated properly, otherwise the chapter list in step 4.4 will stay empty (on a protected Bluray)!
4.4 Extract Streams
Now have a look at the list:
You can find a chapter list, the video track, all audio tracks as well as all subtitle streams there are for the selected movie.
Mark the checkbox of the audio file you’d like to get extracted. Under "Extract As", choose the desired output format for the audio. I recommend using the option "WAVS", as it exports each channel to a separate uncompressed Wave-file. Of course, you can also try the other options if you like.
Hit "Extract" (button #4) to start the extraction process. This process may take a very long time, so please be patient.
Note: "Stream Extraction Completed" will be displayed, as soon as this process is finished.
I’m thinking about working on a "complete" score of a serie that has not DVD published yet and wanted to try ripping from the mkv files that I got.
I started with DVD Audio extractor but doesn’t recognize (or didn’t know how to input this files) mkv files. So I’m trying with MKVExtract GUI 1.6.3. Any other recommendation?
First, the DVD of the film you want to get the score from must be in 5.1 Sound.
I was only able to do this when I had Windows XP or Windows Vista.
Install ‘AC3 filter’, a free program meant to enhance sound. Then, install ‘Media Player Classic.’ Open AC3 filter, and I forget the specific menu name (I’ll find it later) and you check the ‘auto matrix’ box.
Now, play your film in Media player classic. The filter will completely rid the film of voices, and leave the music and sound effects at a great listening volume.
Of course, you will need your own program that will record the sound out of your computer speakers.
Once I installed Windows 7, AC3filter didn’t work, so I could no longer do this.
I’m thinking about working on a "complete" score of a serie that has not DVD published yet and wanted to try ripping from the mkv files that I got.
I started with DVD Audio extractor but doesn’t recognize (or didn’t know how to input this files) mkv files. So I’m trying with MKVExtract GUI 1.6.3. Any other recommendation?
Are MKV files related to Blu-Ray?–You should ask FunnML about that one if they are. As I said, it is vital that you have a hard copy of the DVD or some kind of video file of the movie that is encrypted in 5.1 surround sound (I do not know of any besides a complete rip of the image on the disc [and even there, I’m going out on a limb with the terminology]). However, your inquiry has reminded me of another program that may be needed to extract audio from some DVDs’ chapters. For now, if anyone wants to investigate, search for DVDFab. I may add it to the guide later on.
Now, play your film in Media player classic. The filter will completely rid the film of voices, and leave the music and sound effects at a great listening volume.
I find this hard to believe. More likely, you just happened to be working with DVDs that didn’t have voices in any other channels but the center channel. I suspect it is just a different way to remove the center channel, but it sounds like you only get a two-channel output, compromising the front and rear channels.
No. MKV is a Matroska container format for videos. It is able to include lots of different codecs, some of them are also used for Blurays.
I find this hard to believe. More likely, you just happened to be working with DVDs that didn’t have voices in any other channels but the center channel. I suspect it is just a different way to remove the center channel, but it sounds like you only get a two-channel output, compromising the front and rear channels.
That’s also my guess. Programs can’t perform magic or delete specific sounds of a stream, only suppress specific frequency ranges.
Are you sure? From what I read I suspect the following order …
1 front left
2 front right
3 center
4 lfe
5 rear left
6 rear right
I really hope that this didn’t mix anyone up, and I sincerely apologize if this did cause problems. However, it should be a fairly quick fix: just switch all the left channels in an Audacity project to right channels and vice versa.
Yes, in this case, I think the source of the MKV is a TV series in HD, because no DVD or Blue Ray has been published yet. So Matroska ain’t only for BR.
I keep having the same problem, since I only get ONE output from the MKV! Isn’t even stereo! I’m sure I’m doing something wrong. When I got more time I’ll try again and ask for help xD
A good method I use is DVD Shrink>VOBEdit>Hypercube Transcoder, but it’s flawed because DVD Shrink hasn’t been updated for newer copy protection.
———- Post added at 02:09 AM ———- Previous post was at 02:06 AM ———-
I find this hard to believe. More likely, you just happened to be working with DVDs that didn’t have voices in any other channels but the center channel. I suspect it is just a different way to remove the center channel, but it sounds like you only get a two-channel output, compromising the front and rear channels.
I think you’re probably right, but may be worth checking out. Anything that makes this whole process a little less tedious is fine by me. I’ll give it a shot and let you know how it works out.
I use Audacity’s "Gverb". Very easy. I will post a tutorial later.
If someone needs a tutorial f�r ripping up to 7.1 stuff from Blurays, drop me a line, I might write a tut on this.
OK, when you say "contact the composer"… in your experience, how often does that work? Are they actually receptive to requests from fans and provide for such requests? And i’m guessing if they do, it must come with an understanding that no open sharing of that material is allowed… I would really apreciate it if you could tell me how all that works. Tanhks in advance. 🙂
From my experience, every composer, that not only publishes his agency as a contact on the site, writes you back. Some are reluctant to send music, some send you MP3 samples, some physical lossless discs. Just try for yourself and you will see, you got nothing to lose. I wish more people would actually contact the composer, they sometimes inform their agencys about the requests and if the demands are high, a score release is quite probable.
And off-topic: this discussion is off-topic. I’d recommend moving it elsewhere, but since my threads hardly ever get any traffic, this is alright. 😉
Thanks…
I can’t find where I talked about that stuff before, but it sounds like you may have to install DVDFab, a program that works to remove protections on the DVD. There is another member here whom I think could help out with that program.
Tell me which would produce higher quality: recording music off of a website using Audacity or downloading the music in the format and bitrate it was originally uploaded in? You’d think the first choice would be better, but then is it really possible to make something a higher quality than its original form?
RE: Jasonjhn8’s issue with multichannel output, I use an extraction/conversion tool called "eac3to" which allows output into either multiple single-channel mono (L)PCM WAV files or into one big multi-channel WAV file. It’s a pretty neat tool and allows all manner of conversions and options like bitrates, channel-mapping, and downmixing, though the learning curve was kind of steep.
I’ve been using eac3to for several years now and can get (presumably) lossless audio straight off my Blu-Rays once the copy-protection is defeated. Lately I’ve been working on music from the Space Battleship Yamato live-action movie and Stargate Universe. I also plan to look at Miyazaki’s Laputa now that I know the original music for the movie is available in a 5.1 mix.
Yamato has the issue of a very active surround mix; SFX and voice echoes are all over the soundstage in virtually every scene. I hope the music for Laputa is more easily isolated given the age of the original mix and elements (unless the sound engineers got really ambitious).
The biggest problem I’m currently having is how to solve the "ducking" issue. This has been a serious impediment for fixing tracks from Stargate Universe. Whenever voices or SFX are emphasized the music track is ducked behind them, like when radio DJ’s talk over what’s currently on the air.
The attenuation on the SGU audio tracks isn’t at a constant level and the music’s dynamic range seems to be crushed too. I have had no luck either measuring the attenuation rates or fixing the issue by ear. I’ve looked for any method to which might magically fix the ducking like normalization and compression, but these all mess with the rest of the music which didn’t need fixing.
I’m trying to restore as much as possible of the music’s original sound, and I’m at the limits of what I can figure out on my own.
Envelope Tool.
I come from a programming background so I like lots of control and data points. For instance I can tell you that in total the 40 SGU episodes contain 15 hours, 31 minutes, and 31 seconds of music, plus the start and end of each queue to within a second or two. (Somebody please take the spreadsheet program away from me!) Sound Forge has an envelope tool and I can make it be as precise as I want, but the interface is extremely clunky.
Unfortunately I have no background in sound and acoustics; I’m a good tinkerer and have learned enough to get by, but that’s no substitute for a real understanding of the principles involved.
Do you know any other software for audio extraction?
I’m not that familiar with DVD Audio Extractor, but if it’s extracting and converting at the same time there might be an opportunity for sample rates to get out of whack. It might be fixable by adjusting the settings or it might be a problem with the product. I use "eac3to" for extraction/conversion; it’s command-line driven and doesn’t handle overcoming protection issues. I think there are a couple of GUI choices for it too.
———- Post added at 09:34 PM ———- Previous post was at 09:33 PM ———-
Or just not select VOB as the option when you’re using DVD audio extractor. I don’t have my DVD player plugged in nor a DVD even handy to check all the options, but I’m fairly certain I don’t work with the VOB files; I use the DVD directly.
I believe Vobs ARE the DVD "directly", just like CDA is an Audio CD "directly"
———- Post added at 09:34 PM ———- Previous post was at 09:33 PM ———-
I believe Vobs ARE the DVD "directly", just like CDA is an Audio CD "directly"
yes, it�s supossed to be PAL…and as you say, the DVD player reads the VOB files of the DVD to play the film so it�s the same
so is that a problem for the DVD Audio Extractor software?
Edit: I recently used Pazera Audio Extractor and again the same thing with the speed… I should get a NTSC copy of the film I guess
thanks a lot for the help boys 😉
The only way you’ll be able to wake up one day with the film versions is if you put in the time and effort to do it yourself. I know the guide is long (and I know I should really try to update it and include more details) but you can’t just skim it. If you’re that impatient then you probably won’t ever get very close to reaching your goals. I know that outcome from experience.
Please enlighten me.
it may not be the same for every film/DVD of course, you should try multiple audio tracks (unless they are 2.0 …)
This is true, especially on new mixes from older movies. But sometimes, they release isolated scores on Bluray and as long as those are available I strongly recommend to use this instead of the DVD counterparts.
ASCAP is the American Society for composers, sometimes,, they include recording session infos, like cue titles on their site. Like Alex Heffes’ State of Play cues or Jacob Groth’s score for Men Who Hate Women (first Millennium trilogy movie). The titles on the OST are often re-named and differ from the original names.
———- Post added at 06:53 PM ———- Previous post was at 06:50 PM ———-
The following tutorial guides you through the basic process of ripping Bluray audio tracks (up to 7.1).
1) Software needed:
-eac3to (general ripping utility)
-HD-DVD/Blu-ray Stream Extractor (HdBrStreamExtractor.exe) (GUI for eac3to to make things easier)
-ArcSoft’s DTS Decoder (for ripping all channels out of a 7.1 file, without this only the 5.1 core would be getting extracted)
-AnyDVD HD (for removing the BD protection)
2) Download locations:
The following link contains eac3to, HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Stream Extractor and ArcSoft’s DTS Decoder. I didn’t include a working version of AnyDVD HD, so please have a look for it around the web yourself.
LINK REMOVED. Please PM me.
3) Installation:
-download the archive given under 2)
-extract it to a place you like [e.g. C:\]
-open a command prompt (cmd.exe) as administrator
-register ASAudioHD.ax wih the following code:
regsvr32 "C:\eac3to\ASAudioHD.ax"
If you extracted it to a different location, then you have to change the path to the correct location of the file on your system!
4) Using the tools:
4.1 Start
-create a folder on your HDD, where the files should be extracted to
-make sure AnyDVD HD is running
-insert a Blu-ray disc into your drive
4.2 Retrieve Features
-start HdBrStreamExtractor.exe in your eac3to folder, it should look like this:
-click on the marked as #1 button and select the BDMV folder of your Blu-ray
-click on the marked as #2 button and select the output folder you created
-click on "Feature(s)" (marked as #3) to analyze the Blu-ray for existing movies
Note: "Feature Retrieval Completed" will be displayed, as soon as this process is finished.
4.3 Retrieve Streams
Now have a look at the list:
I used the Blu-ray of JUNO for this tutorial. There are three playlists. Notice the durations – 1:36:05, 22:34 and 20:24. The first one is the main movie, the rest are deleted scenes and a featurette, probably.
Hover your mouse over the playlist you like to get more infos to, a small window should appear:
You can find the following information in this window:
-number of chapters the movie is divided into
-video codec, resolution and frames per second, aspect ratio
-audio codec, language, format, frequency
-select the playlist you like to get the audio ripped from, the program will retrieve the streams
Note: "Stream Retrieval Completed" will be displayed, as soon as this process is finished.
Attention: Make sure AnyDVD HD is activated properly, otherwise the chapter list in step 4.4 will stay empty (on a protected Bluray)!
4.4 Extract Streams
Now have a look at the list:
You can find a chapter list, the video track, all audio tracks as well as all subtitle streams there are for the selected movie.
Mark the checkbox of the audio file you’d like to get extracted. Under "Extract As", choose the desired output format for the audio. I recommend using the option "WAVS", as it exports each channel to a separate uncompressed Wave-file. Of course, you can also try the other options if you like.
Hit "Extract" (button #4) to start the extraction process. This process may take a very long time, so please be patient.
Note: "Stream Extraction Completed" will be displayed, as soon as this process is finished.
I’m working on Complete Scores to the Bionicle movies. I extracted the audio (6 channels) and the two front channels have the background music, and some echoey talking. Any tips on how to remove the voices? What I usually do is just invert one channel and make it a mono track, but I don’t want to do that this time.
I’m working on Complete Scores to the Bionicle movies. I extracted the audio (6 channels) and the two front channels have the background music, and some echoey talking. Any tips on how to remove the voices? What I usually do is just invert one channel and make it a mono track, but I don’t want to do that this time.
Have you tired the Surrounds? Those are usually cleaner, but in some cases the music is very hollow and echoy sounding, but just an extra thought.
Believe me. I prefer DVD over Blu-Ray. I hate Blu-Ray, it’s a waste of money and way too expensive. This updating of technology is real annoying. I use out of date technology just to make scores myself, and I don’t want that to change. I just want to know know to audio rip a Blu-Ray disc like I do for DVD’s with 6 individual wav files (when there are no more DVD’s).
Believe me. I prefer DVD over Blu-Ray. I hate Blu-Ray, it’s a waste of money and way too expensive. This updating of technology is real annoying. I use out of date technology just to make scores myself, and I don’t want that to change. I just want to know know to audio rip a Blu-Ray disc like I do for DVD’s with 6 individual wav files (when there are no more DVD’s).
Your comment has nothing to do with mine, and mine yours. I was making a general observation.
Either way, Blu-Ray or DVD menus are a good source for clean music in several cases. That’s the point I was trying to get across. It has nothing to do with Blu-Ray VS DVD.
Believe me. I prefer DVD over Blu-Ray. I hate Blu-Ray, it’s a waste of money and way too expensive. This updating of technology is real annoying. I use out of date technology just to make scores myself, and I don’t want that to change. I just want to know know to audio rip a Blu-Ray disc like I do for DVD’s with 6 individual wav files (when there are no more DVD’s).
Why do you hate blu-ray? Its far more superior to DVD in terms of quality. Sure its expensive, but so were DVD’s when they first came out.
Plus most Blu-Rays use Lossless audio which would be easier to make a complete score. You can get a cleaner removal of vocals and sfx with lossless audio.
At this time it is quite literally impossible to remove voice echoes. I took a look at the audio myself, and I noticed that the rear channels basically sound the same as the front channels which leaves very little room in terms of editing and reducing SFX. Project abandoned for me.
Lossless audio which would be easier to make a complete score. You can get a cleaner removal of vocals and sfx with lossless audio.
Oh, really? How? Because I have Inception’s audio extracted from both the DVD and the Blu-Ray, and the quality is infinitesimally better on the Blu-Ray version. However, all the SFX are in all the exact same places. And I am not following how being lossless would make audio easier to remove SFX from.
Meh, I’ll do it the crappy-sounding way and make everything mono. The music is that good. Thanks.
Oh, really? How? Because I have Inception’s audio extracted from both the DVD and the Blu-Ray, and the quality is infinitesimally better on the Blu-Ray version. However, all the SFX are in all the exact same places. And I am not following how being lossless would make audio easier to remove SFX from.
Im saying this from personal experinces. Its always easier for me to create a complete score with lossless audio rather than lossy.
If its 7.1…
I use eac3to and haven’t looked at any other program.
The develop of eac3to is a member of a forum dedicated to the most accurate and educational software in ripping/editing/creating audio and video.
Although the first impression of Doom9 is that everyone hates each other worse than the FSM forums, the developers really know what they are talking about when they make a post.
The doom9 forums must be read in its entirety if you are new there.
As with any technology, there is no quick guide without the competence to learn the technology in the first place.
So often, here especially, people are happy with pure shit you plop in their open hands.
I mean, you can fake a 24bit-depth/96kHz for people here and they’ll eat like they’re giving you a rim job.
eac3to, although behind on its development (largely due to the author working on newer projects, resource and system heavy projects; he still plans to develop eac3to with updates on the internal codecs when time permits), eac3to can be the most accurate program to rip DVD/Blu-Ray audio in bit-for-bit perfection. Proper bit-depth, proper channel format structure (7.1 has two setups that can cause errors if not corrected during the extraction process), proper downsampling and proper bit-depth reduction is key and eac3to appears to handle all those protocols with absolute precision.
Given the proper codecs and installation.
eac3to requires a significant amount of discipline and competence, of which I believe most will not have the patience nor stature to accomplish such feats here.
The Sample Rate Conversion alone makes extraordinary achievements alone.
And as far as bit-depth reduction goes, you only need to dither if the source has a lot of noise to begin with.
Vinyl, cassette, radio, live performances, etc will require some sort of dithering algorithm to reduce the white noise to make the music more pleasant to the ears.
Aside from that, recent releases like Scott Pilgrim VS The World or The Dark Knight Rises in 24bit-depth/96kHz sampling rate don’t really need dithering applied.
ABX tests are recommended if you insist on making any dithering.
And it’s a good idea to make as many files with different dithering options as there are options and do a complete ABX test to see which dithering algorithm is best suited for the music.
Downsampling is best done by programs that reproduce the least amount of "audible" ultrasonic noise.
You can check this site (http://anonym.to/?http://src.infinitewave.ca/) that shows various types of SRC results against many programs like eac3to, Sony Sound Forge, SoX, Audacity, Adobe Audition, etc.
The programs that seem to give the best results for SRC are: eac3to, SoX and Weiss Saracon (SaRaCon = Sample Rate Conversion).
eac3to can properly downmix 5.1 to stereo.
Other setups need to split into multiple WAV files and edited in programs that can support multichannel WAVs.
Audacity, WAVpad, Sony Sound Forge, Adobe Audition support multichannel audio editing.
It’s best to find proper editing points to split the audio files into smaller WAV files, as most programs do not support WAV files over 4GB.
And most software do no support proper plugins to work with FLAC (Adobe Audition will "open" or "import" all audio as 32bit-depth float. :notgood:
I prefer eac3to to do all the ripping and pre-processing work.
The downmix to Stereo is accurate (from 5.1 sources) and the SRC is pretty damn good compared to other software.
However, all of that is pure shit as most people want a quick fix and have no patience to learn more about the technology.
If the technology is there, learn it for christs sake.
Audio Extractor and other programs who all steal the same code to write their own programs all pieces of shit and not worth the money nor the effort to pirate said software.
Chances of you dithering music from today’s day and age, you’re doing it wrong.
———- Post added at 06:39 AM ———- Previous post was at 06:08 AM ———-
If its 7.1…
7.1 doesn’t really offer too much unless it’s actually recorded in 7.1 like Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
Most other movies dating back to an era where technology was very limited in comparison to today’s technology will not get the best 7.1 transfer.
IMO, companies will jump on the 6.1/7.1 bandwagon because they feel they’ll capture s significant audience very much like converting a 2D-filmed movie to 3D.
Not a lot of movies today are filmed or designed in the studios as authentic 7.1.
Jurassic Park seems like a poor, fake 7.1 upscale due to cheap marketing.
However, I haven’t come across any significant article detailing the significance of 7.1.
Oh, really? How? Because I have Inception’s audio extracted from both the DVD and the Blu-Ray, and the quality is infinitesimally better on the Blu-Ray version. However, all the SFX are in all the exact same places. And I am not following how being lossless would make audio easier to remove SFX from.
That’s a large misconception. The rips I gave you for the Inception bonus features were Lossless.
However, the mastering of the audio was done in a fashion to allow home users to enjoy the audio of both the music and the dialog/sfx.
Which means the music will have to be dropped in volume levels to allow the dialog and sfx to be equally audible.
In most cases, dialog/sfx has more pertinent presence than music ever will.
No matter how many fans there are or how dedicated they may seem.
Let’s face it, the industry for Soundtracks/Scores is extremely low.
When Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen came out, I went into a music store and asked if they had the score for sale and the fucker pointed me to the various artist album. :/
It’s like some isolated scores where they drop the music significantly to allow sfx/dialog to have more precedence over music.
Tomorrow Never Dies is largely a victim of said drop-outs of the decibel levels.
There really is nothing you can do restore the lost volume levels. They were mastered that way.
They are "lossless" because the Blu-Ray versions are mastered in the lossless DTS-HD Master Audio format.
Which is ideal for any audio editing.
Doesn’t matter if they sound the same as the DVD versions.
DVD’s have a maximum standard of lossy AC-3 (all AC3 formats are lossy) of 448Kbps.
Blu-Ray can support a maximum of lossy AC-3 of 640Kbps which is said to be "transparent" to DTS-Core audio of 1509.75 kbit/s.
Different software will read the Core audio differently.
1509.75 kbit/s is thee standard definition by Dolby.
The 24 bit-depth will help in audio editing to reduce any substantial audio clipping, blaring or otherwise mistakes in the mastering.
I see no real reason for anyone to be working with DVD audio unless it’s the only format available.
For instance: The Corruptor (Region 1; NTSC) has a separate audio track that is the isolated score, along with a commentary by Carter Burwell, presented in 5.1@448 is only available on the DVD and not the Blu-Ray.
Not that if the isolated score had been available on the blu-ray that it would make a substantial difference.
For instance, take the Alien franchise. All the isolated scores are available in lossy AC3 only.
There is a significantly small number of Blu-Rays with an isolated score in pure lossless audio.
"Big Trouble In Little China" is one of them.
Most people don’t care because all the music is already available in the 44.1kHz/16bit CD soundtrack release.
Yay.
But the Blu-Ray of "Big Trouble In Little China" has a bit-depth of 24 and is available in 5.1 surround sound.
With that potential alone, you can listen to the soundtrack on your home systems with perfect quality.
With those technical specs, you can do edits of your own.
Justifying a single release on the simple fact that it’s already available (in lower quality and less channels) is just pure idiotic.
There are a number of people who know what to do with a multichannel file. They do have the technology to play it back with certain ease.
They are educated in this technology and have good reason to ask for the original source material if it’s available in higher bit-depth/sample rate.
Simply saying that "it’s already available in full on CD" is not a valid answer and you should have no place in answering in the first place.
With great technology comes a shit proverb reference from an old Marvel comic legend~
———- Post added at 06:45 AM ———- Previous post was at 06:39 AM ———-
It has nothing to do with Blu-Ray VS DVD.
Right. It all has to do with the director’s decision on how he wants the audio presented. Or if he cares at all.
Some really care that the centre channel is largely reserved for dialog and sfx only, while other don’t care at all and let the main core of the music bleed into the center channel thus making an edit extremely difficult.
This decision can be observed in all media forms: VHS, DVD, BD, HD-DVD, WEBDL, etc.
The only significance between BD vs. DVD is that BD can offer lossless audio.
Can.
Not always or definitive.
Sometimes movies on BD will only get DVD quality AC3@448.
In which case, it makes absolutely no difference which source you work with.
When BD offers a lossless format (DTS-HD Master Audio; Dolby TrueHD; (L)PCM), that’s when you can put your best software to the test to make the most comprising soundtrack of sfx/dialog and music.
I prefer lossless audio to do editing. And 24bit depth to help with clipping and other audible errors that most tend to achieve without effort.
———- Post added at 06:47 AM ———- Previous post was at 06:45 AM ———-
hey dimensioner: If you rip in French, or another foreign language, the vocal echos will be gone or reduced.
Not all the time. That’s just a myth.
I’ve found a lot of companies tend to spend as much time on the original language format as they do the translated formats.
I really have no idea when and where this started.
———- Post added at 07:14 AM ———- Previous post was at 06:47 AM ———-
Would I need a new computer or would this work with what I already have: A Toshiba 2011, also we need new links
It would work.
I’ve got a laptop from 2007 and I still use eac3to.
All you really need is a blu-ray drive to rip the video (copy video+audio to a container like AVI/MKV/MP4/etc) and the rest will work perfectly.
eac3to is a Command Line Interface program. Running in the same manner as DOS.
HD-DVD/Blu-ray Stream Extractor (HdBrStreamExtractor.exe) (GUI for eac3to to make things easier)
is just a GUI if you can’t figure out the CLI.
-ArcSoft’s DTS Decoder (for ripping all channels out of a 7.1 file, without this only the 5.1 core would be getting extracted)
It is to be noted that only one version is sufficient enough to handle most Blu-Ray rips, even those that are 7.1 with "strange setup" (meaning improper channel order).
1.1.0.0 (April-25-08) is the perfect version to use.
1.1.0.0 (April-21-08) will result in errors.
Any other version than the dtsdecoderdll.dll 1.1.0.0 (April-25-08) will result in improper decoding, giving you mixed channel orders among other problems.
dtsdecoderdll.dll 1.1.0.0 (April-25-08) will do bit-for-bit perfection.
ArcSoft can do the Master Audio for DTS-HD MA perfecty.
And, if needed, remap the channels if they are found to be incorrect.
The "help" function, and the forum, will say that "Nero" is best for ripping AC3.
But that is purely a matter of opinion.
And rather outdated. It only accepts Nero 7 and nothing newer.
After Nero 7, Nero has customized their decoder filters to work exclusively with Nero AG products.
The internal libav filters will do the exact same work as Nero for AC3 in bit-for-bit perfection.
I only use ArcSoft dtsdecoderdll.dll 1.1.0.0 (April-25-08) and the internal libav for all my projects.
WARNING!
Do not update anything in the eac3to folder as it will result in unstable errors.
The author of eac3to wrote the internal libav filters/codecs to work exclusively with eac3to.
Attempting to update any of the libav filters with more recent updated version cannot guarantee bit-for-bit results.
Even if it "sounds" perfect to your perfect ears.
Note: You can run "eac3to.exe -test" to see what your eac3to can do on your computer.
eac3to v3.24
command line: eac3to.exe -test -log=test_log.txt
——————————————————————————
eac3to (v3.24) is up to date
Nero Audio Decoder (Nero 6 or older) doesn’t seem to be installed
Nero – Buy nero products online (http://www.nero.com/eng/store-blu-ray.html)
CAUTION: You need Nero 7. Nero 8 won’t work with eac3to.
ArcSoft DTS Decoder (1.1.0.0) works fine
Sonic Audio Decoder (3.24.0.0) doesn’t seem to be installed
Haali Matroska Muxer (2011-09-08) is up to date
Nero AAC Encoder (1.5.4.0) is up to date
Surcode DTS Encoder doesn’t seem to be installed
MASI :: Surround Sound Tools for Authoring, Processing & Encoding – Minnetonka Audio Software, Inc (http://www.surcode.com)
MkvToolnix (5.7.0.0, release version) is up to date
Items marked in red and bold are useless and not needed.
The internal codecs and filters work perfectly.
The K-Lite Codec packs can install Haali Matroska Muxer for you.
You don’t need to go to the official site for Haali products/software.
Sonic can be ignored as the internal libav filters do equally well.
You really only need to update MKVtoolnix whenever they push out a stable release.
You can follow MKVToolnix on their VideoHelp site for updates. (http://anonym.to/?http://www.videohelp.com/tools/MKVtoolnix)
And you don’t need to make any DTS audio.
Any DTS audio created will be in accordance to the lossy DTS-core.
Lossy being the key word.
You’ll waste your time trying to validate the reason you should have Minnetonka software installed for DTS authoring.
There is a free tool under current development that allows you to create DTS-core files that up to standards.
"deanc" can create DVD-compliant DTS audio streams for free.
-AnyDVD HD (for removing the BD protection)
AnyDVD, DVDfab, MakeMKV all work to decrypt and copy the movie to computer without any transcoding.
Unless you set it to convert the audio or remove the HD audio.
I posted a response into a thread about "ripping 7.1" in the Help Desk forum.
I also provided a link to the most current version of eac3to along with the proper ArcSoft version.
Like Nero, ArcSoft made much of their codecs and decoders very propitiatory.
Don’t bother trying to update with the latest version of any ArcSoft products.
Chanes are you’ll fail and not even realize it.
The examples you were thinking about aren’t from Phantom of the Opera, are they?
That would be interesting to know more about…
Quite a few people keep asking me how I did such an excellent job on all the scores I’ve uploaded here. Instead of sending everyone the same directions, I thought I would make a thread detailing everything that goes into my work. Sit down and get comfy because this is going to be a long guide. Also, stay posted as I may update some details or change descriptions in the future.
I. What You Will Need
DVD Audio Extractor
This program can be downloaded from the internet–its purpose is to get the audio off of a DVD into a format that can be easily listened to and edited. There might be a free trial version of it–otherwise you’ll have to buy it to get the full program. However, if you’re good with computers you might be able to find a way around its locks. If not, send me a message. I’ve talked to other members about some of the other programs that have a similar purpose. If you know of any of these, post their names under this thread.
Audacity
This program is entirely free, and the tools from it that are needed are not too difficult to use. However, you may have to download the expansion pack of plug-ins to get all the available tools. This will be the program that you do your editing in, and will also be used to export your completed files
The DVD of the movie you want to work with
Believe it or not, some people try to make complete scores for movies without even having the DVD to get original sources from. If you don’t have the DVD, you should probably try to find it first.
The original official release of the soundtrack
The majority of movies released do have a soundtrack that could have been bought around the time of the movie’s release. If you missed that, then you can do a search on Google to find a place to buy or download that soundtrack. Having the OST will immensely help you in creating a good expanded or complete score–unless, of course, the OST is full of music that was unused in the movie.
Any and all other releases of music available for that movie
Search for any expanded releases of the score that may have surfaced on the internet. These might include expanded/extended scores, promotional releases, or recording sessions. Try to avoid using someone else’s personal work on a score, as you will likely decrease the quality of your own score.
Also look for unreleased music posted on the composers websites (some examples are Geoff Zanelli’s website and Magic Box Music), as well as any iTunes bonus tracks.
Lots of patience and listening skills that will produce the most accurate sounding tracks.
II. How to use DVD Audio Extractor
Once you have downloaded and installed DVD Audio Extractor and have your DVD available, then you must get all the raw audio off of it.
On the first window, you’ll see a place to select your source at the top. It should already have you DVD selected. In the top left box, you’ll see a list of ‘Titles’. These are the different sections of the DVD. Typically the first one is the main movie and the rest are special features or trailers. When any Title is clicked on the big box on the right will fill up with all the Chapters that are a part of that Title. By default, all of the Chapters of the first Title are always already selected. The bottom left details what language you will be ripping the audio in. I do not have a full understanding of DTS versus AC3. Once you have selected all of the Chapters you want extracted, click next.
The next window details how the audio will be encoded. Using the .wav format will give you the highest quality. To avoid causing clicks between tracks due to different sample rates, you should extract the audio in a sample rate matching that of your original soundtrack. The only way I can see what the sample rate is through iTunes. For Channels, you want to have ‘All 6 Channels’ selected. If this isn’t an option, then you are mostly out of luck. Make sure the checkbox at the bottom is marked–otherwise you’ll only end up with one stereo track of audio rather than 6 mono tracks.
The third window asks for the destination of the extracted files, and also has some other options. The only other one I deal with is the checkbox for ‘Save each Chapter into a separate file’. Normally I keep it unchecked so I can view each Chapter of the DVD in its original length. However, sometimes a song crosses from one Chapter into another, and in some cases when I line these up in Audacity…they don’t play seamlessly together. In this case it would be better to pair the two Chapters together by checking that box. You can only find this problem through trial and error.
The last window is where you finally begin the encoding process. Depending on how many Chapters you are extracting and/or how long each Chapter is, this could take several minutes. The output files will consist of six individual mono tracks. These tracks are as follows:
Channel 1 will be the front left channel. Channel 2 is the front right. Channel 3 is the center channel (this is where most dialogue occurs). Channel 4 is the bass for the sub-woofer (or whatever). Channel 5 is the back left channel. Channel 6 is the back right channel. These two generally have less SFX in them but also the music quality may be decreased (the thing I found with pirates is that it sounds hollow and echo-y, and the back channels are missing percussion instruments).
III. Using Audacity to Edit the Music
So you’ve finally gotten your audio extracted from the DVD. What’s next? The usually long and meticulous process of editing and mixing will now entail. But first, there’s another step that could take a longer amount of time. If you really want to edit your tracks and understand the ways in which each and every cue works, you should take time to import each Chapter into Audacity (usually the two front channels are sufficient, but the center channel is useful in coming up with track titles based on dialogue from the movie). Take the time to listen to all the audio, and document all the cues you hear, divided by Chapter. It helps to provide yourself with a brief description of each cue, unless you already know the music fairly well.
This would also be a great time to try to name all the cues. This will help when you actually save your Audacity projects for editing–it will help in avoiding confusion. In some cases, I group several cues together into one track. Another benefit in doing this kind of analysis is to locate any pieces that from the original soundtrack or other releases, or cues that sound similar to the OST.This will help in using a strategy that I call substitution.
Once you have all cues documented, it is time to begin the editing process. However, sometimes in my first analysis of a score, I separate cues differently from how I view them later on in the editing process. Only skip around to your favorite track that may occur later in the movie if you are certain your track list is. In one of my current projects, I documented 76 cues. It painful later on when I found it easier to group cues 15 and 16 together into one track, meaning then the score would only have 75 tracks. All track names and numbers after 16 had to be adjusted…and then it happened again with track 23. Of course, there might be batch-processing programs that could take away this issue.
The goal in using DVD audio to produce a complete score is to have the audio as closely as possible line up with the existing releases of material as well to maximize quality and minimize sound effects. However, there are many obstacles that the DVD audio may have; below is a list of obstacles I’ve encountered and what I do overcome them.
First off, the plug-ins I use most in Audacity are Amplify, Normalize, Fade In, Fade Out, and Declipper. A tool you must learn how to use is the Envelope Tool, which is just right of the Selection tool near the top left of the programs window. Other vital features to learn are basically everything under the Edit menu, and the ‘Align Tracks…’ sub-menu under Project.
Use Amplify to amplify the DVD’s audio if it too quiet. This plug-in can also be used to ‘un-amplify’ stuff that is too loud. Use Normalize if the DVD audio or OST material is overamplified. Normally, I use Fade In and Out for the tracks that begin or end with DVD audio–this so that even before the music starts or after it ends, any SFX will be slowly faded in or out. Declipper will clip any audio that has gone above the maximum amplitude range, when the track is ‘Quick Mixed’, so it will look nice. Most importantly is the Envelope Tool which will help in reducing SFX.
When you come across DVD audio that either matches or sounds similar enough to something on a release containing no SFX, you should substitute that material in. In some cases the SFX-free material must be clipped or otherwise remixed to line up. Just be patient and look for similar wave patterns by zooming in both vertically and horizontally. This is the step that a lot of people miss. Oftentimes, people will not try to substitute in existing music for the DVD audio, leaving a score that could potentially have had much less SFX.
The music from the DVD audio is way too quiet: Amplify it as much as possible. If this still isn’t enough to fit in with the rest of the soundtrack, you may have to un-amplify some of the existing material. If neither of these work, the problem might be due to a really loud sound effect in the DVD audio. This sound effect can either be clipped out of the audio or removed through other means (see later notes). NOTE: this may lead to an overall quieter score. Having and equal amplitude across the entire score is vital to making it enjoyable to listen to.
There are voice echoes in one or more of the channels: This one can sometimes be a game-ender. If the voice echoes are only in the front two channels, you can always check the back two channels. As I mentioned earlier, these may be decreased in quality and fullness, but typically they have less SFX. However, some DVD audio–like Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes–have voices echoes that extend clear to the back channels. If you run into this, you can include this music but it leads to a distracting listening experience. Alternatively, you can leave it out, in which case your score can only be considered expanded, not complete.
Now suppose there is a really loud or invasive sound effect in the left front channel. You can split the channels and highlight that area of the right front channel and duplicate it. Change this new one-channel track to left, and use the envelope tool to fade out the SFX in the left channel, and replace them with the new mono track. This may cause the stereo quality of the music to go down, but if you have the back channels of the audio supporting it, some amount of stereo should remain. This method works vice versa, as well.
What if there are really loud SFX in both front channels? You can use the envelope tool to fade them both out so only the back channels remain. NOTE: normally the back channels are in general quieter than the front channels, so some extra amplification is necessary. Sometimes SFX may be louder in the back channels than they are in the front. In this case, simply fade out the back channels. Other times loud SFX may reach all the channels you are working on. In this case the problem area can be clipped out by duplicating the tracks after the SFX and moving them up to before the SFX occur and using fading to mix the two sections together. If the SFX occur during an important theme, then simply removing the problem area will mess up that theme. In this case, the entirety of the theme may need to be clipped out.
On rare occasions, you may come across DVD audio that sounds like something on the OST except that it has extra instruments. In this case, you may be able to overlap the two–using only either the front or back channels, depending on if the difference occurs in the back channels–in order to reduce some SFX. An example of this is the track "06-Orders for Davy Jones" on my At World’s score. The overlap begins at 3:34; see track 34 for the original arrangement of that cue.
Well, for now, this is about all I can think of. Like I said, a lot of this will probably be updated or rearranged. If you have any questions, I’ll probably answer them first in this thread and then try to clarify that section of my guide later.
Definitely check out this part about using eac3to.
http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/how-make-complete-score-detailed-guide-84885/#post1624755
eac3to has been updated 3.27 with major bugfixes that allow proper downmixing of 6.1.
ignore anything that says "Nero" for AC3 decoding.
The internal libav/ffmpeg works equally well.
Also definitely look for the best ArcSoft decoder pack for proper DTS-HD Master Audio decoding.
Version 1.1.0.0 ("dtsdecoderdll.dll" dated at: April 25 2008)
DVD Audio Extractor
This program can be downloaded from the internet–its purpose is to get the audio off of a DVD into a format that can be easily listened to and edited. There might be a free trial version of it–otherwise you’ll have to buy it to get the full program. However, if you’re good with computers you might be able to find a way around its locks. If not, send me a message. I’ve talked to other members about some of the other programs that have a similar purpose. If you know of any of these, post their names under this thread.
I would appreciate any advice on this. Thanks!!!!!
I was planning on giving it a go with help from this guide to hopefully extract some of the missing tracks that weren’t present on the recording sessions (Film alternates of ‘Optimus’, ‘Sam On The Roof’, etc.), seeing as no one (as far as I know) has attempted it.
The blu-ray is easy.
Don’t use:
DVD’s
DVD Audio Extractor
Everyone else here that has successfully edited any music and shared has used eac3to and blu-ray with the lossless audio channel.
And for good reason, too.
:smrt:
LOL uh yeah….best of luck to you there. Everyone here who knows me knows the film mix of Optimus is my most desired cue of all time. I’ve tried everything I can do (including recruiting some friends who are skilled in this area) but no one can pull it off. Let me know how it goes for you, and if you’re successful. I’m serious, that’s not sarcasm. Good luck.
I’ll try my best 🙂 thanks
They do have the movie in BluRay if that helps
ASCAP is the American Society for composers, sometimes,, they include recording session infos, like cue titles on their site. Like Alex Heffes’ State of Play cues or Jacob Groth’s score for Men Who Hate Women (first Millennium trilogy movie). The titles on the OST are often re-named and differ from the original names.
———- Post added at 06:53 PM ———- Previous post was at 06:50 PM ———-
The following tutorial guides you through the basic process of ripping Bluray audio tracks (up to 7.1).
1) Software needed:
-eac3to (general ripping utility)
-HD-DVD/Blu-ray Stream Extractor (HdBrStreamExtractor.exe) (GUI for eac3to to make things easier)
-ArcSoft’s DTS Decoder (for ripping all channels out of a 7.1 file, without this only the 5.1 core would be getting extracted)
-AnyDVD HD (for removing the BD protection)
2) Download locations:
The following link contains eac3to, HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Stream Extractor and ArcSoft’s DTS Decoder. I didn’t include a working version of AnyDVD HD, so please have a look for it around the web yourself.
LINK REMOVED. Please PM me.
3) Installation:
-download the archive given under 2)
-extract it to a place you like [e.g. C:\]
-open a command prompt (cmd.exe) as administrator
-register ASAudioHD.ax wih the following code:
regsvr32 "C:\eac3to\ASAudioHD.ax"
If you extracted it to a different location, then you have to change the path to the correct location of the file on your system!
4) Using the tools:
4.1 Start
-create a folder on your HDD, where the files should be extracted to
-make sure AnyDVD HD is running
-insert a Blu-ray disc into your drive
4.2 Retrieve Features
-start HdBrStreamExtractor.exe in your eac3to folder, it should look like this:
-click on the marked as #1 button and select the BDMV folder of your Blu-ray
-click on the marked as #2 button and select the output folder you created
-click on "Feature(s)" (marked as #3) to analyze the Blu-ray for existing movies
Note: "Feature Retrieval Completed" will be displayed, as soon as this process is finished.
4.3 Retrieve Streams
Now have a look at the list:
I used the Blu-ray of JUNO for this tutorial. There are three playlists. Notice the durations – 1:36:05, 22:34 and 20:24. The first one is the main movie, the rest are deleted scenes and a featurette, probably.
Hover your mouse over the playlist you like to get more infos to, a small window should appear:
You can find the following information in this window:
-number of chapters the movie is divided into
-video codec, resolution and frames per second, aspect ratio
-audio codec, language, format, frequency
-select the playlist you like to get the audio ripped from, the program will retrieve the streams
Note: "Stream Retrieval Completed" will be displayed, as soon as this process is finished.
Attention: Make sure AnyDVD HD is activated properly, otherwise the chapter list in step 4.4 will stay empty (on a protected Bluray)!
4.4 Extract Streams
Now have a look at the list:
You can find a chapter list, the video track, all audio tracks as well as all subtitle streams there are for the selected movie.
Mark the checkbox of the audio file you’d like to get extracted. Under "Extract As", choose the desired output format for the audio. I recommend using the option "WAVS", as it exports each channel to a separate uncompressed Wave-file. Of course, you can also try the other options if you like.
Hit "Extract" (button #4) to start the extraction process. This process may take a very long time, so please be patient.
Note: "Stream Extraction Completed" will be displayed, as soon as this process is finished.
I think this needs updated with pictures. I can’t see anything.
A little late reply, but yes.
The film is very mixed in a way that’s best as-is for editing.
Bane’s voice is mixed in all 5.1 channels.
Probably to make it more clear and audible about what he’s saying.
And to give a more menacing presence.
The sfx are also nicely mixed in all channels as a film should be.
There’s a lot of voices echoing/bleeding into the other channels, too.
So, it’s really a moot job.
Unless you don’t mind all the sfx/dialogue.
A bluray rip would be more superior than a DVD rip.
Provided from the right people, not people who are learning or think they know, but can prove they actually know. :smrt:
Bane’s voice is mixed in all 5.1 channels.
Probably to make it more clear and audible about what he’s saying.
And to give a more menacing presence.
The sfx are also nicely mixed in all channels as a film should be.
There’s a lot of voices echoing/bleeding into the other channels, too.
So, it’s really a moot job.
Unless you don’t mind all the sfx/dialogue.
A bluray rip would be more superior than a DVD rip.
Provided from the right people, not people who are learning or think they know, but can prove they actually know. :smrt:
I hope it’s possible if someone will do this on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 BRRip.
Bane’s voice is mixed in all 5.1 channels.
Probably to make it more clear and audible about what he’s saying.
And to give a more menacing presence.
The sfx are also nicely mixed in all channels as a film should be.
There’s a lot of voices echoing/bleeding into the other channels, too.
So, it’s really a moot job.
Unless you don’t mind all the sfx/dialogue.
A bluray rip would be more superior than a DVD rip.
Provided from the right people, not people who are learning or think they know, but can prove they actually know. :smrt:
Yeah for me SFX and dialogue is unacceptable. Well thanks for answering anyways.
I’m afraid it’s similarily mixed for theater/film mix.
Most films today are mixed for theater/film experiences.
It’s quite rare, and quite a treat really, when films are mixed to have most of the sfx/dialogue in the center channel.
Even then, there is bound to be lots of bleeding into surrounding channels for newer movies, since we’re moving closer to the Dolby Atmos arena with every movie.
Just curious, why would you want to do a DVD rip if the complete score is already out there? For a film mix, I suppose?
*replies over a year later*
Yes, at that time I wanted a film mix. (Still do, but now that my knowledge of this stuff is somewhat decent, it doesn’t seem possible).
Skeletonmage: At the time I didn’t understand that Blu-Ray was generally lossless and DVD was lossy. Nowadays I wouldn’t try it with anything less than a Blu-Ray.
Online Casino South Africa
Online Casino New Zealand
Online Casino India
Online Casino Australia
Online Casino UK
Online Casino Canada
