Bilingual audio

henry-s wrote on 9/10/2019, 1:00 PM

Hello, just getting started with my first projects. Thanks again for the help with getting the right connection. Here's my next problem. The videocassette I want to digitalize is a movie that was shown in bilingual sound (German dub on one channel, English original on the other). I have made a video grab, and the two channels seem to be mixed. How can I separate them? I only need to burn the English original onto a DVD.

I'm using Video Easy HD 5, running on an HP Pavilion desktop running Windows 10.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Henry

Comments

emmrecs wrote on 9/10/2019, 4:21 PM

@henry-s

This is purely a guess on my part... but I suspect that the audio of this film actually has the two languages on separate audio tracks, which have transferred to your computer as the two "sides" of a stereo audio track. e.g. the German version might be on the "left" channel and the English version on the "right". In which case, you need to remove or mute the channel that is in German and then convert the remaining English audio to mono (so that it plays from both speakers of a stereo system). I don't have Video Easy so can't tell you exactly how to do this but hopefully the installed Help file will give you some ideas.

Just as an aside: do be aware that the digitising of a commercially-released video tape could be viewed as a copyright infringement by the original producer.

Jeff

henry-s wrote on 9/11/2019, 4:23 AM

@emmrecs. Thank you for joining in, Jeff. It's my understanding as well that the tape recorder put the languages on separate audio tracks, each mono. Your proposed solution -- muting one channel -- is exactly what I would try to do, but can't figure out how. I've looked through the user's manual and the installed Help file (which seems to be the same manual) and can't find a way to do it in Video Easy. I've also looked through all the menus and right-clicked various on-screen objects (including the audio line) but I'm stymied. Hoping that there is a way to do it in Video Easy and that someone can tell me how.

Your point on commercially-released videotape is well-taken. In this case, however, it's a film I recorded from a televised broadcast. Those who know about such things assure me this is legal in the country I live in, as long as it's for my private use. I've also checked, and the film in question has never been released on a commercial VC or DVD, which is why I'm trying to save it before the VC technology becomes totally obsolete.

Henry

johnebaker wrote on 9/11/2019, 5:08 AM

@henry-s

. . . . The videocassette I want to digitalize is a movie that was shown in bilingual sound (German dub on one channel, English original on the other). I have made a video grab, and the two channels seem to be mixed . . . . muting one channel . . . . can't find a way to do it in Video Easy . . . .

Video Easy does not have the feature needed to do this, nor will it allow you to create bi-lingual DVD or Blu-Ray disc.

If your intention is to create a bi-lingual disc, then you would need to either:

use Video Pro X - the most direct approach as this is feature is supported internally.

use Movie Edit Pro to separate the 2 audio channels and export them as 2 audio files and export the video without sound then use DVD Architect to create the bilingual disc from the video and audio files.

HTH

John EB

henry-s wrote on 9/11/2019, 6:55 AM

@johnebaker, thank you for joining in. I suspected as much. Disappointing of course, but not unusual for SE software that comes bundled with a product. The next time the upgrade screen pops up I'll click on it to see what the upgrade would set me back. Meanwhile, I'll try a couple of simpler projects to see if I want to continue with the combination Terratec G3 and Video Easy or if I want to switch to another device.

Meanwhile, I'll try just capturing the two tracks of audio with another program to see if the two languages are really separate. I no longer have the machine I used to tape the movie (nearly 30 years ago), so I'm wondering if it's possible that the head alignment on the machine I'm using is just different enough to mix them.

Henry

johnebaker wrote on 9/11/2019, 12:54 PM

@henry-s

. . . . if I want to continue with the combination Terratec G3 and Video Easy or if I want to switch to another device . . . .

If you switch to Movie Edit Pro or Video Pro X you can still use the Terratec to capture from tape, audio is captured in stereo format .

. . . . . so I'm wondering if it's possible that the head alignment on the machine I'm using is just different enough to mix them. . . . . .

The alignment would have to be so far out that the tape would be unplayable - assuming the tape is VHS then the audio is recorded linearly along the edge of the tape whereas the video is recorded helically.

HTH

John EB

henry-s wrote on 9/11/2019, 1:04 PM

@johnebaker, thank you! I see the upgrade price is reasonable, so it's definitely an option.

You were right about the head alignment. I captured the audio track with Adobe Audition, and there is a clean track separation. Just finished dubbing it into my project. On the sixth try, I got it synched perfectly.

Henry