Hi,

Me and some friends just recently made a DVD-commentary style commentary to a TV-programme we put together many years ago. What's the best way to create an AVI file with the video, original audio and the commentary track bundled together? What program/add-on is needed to play the resulting AVI file with the ability to switch between the different audio-tracks?

I am thinking of using an AVI file with XVID for the video, and using mp3 for the audio. Any suggestions to alternatives to these formats would also be welcome (I have the original video in MJPEG format and the audio in WAV format).

Any suggestions?

AE.

ogm also suports several audio tracks, and if you use Media Player Classic, it's very easy to change the current track.

To make these files you can use VirtualDub Mod (a mod of VirtualDub that adds ogm support, among other features (I think mkv support is one of them, too)).

I suggest there is no reason to steer away from AVI if it doesn't limit you. It's still the most and best supported container format. AVI can contain up to 3 audio tracks each encoded with what ever codec is most suitable.

Yes. But if you don't NEED more than 3 audio tracks, there's no point. Ogg/ogm is not as well supported (i have yet to see a directshow decoder that works on my box, mpeg4 has been around for ages) and who cares how easy it's to parse through? People who write codecs might care, but that was not the purpose of the original question.

If you want to distribute a movie to your friends, bigger chances are your average joe sixpack doesn't have ogg decoders, but it seems most of them actually understand why some .avi files require different codecs (well my friends do, and they're not exactly computer literate).

The average Joe most likely already has all that is required to play AVI/Xvid.

I just recently downloaded those. Simply put; they do their job like a russian-made glass-handle mallet.

I agree with jhuuskon's comments about Joe Sixpack - some of the intended audience of the movie will panic if they see a MKV or OGG file. Ideally, I'd like to play the video on a Windows box with the minimum of software-installation / configuration. I'd also want to be able to play it on a Linux-box - hence any Microsoft-proprietary formats such as WMV are out.

I've chosen XVID as the video file format because it's a good all-round video-compression format that has a good compression ratio and it's open-source. As no Windows installation comes with XVID installed as standard, I'll have to make compromise on minimum software-instalation. Also, if I encode multiple audio-tracks to an AVI file, do I need to install anything else to be able to play the extra tracks and to select which track is being played? If so and this extra program isn't installed, will such an AVI file play with just the default soundtrack? To keep the software-installation to a minimum, I've decided to use MP3 for the Audio (both the original soundtrack and commentary are each in mono). Do you think I should use one of the newer formats like M4A, AAC, AC3, etc. instead, and do any of them come as standard on a Windows installation?

And finally, I've noticed that VirtualDub only lets you mix one sound-track in the AVI file. Do I need VirtualDubMod for this, or is VirtualDubMod only for things like OGSs and MKVs?

AE.

Hi,

Just tried installing Morgan Stream Switcher and used VirtualDubMod to create an AVI with two audio-streams. I can switch between the two streams just fine when using Media Player Classic (this works with either MSS or MPC's built in stream-switcher), but when I use Windows Media Player 9, the primary stream works OK, but when I switch to the secondary stream, it sounds like it's been speeded up by several orders of magnitude. The AVI contains an XviD (450kbps), and two mp3s @ 48kbps mono (encoded with the Lame mp3 codec). As both mp3s and the video are of exactly the same length and the mp3s were encoded with the same paramaters, I don't see why MPC has trouble with the second one. Any ideas?

I also notice that MSS is a Windows only program. What program would I need to switch the AVI's audio streams on other OS's?

I thought that the standard container for MPEG-4 videos was mp4. But to make things confusing, MPEG-4 video-streams are called mp4, and the MPEG-4 audio streams which should be caled m4a are sometimes also called mp4 (presumably to make them sound like the successor to mp3). These audio streams are even called aac as well. I'm not really sure howmany mpeg-4 audio-standards there are out there, but until this mess is sorted out, I'm sticking with mp3s.

AE.

I second Oscar's suggestion about using .ogm, even though they have to intall the codec, it is worth the effort and it's usually the common "next, next, finish" installation. Wiht Linux you usually have the codec installed as well. The ones I've seen actually use xvid for the video too...

Xine can switch audio tracks at play time. nice little gui drop down on the main interface for it.