Second audio track issues.

jason_2025 wrote on 9/2/2004, 3:30 PM
Sorry if this has been posted before but I did look through the forums. Using DVDA2, latest update, I'm trying to create a project with a "directors commentary".

I have a link on the main menu to a media file that is a short transition out of the menu. The end action of this transition points to my main video file and specifies it should use the second audio track.

If I burn the DVD (so far just to a DVD-RW) it works fine in the computer but on my home DVD player it won't. Works fine if you press the "audio" button on the remote to manually select which audio track you want but the button doesn't work from the menu. All you get is the main audio track.

Anyone run into this? I can provide more details such as DVD model number, etc and no, I've not had a chance to try a second player yet though I plan to. I'm also going to try a version without using the transitional video clip to see if that is the problem.

Cheers.

J\

Comments

ScottW wrote on 9/3/2004, 8:09 AM
Well, for what it's worth - I just tried this and I couldn't get it to work at all. I was in a hurry so maybe I made a mistake. I could get it to work using preview mode in DVDA, but the prepared project would not play correctly on my computer, in that it did not select the correct audio track (I didn't burn a DVD I was just viewing the files from disk).

Examination of the IFO files showed that DVDA did insert a post command with the transition movie to select the audio track just before going to the second movie, but the wrong track was selected (it selected track one rather than track 2). Even modifying the command with IFOedit to select track 2 didn't help my software player though (the software player was showing that the command was received because it superimposed "Audio 01" on the display - but still it wasn't selecting track 2).

The VOB file did have both tracks contained in it though, and somewhat like you, when I manually selected the alternate track with the software player, it was played.

If I get some time today, I may try to rip one of my Bab5 DVDs that has the directors commentary to see how they did it - my guess is that since it's a DVD9 they probably had enough room to simply put the entire episode on the DVD twice; once with normal audio and once with alternate.

--Scott
jason_2025 wrote on 9/3/2004, 9:41 AM
Your experience echos mine exactly though my prepared DVD does work fine on my computer using WIndows Media Player. In preview in DVDa it also works fine, just not on my DVD player. Must be a bug so I'll have to work around it.

Cheers.

J\
ScottW wrote on 9/3/2004, 11:37 AM
I just re-did my test (re-created the test project). Plays like I want in WM Player 9, but doesn't play the second track using WinDVD.

My guess is this is either a bug in your player or possibly a grey area in the DVD spec - or just flat out a bug in DVDA.

Here's what I did to fix it. Using IFOedit, I added a pre command to the IFO file that describes the movie with 2 tracks. The pre command selected the second audio stream. Poof - WinDVD now plays it correctly (however, because this selection is in the second movie, any entry to the second movie will always play the alternate track without a little additional coding).

Clearly WinDVD is resetting the audio track to stream 0 when it starts playing the second movie - this might be expected I've not checked the informal DVD spec web site. WM9 is not resetting the stream.

Who's behavior is correct? Ya' got me. However, it does seem that for compatability reasons, DVDA should be putting some pre commands in the target movie to check and set the audio stream as appropriate (that way it would work on ALL players).

My suggestion would be to send this to Sony as a bug and/or suggestion.

If you are up to doing a little editing of your finished project with IFOedit, you could implement this yourself. Alternatively, if you have the space, put the movie on twice, each version having different audio (unfortunately, in this case DVDA will literally put the movie on the DVD twice since each movie has a different audio stream.

--Scott
jason_2025 wrote on 9/9/2004, 10:36 AM
Well, this certainly seems to be a glaring bug. Anyone from Sony reading this thread or shall I submit this as a bug report?

J\
jason_2025 wrote on 9/13/2004, 10:49 AM
Or rather, a work around. I ended up creating a second audio track for my "transition out of menu" clip and having the link to this clip select the second channel. Now the main video works correctly so it appears to be an end action issue.

Cheers.

J\