Add 2.0 audio track without any video changes

[hilgert]

Apologies to those that are more savvy than me...I'm in the minority of those that understand all the ins/outs of Handbrake.

Over the years I've used HandBrake to rip my DVD and Blu-ray library to MKV files on a NAS server. I always kept the 5.1 audio since the WDLive boxes we used decoded it. What I should have done is to rip both the 5.1 and 2.0 audio tracks. I recently purchased a new TCL/Roku TV for a kids play room with the hope it could play my media (all those Disney DVDs and Blu-rays are now up in the attic), but I've found that it only plays those with 2 channel stereo. Video is just fine, only the audio needs to be 2 channels.

Here is my question. Is there a way to use HandBrake to take an existing MKV file with video and 5.1 audio, and re-process it to add an additional 5.1-to-2.0 audio track *without* changing *any* aspect of the video (quality, compression, etc.)? Or some other tool that would do the same? To be clear, I have *no need* to change the video on my existing library...just to add a 5.1-to-2.0 track (or just convert the 5.1 to 2 channel audio).

[Deleted User 13735]

That's a job for your hardware player; often, the sole 5.1 DD track is flagged for down mix and looks like stereo to non-surround players. A discrete stereo track is often not needed.

Kindly post your logs if you want specific guidance. They are required.

[mduell]

No, you want a muxer that does audio encoding.

I think Subler does that.

[hilgert]

musicvid, mduell - thanks for the responses.

mduell, I looked at Subler...from what I saw it was not clear to me that it does audio [re]encoding. I may download and try it. But it looks to me that it is really geared toward subtitling capabilities. Have you used it before...do you think it will address my problem?

musicvid, my issue is that my Roku stick does not down mix...if it did I'd be okay. My original question was if I could use HandBrake to re-run my mkv files (that I've *already* gotten the video quality where I want it) and just encode an additional stereo track (from the 5.1 track) *without* reworking the video. Thus far I've not been able to find a way to tell HandBrake "don't change the video...just add an audio track". I was able to reprocess an mkv file with video, 5.1 audio and add an additional stereo track, but it changed the video as well. With the amount of movies I have it will be very cumbersome to tweak settings for each movie.

[Deleted User 13735]

No Handbrake won't mux a new track to an existing file.
Ffmpeg will do it but I can't tell you the correct commands.

Thanks for the heads up about roku. My first gen wdtv live rarely complains.

[hilgert]

No Handbrake won't mux a new track to an existing file.
Ffmpeg will do it but I can't tell you the correct commands.

Thanks for the heads up about roku. My first gen wdtv live rarely complains.

Yes, the WDTV boxes are the best...it was a sad day when they stopped making them. I have three now (two at home and one in the motorhome). However, the Roku TVs do have built-in DLNA clients, and can decode pretty much anything except DTS.

I found MKVTools, which is *awesome* and does exactly what I want...remuxing DTS (or anything) to 5.1 (or 2.0, or whatever) without touching the video quality. I'm using it now in queue mode to rip out DTS tracks to 5.1, and also to convert some AVIs (which the Rokus really don't like at all) to MKV. They have other tools for other formats as well (* to MP4 or * to AVI)

[BradleyS]

See also MKVToolNix.

[hilgert]

See also MKVToolNix.

I've had MKVToolNix for a long time...it won't reencode audio from DTS to 5.1 (or anything).

MKVTools is awesome...I queued up a bunch of media last night and this morning it was all converted/remuxed.

[BradleyS]

Great, glad to hear you found a solution.