Deleting unwanted audio

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Phototaker
Experienced
Posts: 92
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 2:08 am

Deleting unwanted audio

Post by Phototaker »

I have a couple of questions about extra unwanted audio tracks. I have several files where the MKV file has 3 different audio tracks and only 1 is required to be kept. Can they be deleted without having to recoding or reduce the quality of the video portion of things & if so how is this done?

Sometimes a second audio track can be included to get the directors comments etc. Since this audio isn't that important should one decrease the default bit rate for this track? Would specifying mono rather than stereo would this make the total file size even smaller again or does one end up with 2 mono tracks?

I don't expect that the answers to either question will have a large impact on the total file size. Is this correct?

Thanks in advance
Woodstock
Veteran User
Posts: 4614
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2013 6:39 am

Re: Deleting unwanted audio

Post by Woodstock »

If it's in an MKV container, search for mkvtoolnix in your favorite search engine to get a collection of utilities that will let you copy over JUST the tracks you want to a new MKV file, without any recoding. You can also add in tracks, or re-order them.

Resizing the files by altering the tracks themselves would require recoding the file.
Smithcraft
Veteran User
Posts: 2697
Joined: Thu Jan 22, 2009 8:04 pm

Re: Deleting unwanted audio

Post by Smithcraft »

Deleting a track that is not needed can have a noticeable effect on the file size depending on what codec the stream is. If it's just an AC3 track the change in file size would be minimal, but if it's DTS-HD or TrueHD, then the change can be more substantial.

To answer what might be your next question - If you want to change an audio stream from the native codec to AAC, and not reprocess the video stream, Handbrake is not the tool for you.

SC
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