@murrayatuptown

Just to add one thing to what @johnebaker has told you.

I note you wrote:

discarding the audio, and using separate PCM recorded audio and I could never regain audio/video synch. Lesson learned: never separate the audio & video produced in one device, and I'll never risk that problem

There is third-party software that will enable you to avoid this problem but Magix Movie Studio includes a facility to "Align audio objects" to a given audio track. So you would set the original camera audio as the "source" audio track and, with the PCM audio on a parallel track, MMS would "align" its output to match the camera audio. You can then "mute" the original camera audio and only use your PCM audio for the final output, with video and audio in sync.

Jeff
Forum Moderator

MP4 Box supports cutting a long AAC video into file segments without re-encoding, eliminating quality loss. MP4 Box can also 'mux' in remixed or restored audio without re-encoding the picture. Naturally, if the audio timeline is edited, audio will be out of sync with the picture. There are other free (and otherwise) applications that can do these functions as well.

btw, muxing with Sound Forge was only possible with Audio Studio 12 which was a unique build (pros and cons).  All other versions require A/V streams to be re-encoded if they are changed. SFAS-12 was also the first Magix version of Sound Forge. SF Pro and subsequent versions of AS retained the basic legacy architecture and UI.

Thank you all for the time machine experience.

I vaguely remember using MP4BOX, YAMB, and who knows what else before being referred to SoundForge. I also remembered today, and see in my history, I actually date back to SF 10, and found the box and disc in the basement.

...and today I remember rraud has helped me previously.

So, looking at the mid-range video products from Magix, I see a head-spinning number of options from 'plain' to Suite to Platinum with only USD10 price increments.

Or do I reinstall SF10 under a Windows XP virtual machine I set up to use XP-era programs a few times at most? I did some online upgrades so I have no idea which generation I installed incrementally. I have SF15 under W7.

I'll think about it tomorrow. This feels like a reboot in my head is oncoming. I have other fires to put out, like running out of SSD space, and an NVMe drive addition insides on being the boot device.

Almost makes me want to back to film...no, actually, just trying to be humorous.

INSISTS on being the boot device

@murrayatuptown

Hi

Do you mean the computer is trying to boot from a disc?

If so, and there is a disc in the CD?DVD drive, remove it, once the computer has booted, then use the disc.

Otherwise, what insists on being the boot drive - a screenshot would help.

John EB

Sound Forge 10 works well in Win 10, so I would assume the same for Win 7. The latest and final version of SFP-10 is build 507, which can be downloaded from the Magix Service Center> 'My Products' or 'Download Center'. It can also be downloaded from the Sony archives. Your (valid) serial code should work for online activation through Magix. If you install SF-10 from an original disc, the activation path is through Sony, which will not work.

For video editing applications, see Magix Video Editing - With The Right Software & Helpful Tips to find a suitable NLE.
Vegas Pro is a good option as well, See the Vegas comparisons page. Most include the latest version of Sound Forge Audio Studio.

Thank you, John.

Not s physical disc, but the BIOS seems to default to the new NVMe SSD as boot device regardless of BIOS settings, but that newly-added device has no boot record, etc. yet. For now, if I disable M.2 SSD 'support' in BIOS, NVMe is no longer the boot device and the SATA SSD that was previously the only drive boots normally. With M.2 SSD support checked, the boot order settings are ignored.

I may have to install an OS via USB image.

Should have been a simpler headache, but that's Murray's Law.

Back to Magic...the features in the array of video software under USD100 are not even familiar to me.

For my current 'emergency', I only need audio treatment, no video trimming, and no video remuxing/compression.

In the future, bare minimum of capability I 'need' would be

1) Trimming sections of video with satisfactory audio.

2) Enhancing audio of above, trimmed before or after per software 'rules'.

3) Remux V&A back together if it is actually the standard practice to detach video, process audio & reattach.

4) MAYBE compress video for lower bandwidth if some platform needs that. Avoiding seems like the safest path based on my results with phone video. I figured out the MP4 phone video has >42 MBps video and >40 kbps audio (I can't remember if it was 44.1 or 48). I am not sure if it comes out as H.264 or I just have chosen that in prior attempts.

Can you please clarify whether any of the lesser Magic products can do these functions, or what my next learning curve needs to be to understand newer software? Oh, I might have to identify what my laptop hardware is.

I am awaiting the Magic package delivery with dongle video capture device for a VHS tape project. My older dongle capture devices were all obsolete!

Thank you

I just reinstalled SF 10, I think build 319, from 'my products' download.

It cannot open .MP4 video because of something QuickTime-related. The off-site Quicktime link (7.7.9?) downloaded & opened OK, with a lot of disclaimers about it not being supported any longer.

Abandon this idea, or is there a way to deal with this?

Thank you

@murrayatuptown

Hi

. . . . It cannot open .MP4 video because of something QuickTime-related . . .

Download and install MediaInfo and analyse one of the clips causing the issue and post the results, see this tutorial on how to setup MediaInfo and analyse a video clip for all the data required.

I have QuickTime 7.7.9 installed with no issues - install only the recommended items except the player, this is not necessary.

John EB

How much detail to post? The basic screen?

Here, "Sheet" seems pretty condensed. HTML seemed to have more, if needed.Complete name                            : D:\Part1.MP4
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID                                 : mp42 (isom/mp42)
File size                                : 1.88 GiB
Duration                                 : 6 min 23 s
Overall bit rate                         : 42.1 Mb/s
Frame rate                               : 30.000 FPS
Encoded date                             : 2024-02-24 20:10:25 UTC
Tagged date                              : 2024-02-24 20:10:25 UTC
com.android.version                      : 10
com.android.manufacturer                 : Google
com.android.model                        : Pixel

When I installed SoundForge 10 from 'My Products', a couple accessory plugins balked (which seemed familiar), but completed later in the sequence (like accessed from another source). I aborted Music Maker install because it offered to overwrite another version (I didn't need either for this effort, anyway).

SF 10 opened, but never asked for my s/n. I will repeat the attempt to capture the error. I think it was pretty vague, like 'cannot open file'.

Well, today, I opened TWO of my MP4 files with no trouble at all. Maybe I tried to proceed before the file was done loading, but that seems unlikely. Maybe they just didn't work on Mondays.

Perhaps some of my video 'overcompression' results from saving a video with processed audio as Fraunhofer AAC .MP4, a naive choice. I think that is intended for audio but I chose it for having the same format (container?).

I don't remember what happened when I tried saving as QT .MOV, again with the desperate hope of saving a video file with improved audio.

Since I am not trimming the video on most of these, maybe it would make sense to detach the video, process the audio, then maybe SAVE the audio in the same format as the original audio format the video contained, then reattach the video. But if I have to save it again, my error or misunderstanding was based on wanting the video to be saved uncompressed, still in MP4 form.

If the problems I was having were all 'operator error', then SF15 might work also (with proper usage).
 

@murrayatuptown

Hi

. . . . How much detail to post? . . . .

Did you follow the tutorial video?

As per the tutorial video, Text view - all of it.

John EB

I detached video, performed some steps to increase very low speech audio and somewhat low music levels (Process; Normalize speech and audio sections separately to a level I found helpful), then 'treat' general noise and reverberation that reduce intelligibility of speech Tools; Audio Restoration, increasing noise reduction and attack time), then save audio (only, having detached video) as Fraunhofer AAC MP4 because it's same format as in original phone video. The original 96/48 kHz is not a save option. The highest is 44.1 kHz (excuse any unit/dimension error as I'm relying on memory afterward). I don't think this affects A/V synch and it's not CD quality to begin with. I save the processed video with a modified file name to distinguish it from the original.

Re-attaching the video causes me some confusion. I don't know where the video went while it was detached, nor so I don't know what to reattach, and from where. In the 'working directory' I had the unedited file copies placed, there are two .mp4 files, the original file name and the edited audio-only .mp4 altered filename.

I think I have a less screwed up workflow today than before, but obviously don't understand all the steps I read in the instructions.

Thanks for the patience and help.

Murray

JEB, I am past the MediaInfo and file opening issue. Not sure why, but since I can open and edit, the previous paragraph about the video reattachment is where I am slightly hung up now. Where is the video to be reattached called from?

@murrayatuptown

Hi

. . . . the previous paragraph about the video reattachment is where I am slightly hung up now. Where is the video to be reattached called from . . . .

This is a multi step process -

1. Create a copy of the original video file and, by whatever means you have available, remove the audio stream so you have a video only file - note where you save this, and change its name so you do not overwrite the original.
    
2. In SFP, process the audio stream in the original video file and detach the video.
    
3. Attach the copy, video only, file within SFP.

John EB

OK..guilty of tunnelvision...I saw detach video dropdown that toggles to reattach video later.

It didn't occur to be how to 'remove' audio because was looking for a menu item.

I guess I just highlight & cut/delete the audio in the waveform window with an 'intact' copy of an MP4 file, and save the no-audio video (without compression, hopefully). Then in a 2nd copy, detach video, process audio and save that as audio. Reattach video copy into the audio-only copy. Save it (if it's that easy).

Can I save the video uncompressed in either SF10 or SF15, or is that a step I need a different tool for (like one of the newer Magix video products, or some kind of NLE)? Like the MP4BOX mentioned?

Thank you. Vegas seems like a huge leap upward for something I do once a year or two years.

Murray

I think 'MeGUI' is about the easiest to mux in a replacement audio track to a AAC (MP4) video, Save your remixed (or restored) sound track as a AAC audio file with a <.mp4> or <.m4a> extension (preferably with a 48k sample rate). Open 'MeGUI' and select 'Tools> Muxer> MP4' Select your video input and your audio input (files)... Select 'Queue' which will be create a new MP4 file, appended with "Muxed",
Neither the video or audio are re-encoded avoiding quality loss.
Allegedly, Nero AAC or ffMPEG are the best sounding encoders, but my old/abused ears cannot hear any difference from Sound Forge's Sony or MainConcept encoders.

Thank you. (Hey, pretty short answer from me...)

I had other 'fires' to put out. Added NVMe drive that insisted on being boot drive. Had to reinstall Windows 10 3x to get GPT state to allow full drive capacity. and reinstall a lot of things. Now I have space. For a while... Magix Video Saver arrived for a VHS project. Picking up a VCR (!) shortly.

Back to my MP4 audio processing:

I can detach video, process audio and save audio-only .mp4 with a different name.

I am puzzling over how to remove audio in a simple manner to have a video-only portion. Deleting the audio in the waveform windows also deletes the video. I could process the audio down to the noise floor but that might take several steps. Is there way in SF15 or 10 to do that?

An earlier instruction was to re-mux the audio & video together with a different tool (for the scenario of trimming video length?). Maybe I'm dense, but if I don't trim anything, I thought I could use the reattach video tool in SF.

Or do I need to de-mux as one step then re-mux as another? I think I was not doing all the steps separately previously, and it looks like I can try again with SF to see if more organization gives me better results before I pursue new video software.

Thank you

Saving as .MOV in SF15 as the only output format that 'looks' like a 'modern' video (sorry, format or container; don't know proper term) prompts that Quicktime is missing. Link to install QT v. 7.7.9 fails on its own criteria because something is missing from a CAB file. So that sounds like the no-longer-supported 7.7.9 has a problem. I don't think Apple leaves older version alive. I tried installing QT 7.7.9 from a Softonic site with same failed installation.

I saved an audio-only file in VLC, but can't figure out how to save video-only there (which SF can do).

I was able to save video in SF 15 as MPG, which seems dated, but it allowed saving video bit rate as high as 15 Mbps. I got a QT error trying to reattach a video-only file to an audio-only file in SF 15.

So it looks like the suggestion to remux elsewhere is the way... I'll try again. Sometimes it takes me three attempts.