ATV 2.2: What you can and can't do with multiple soundtracks

[Berylium]

kiran_mk2,

I don't believe soft-subtitles are going to be available anytime soon, they're not even on the roadmap until version 0.10.0. The audio track naming should be coming to the GUI soon, however, now that it's available at the command line and that's something I'm looking forward to myself.

-Berylium

[kiran_mk2]

but it <em>is</em> on the roadmap.

[nightstrm]

By the time 1.0 is actually released, we'll all be long dead I think.

[rhester]

HandBrake isn't a commercial product. The roadmap is a WAG (Wild-Assed Guess). Personally, I don't expect to see soft subs ever (outside of MuXo, which has been abandoned, for shame) in HandBrake, since you have to either download or grossly inaccurately OCR the source content and hack it into an Apple-proprietary format to see it (otherwise, you can just use .srt files and you're done). This doth not a compelling feature case make.

Then again, I've been wrong before.

Rodney

[realityking]

Doesn't Apple uses MPEG4 TTXT? Hows that proprietary?

[rhester]

They most definitely do not use the ISO standard for TTXT, although they do use that field in maligned form. See the MuXo discussions for Apple's specific implementation (which is still not fully understood).

Rodney

[eddyg]

So what's the result on the ATV if you do name the tracks properly? Is there a solution that actually works with the main audio selecting AC3/AAC properly and allowing selection of additional AAC tracks?

1: AAC Main
2: AC3 Main
3: AAC Directors

And if so, what should track 1 and 2 be called (at present it is Stereo and Surround)?

Has anyone got this working, if so please share so that we can incorporate this properly into HB.

Cheers, Ed.

[kiran_mk2]

I've got it working in the Windows gui by setting the tracks as follows:

track 1: main AAC
track 2: main AC3 (optional)
track 3: commentary AAC

then I generate a query (ie show the command line that will be used) and add:

-A name1,name2,name3

for example

-A Surround,AC3,commentary

Note the lack of spaces, -A Surround,Director's comments will result in the tracks being called (Surround) and (Director's)

Now when the file plays on ATV it defaults to main AAC. Hold play/pause and go to the audio selection and you can select the track (if you pick the AC3 track, it will be the default next time you play the file)

[dynaflash]

Now when the file plays on ATV it defaults to main AAC. Hold play/pause and go to the audio selection and you can select the track (if you pick the AC3 track, it will be the default next time you play the file)

Right, thats the current behavior, but what I think eddyg as well as myself are wondering is how we can set it up so that the atv does its auto detect on the 1. aac and 2. ac3 tracks just like a normal 2 track atv audio encode. SO that you do not have to go into audio on the atv and manually select the ac3 track (not that its really a deal breaker, but would be nice if it worked the way it should).

[eddyg]

Now when the file plays on ATV it defaults to main AAC. Hold play/pause and go to the audio selection and you can select the track (if you pick the AC3 track, it will be the default next time you play the file)

Right, thats the current behavior, but what I think eddyg as well as myself are wondering is how we can set it up so that the atv does its auto detect on the 1. aac and 2. ac3 tracks just like a normal 2 track atv audio encode. SO that you do not have to go into audio on the atv and manually select the ac3 track (not that its really a deal breaker, but would be nice if it worked the way it should).

Exactly - it may need Apple to fix it. Since it appears that the file itself is correct. I wish one of the ATV engineers would provide some sort of feedback on this sort of thing...

In the meantime it would still be nice to be able to set audio track names in the guis


Cheers Ed

[dynaflash]

In the meantime it would still be nice to be able to set audio track names in the guis

Frankly I cannot say that I disagree, in fact I have a patch floating around here which does just that. However, I think that for the real estate it took up and the "corner case" which it served, it was decided not to go ahead with it at the time. Now, if the iPods would benefit, that may make it less of a corner case. Just my .02

[BucksSaddler]

Frankly I cannot say that I disagree, in fact I have a patch floating around here which does just that.

I keep that patch under lock and key and re-apply it everytime i do a fresh checkout of the SVN. It's great for the audio naming and in fact i have gone back and re-encoded all my DVD's (and now some of my Blu-Ray's) that have an additional commentary track.
But, like you say, until it's useful enough for other devices i think you may get more posts on these boards asking "what does the text box do after each audio track" type question than its worth.
Great stuff guys. Cheers.

[dynaflash]

Frankly I cannot say that I disagree, in fact I have a patch floating around here which does just that.

I keep that patch under lock and key and re-apply it everytime i do a fresh checkout of the SVN.

Cripes, I am surprised it even applies anymore. Glad its working for you.