How to merge multiple audio tracks on a movie?

[colinmack]

I have a few movies that were merged using SimpleMovieX from two DVDs, and although they passed my initial checks when I previewed them on the computer, I found out when watching on the Apple TV that while the video was merged seamlessly, the audio was not - it retained two separate sets of AAC/AC3 audio tracks - so there are now 4 audio tracks (AAC/AC3 for the first half, AAC/AC3 for the second half). It turned out something like this:

<-------------video 1/2--------------->
<--audio 1 AAC--><--audio 2 AAC-->
<--audio 1 AC3--><--audio 2 AC3-->

To Quicktime and the Apple TV, it basically stops playing audio after the first set of tracks ends half-way, and forces me to manually select the other audio track for the second half as if it was an alternate language (obviously a pain) - is there not any way of flattening/merging the pairs so there is a single set of AAC/AC3 audio tracks throughout the entire movie?

Either that or properly extract/reconvert the movie so it produces a properly merged movie (I would have used VisualHub, but it ignores the chapter markers from the original DVDs). If necessary I can always re-rip...

Any thoughts?

 

[the3rdParty]

Hi colinmack

did you ever find a solution to this?

I have exactly this problem - I can join movies using a variety of toots (QT7, SimpleMvoie, QTsync etc) but all result in 2x the number of audio tracks, each pair working sequentially. This is fine for playback via QT, but my aTV(v1) drops the soundtrack at the join and you have to manually select the next part of the soundtrack for the next part of the joined movie (which is a pain).

Any hints gratefully received

jw

 

[spacepower7]

Hi colinmack

did you ever find a solution to this?

I have exactly this problem - I can join movies using a variety of toots (QT7, SimpleMvoie, QTsync etc) but all result in 2x the number of audio tracks, each pair working sequentially. This is fine for playback via QT, but my aTV(v1) drops the soundtrack at the join and you have to manually select the next part of the soundtrack for the next part of the joined movie (which is a pain).

Any hints gratefully received

jw

What format are your movies in? I think MKVtools can join mp4 files, not sure if it requires the paid version though.

 

[the3rdParty]

the movies are all in MP4 format, from Handbrake's standard AppleTV setting.

I will try MKVtools tonight, and note that the same developer is preparing a release of MP4tools which looks to be exactly what I need, assuming that it will correctly concatenate the soundtracks.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

I have a few movies that were merged using SimpleMovieX from two DVDs, and although they passed my initial checks when I previewed them on the computer, I found out when watching on the Apple TV that while the video was merged seamlessly, the audio was not - it retained two separate sets of AAC/AC3 audio tracks - so there are now 4 audio tracks (AAC/AC3 for the first half, AAC/AC3 for the second half). It turned out something like this:

<-------------video 1/2--------------->
<--audio 1 AAC--><--audio 2 AAC-->
<--audio 1 AC3--><--audio 2 AC3-->

To Quicktime and the Apple TV, it basically stops playing audio after the first set of tracks ends half-way, and forces me to manually select the other audio track for the second half as if it was an alternate language (obviously a pain) - is there not any way of flattening/merging the pairs so there is a single set of AAC/AC3 audio tracks throughout the entire movie?

Either that or properly extract/reconvert the movie so it produces a properly merged movie (I would have used VisualHub, but it ignores the chapter markers from the original DVDs). If necessary I can always re-rip...

Any thoughts?

Even though it will require you to start over, my suggestion is using DVD2One. It'll combine your 2 movies into one big vob set. Then just process it in HB.

It worked great when I was doing the LOTR extended DVD set. I'll have to figure something else out when the Blu-rays come out.

HTH

Update: Great, I just realized that I responded to a 3 year old post. Oh well.

 

[the3rdParty]

Well, the issue is still there after 3 years!

Tried MKVtools and in spite of the fact that it has a window specially for joining MP4 files, the result is the same as QT, Simplemovie and QTsync - a movie with a single video track (correctly joined) and double the number of audio tracks, some of which start of the beginning and end at the join, the rest start at the join and go to the end.

DVD2one next....