Multiple audio tracks, but only one enabled

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bdfortin
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu May 17, 2007 5:39 am

Multiple audio tracks, but only one enabled

Post by bdfortin »

First of all, thanks for adding in support for multiple audio tracks, I love it. Before I used to have to rip the movie two or three times to get all the audio tracks, then throw them all together with Quicktime, but this is a lot better.

But there is one problem with it. When I rip my movies and TV shows with multiple audio tracks, all of them are enabled. This isn't much of a big deal if one audio track is the main one and the other is just director's commentary or something, but when you've got multiple languages being played back it kind of gets a little hectic. Since I watch my movies in Front Row via iTunes, there's no way to disable audio tracks, which becomes a bit of a problem. I can always open the movie in Quicktime, disable the audio track I don't want, and save it as a Quicktime movie, but then I've got two copies of the movie, one in an MP4 container and the other in an MOV container.

Instead of taking that long way around, could you guys try to make it so that the extra audio tracks can be disabled while ripping? or would that be too complicated? (the only programming I know is a tiny bit of C)
revoltage
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat May 26, 2007 7:00 pm

Multiple audio tracks, but only one enabled

Post by revoltage »

Since it's my first post, a big thank you to the gifted developers behind handbrake. The quicktime chapters, anamorph flag and the AppleTV profile really made my day!

Now that the Video side is perfect, i started to convert my dvd collection for AppleTV. But since i'm in europe all of my dvds contain the original, mostly english audio track and the dubbed track, in my case german.

Even though AppleTV doesn't support multiple audio tracks now, it would be great if i had the chance to include both audio tracks in the .m4v file, with only one being enabled. Since Quicktime offers the possiblilty of alternate audio tracks, also with language description, i really hope this can be included in one of the future releases of handbrake.

I just hope Apple will include the multiple audio track feature in AppleTV as soon as european istores offer movies, with hopefully the original and dubbed audio track. If not, a way to open an .m4v and switch the enabled audio track would work just as fine but of course not as comfortable.
revoltage
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat May 26, 2007 7:00 pm

Feedback from developers

Post by revoltage »

Any chance to get a comment on this from the developers?
eddyg
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Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2007 3:34 am

It is possible

Post by eddyg »

Hi,

I believe that this is possible. I did a little digging not knowing anything about MP4 and came up with this.

First I downloaded "Dumpster" from Apple which shows the MP4 atoms, I ran this over a file with two audio tracks.

Then I started looking up what the atoms actually mean. I looked in the ISO docs for the MP4 standard (ISO/IEC 14496-12:2004 & 15444-12:2004 available from http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink/ ... ndards.htm

I found that the moov.trak.tkhd.flags determines whether a track is enabled or disabled (0x1 is enabled 0x0 is disabled).

I tested this with "Dumpster", and indeed the audio tracks turn on and off.

So in theory it would be easy to modify Handbrakes muxmp4.c to set this flag according to some preset from the GUI or CLI.

I personally don't feel like doing this as it doesn't add any value to what I do - I always listen in the original language, and hardly ever listen to commentary.

But now that the atom has been located anyone else should find it trivial.

Cheers, Ed.
revoltage
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat May 26, 2007 7:00 pm

just wonderful!

Post by revoltage »

thats fantastic!!! Just tried dumpster and works just perfect. Thats a solution i can really live with - preserve both audio tracks in a quicktime compatible way and all there is to do to switch between the tracks is a fast edit with dumpster! Thank You, eddyg! Glad I just started to convert my dvd collection and not just finished doing so!
eddyg
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Re: just wonderful!

Post by eddyg »

revoltage wrote:thats fantastic!!! Just tried dumpster and works just perfect. Thats a solution i can really live with - preserve both audio tracks in a quicktime compatible way and all there is to do to switch between the tracks is a fast edit with dumpster! Thank You, eddyg! Glad I just started to convert my dvd collection and not just finished doing so!
No problem - if I get the time I may add support for this flag from the CLI. I'm a bit scared to go near the GUI :) But once the infra supports the flag someone more comfortable with the GUI can simply toggle it.

Cheers, Ed.
maurj
Enlightened
Posts: 148
Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2007 5:31 pm

Post by maurj »

Hi all,

This is indeed pretty easy to do, and it's the flag as described above. In fact, I very nearly implemented this when working on the audio in 0.8.5b1 (shortly after saintdev fixed multiple audio tracks).

The main reason I didn't is that the only player which allows you to subsequently turn tracks on and off is QuickTime Player. It's a real shame that iTunes, FrontRow and Apple TV don't have this feature, as it means you can't switch to a commentary track (for example) in the default Apple approach unless you're using QuickTime Player. That said, maybe 'enable track one, disable all others' would be a better default than 'enable all tracks'?

- maurj
cvk_b
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Post by cvk_b »

maurj wrote:…maybe 'enable track one, disable all others' would be a better default than 'enable all tracks'?

- maurj
Good idea. …and good to hear from you :wink:
realityking
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Post by realityking »

maurj wrote:H That said, maybe 'enable track one, disable all others' would be a better default than 'enable all tracks'?
That would exactly be what I want. This way I could usually listen to the English Track in FrontRow but I could still listen to the commentary or German Soundtrack if I want/need to.

BTW: Is it possible to have 3 or even 4 Tracks in an MP4? If so I'd love to see an option for it in Handbrake. :)
revoltage
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat May 26, 2007 7:00 pm

Chapers with multiple audio tracks.

Post by revoltage »

Please don't forget to add the chapter reference to the second audio track. So far it is only being set for the first audio track and i haven't found a way to store the "tref" atom (i think it rererences to the chapter track) after the encode. So when i switch to the second audio track by using dumpster, i loose the ability to use chapters. Once i switch back to the first audio track they are there again.

Thanks for all the work.
eddyg
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Posts: 798
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2007 3:34 am

Re: just wonderful!

Post by eddyg »

revoltage wrote:thats fantastic!!! Just tried dumpster and works just perfect. Thats a solution i can really live with - preserve both audio tracks in a quicktime compatible way and all there is to do to switch between the tracks is a fast edit with dumpster! Thank You, eddyg! Glad I just started to convert my dvd collection and not just finished doing so!
It's in the SVN 606. Thanks to jbrjake.

Disables all but the first audio track when more than one are selected.

Cheers, Ed.
bdfortin
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu May 17, 2007 5:39 am

Post by bdfortin »

maurj wrote:Maybe 'enable track one, disable all others' would be a better default than 'enable all tracks'?
That would work for me. I usually watch the movies in Quicktime afterward anyway, so it would only be a few clicks to get the commentary.
Konstantin Prinz
Posts: 32
Joined: Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:40 pm

Re: just wonderful!

Post by Konstantin Prinz »

eddyg wrote: It's in the SVN 606. Thanks to jbrjake.

Disables all but the first audio track when more than one are selected.

Cheers, Ed.
My day has been made!
Thanks guys. Exactly what I'm looking for. Usually I watch films in the original version, but I feel/felt bad dropping the German dubbed track just because appleTV doesn't support it.
bdfortin
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu May 17, 2007 5:39 am

Post by bdfortin »

Sorry to bring up an old topic, especially my own, but I figure it's better than starting a new one.

HandBrake 0.9.0 has the option for two audio tracks, with the second disabled (thanks), but while ripping my new Futurama DVD collection I noticed that some of the tracks have multiple commentaries on them.

Could you guys add in the option for a 3rd, maybe even a 4th audio track?

If it's possible, could you also add in the option for multiple video tracks? Some Futurama episodes also have animatics that still sync up with the same audio track(s). I guess it could also be used to work in multiple angles in some movies.
jbrjake
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Post by jbrjake »

bdfortin wrote: Could you guys add in the option for a 3rd, maybe even a 4th audio track?
Use the CLI....

HandBrake has always been capable of handling more than 2 audio tracks. In fact, it does up through 8 tracks. It's just not in the Mac graphical interface because there was never room for it until Audio got split off to its own tab.

Whether or not to add more to the GUI now is an exercise I'll leave to dynaflash...
bdfortin
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu May 17, 2007 5:39 am

Post by bdfortin »

I was thinking something more along the lines of adding the option to the GUI in a future release.

Not all of us know how, or want to learn how to use the CLI. :roll:
dynaflash
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Post by dynaflash »

jbrjake wrote:
bdfortin wrote: Could you guys add in the option for a 3rd, maybe even a 4th audio track?
Whether or not to add more to the GUI now is an exercise I'll leave to dynaflash...
Well, frankly there are currently bigger fish to fry tbh. I spose we can always put it on the todo list for down the road. But, be aware that I do not think it is on any dev's short term radar.
bdfortin
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Joined: Thu May 17, 2007 5:39 am

Post by bdfortin »

I'm fine with that. As long as I see it eventually.
dynaflash
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Post by dynaflash »

bdfortin wrote:I'm fine with that. As long as I see it eventually.
Gee, thanks.
bdfortin
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu May 17, 2007 5:39 am

Post by bdfortin »

Well, it's better to have it on the todo list than to just say "no," isn't it?
jbrjake
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Post by jbrjake »

Well, it's better to just say "Thanks for considering it" than to demand that you get what you want, isn't it?
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