Thrifty's All New Comprehensive Rifftrax Reauthoring Guide (with visual aids!)

[Thrifty]

So obviously there's a stickied thread on reauthoring here.  I thought about putting this in there, but decided since I put a lot of work in to crafting this guide, I'd introduce it separately.

SecretAgentSuperDragon's guide is a great guide.  It's what I used to get in to reauthoring.  But I thought that the straight text could be hard to follow for novices.  I've cooked up this guide, with plenty of visual aids and a lot of exposition.  Probably too much.  I tried to be thorough, but I might have overwhelmed the reader with too much information.

Anyway, here's the guide, with plenty of visual aids and links.  It's in PDF.

Thrifty's Reauthoring Guide for Beginners.

Here's a guide, written by Tralfamadorian, for Mac users.

EDITED TO ADD: Someone who's not around much wrote a decent guide on using the auto ducking feature in Audacity 1.3.  Auto ducking basically reduces the volume of the movie audio whenever a riff comes up, so that the louder parts of a movie won't drown out the riff.  Auto ducking adds a significant amount of processing time to a reauthor; about 2/3 of the movie's run time.

The guide can be viewed here.

EDITED TO ADD: This guide will ONLY create DVDs without menus.  I did it this way because a menu-less DVD can be done with only free software.  If you want menus, you'll need to plunk down $250 for DVD Lab Pro, and follow the guide I wrote on that.

EDITED TO ADD:  An increasing number of DVDs are coming out with advanced copy protection.  Some of these include Twilight, The Dark Knight, Twilight: New Moon, Casino Royale, Tranformers Revenge of the Fallen, and Star Trek (2009).  Many people have recommended purchasing AnyDVD.  The cost for a lifetime license is roughly $86.00.  I say "roughly" because the price is listed as 64 Euros, so the U.S. price is subject to exchange rates.  Also, if there's a sale going on, it'll be less.

There are some ways to get around this without springing for AnyDVD, but it looks like that's becoming the new standard.  Here are some of the more troublesome movies, with links to discussions on reauthoring difficulties.  If anyone knows of any I left out, let me know.

Star Trek (2009)
The Matrix Revolutions
Transformers Revenge of the Fallen
Twilight
Twilight: New Moon
The Dark Knight
Casino Royale
Dark Water

EDITED TO ADD: In this post later in the thread, Misty has put in a recommendation for DVD 43 as a free alternative to AnyDVD, for help ripping those hard to rip DVDs.  I haven't used it, but it's worth a try if you're having trouble.

EDITED TO ADD: See earlier in the post, where I added a link to a guide for reauthoring for Mac users.

[Tripe]

Very nice, might as well add it to the threads stickyed.

[Thrifty]

Aw shucks.  I'm honored.  I've never done something worthy of a sticky before.

If anyone wants to give it a read and make suggestions for revisions, your feedback is most welcome. 

[spaceforarent]

I got a different route that I think is a bit less complicated for syncing the two audio tracks. First, I silence the entire introduction to the riff. Then, using the readme file, I find the time difference between the sync lines of the riff and dvd. I usually cut about a second or two less than that difference from the silence created after silencing the intro. After that it's just a matter of finding the first sync line and cutting small portions off until I get it perfectly synced. And if I cut too much from the beginning, I just click "undo cut" and try again with a smaller bit.

Do you use any kind of voice-overs in your dvds? I'm wondering how well the auto-duck in Audacity works.

[RVR II]

Well, I do mine More Complicated cause I Like It Like That

[D.B. Barnes]

I'm wondering how well the auto-duck in Audacity works.

Works just fine for me.

[Thrifty]

I got a different route that I think is a bit less complicated for syncing the two audio tracks. First, I silence the entire introduction to the riff. Then, using the readme file, I find the time difference between the sync lines of the riff and dvd. I usually cut about a second or two less than that difference from the silence created after silencing the intro. After that it's just a matter of finding the first sync line and cutting small portions off until I get it perfectly synced. And if I cut too much from the beginning, I just click "undo cut" and try again with a smaller bit.

Do you use any kind of voice-overs in your dvds? I'm wondering how well the auto-duck in Audacity works.

I tried doing it that way once.  I wasn't even close.  I'm no good at subtracting times.  I figured it was just easier to go off the cues in the introduction which basically tell you how much completely silent unriffed audio you need at the beginning.

I did start using autoducking about 6 months ago.  That's not included in the guide, since I see that as advanced reauthoring.  I always level out the movie's audio so that it's mostly uniform throughout, then autoduck.  The autoduck works, but it takes a while.  The run time is about 60% of the run time of the movie itself.  It's definitely worth it, in my opinion.

[deadking13]

this is my first attempt at reauthoring a dvd with rifftrax.  i have followed the steps in the guide pretty much exactly.  i created the MPEG and got the rifftrax all synched up with the original audio file and am trying to re-author it with rejig.  i loaded up the video and audio files (origninal track and riffed track) and push the create button and it goes through the "multiplexing" task then when that completes it just stops and does nothing.  it creates the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders but there's nothing in them.  when i try to hit create again it just turns off.  i've follwed the instructions pretty much to a T and keep hitting this wall.  don't think it matters, but the DVD i'm trying to re-author is "The Happening".  what am i doing wrong?  i can't get the rejig program to reauthor it. 

[Thrifty]

this is my first attempt at reauthoring a dvd with rifftrax.  i have followed the steps in the guide pretty much exactly.  i created the MPEG and got the rifftrax all synched up with the original audio file and am trying to re-author it with rejig.  i loaded up the video and audio files (origninal track and riffed track) and push the create button and it goes through the "multiplexing" task then when that completes it just stops and does nothing.  it creates the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders but there's nothing in them.  when i try to hit create again it just turns off.  i've follwed the instructions pretty much to a T and keep hitting this wall.  don't think it matters, but the DVD i'm trying to re-author is "The Happening".  what am i doing wrong?  i can't get the rejig program to reauthor it. 

The AUDIO_TS folder will always be empty, so that's normal.

Your VIDEO_TS folder is empty too?  To you have a file called "Mux" in your project folder?

When going through the process of final reauthor (after you've hit Create), it should say "Multiplexing" for a while, then say "Create DVD Files".  Do you ever see "Create DVD Files"?

If Rejig fails to create the DVD files, and you need to try again, you have to close the program and restart it.

[deadking13]

when i pressed "create" it took a minute or so and showed a progress bar... i did see a file called "Mux" in my folder.  after the progress bar has finished, i see something that looks like it says "creating dvd files" or something for about half a second and then it just stops and nothing has happened, the "mux" file is gone and there are "audio_ts" folder and my "video_ts" folder has a few BUP and IFO files but the total size of the whole folder is about 128 kb.  nothing happens and the rejig program just sits there.  if i try to press create again, it all shuts off and nothing happens. 

[Thrifty]

when i pressed "create" it took a minute or so and showed a progress bar... i did see a file called "Mux" in my folder.  after the progress bar has finished, i see something that looks like it says "creating dvd files" or something for about half a second and then it just stops and nothing has happened, the "mux" file is gone and there are "audio_ts" folder and my "video_ts" folder has a few BUP and IFO files but the total size of the whole folder is about 128 kb.  nothing happens and the rejig program just sits there.  if i try to press create again, it all shuts off and nothing happens. 

Hmm.  Did you use ChapterXtractor and make chapter stops?

[deadking13]

i did indeed....   i tried doing authoring again without the chapter stops, i tried doing it without the original audio track and no matter what i try, it still does the same thing... after muxing it just stops and the "video_ts" folder has a few files that don't even add up to a MB.

[Thrifty]

i did indeed....   i tried doing authoring again without the chapter stops, i tried doing it without the original audio track and no matter what i try, it still does the same thing... after muxing it just stops and the "video_ts" folder has a few files that don't even add up to a MB.

I've run in to what you're describing before with Dark Water and X2.  I don't know why.  The Happening didn't give me any trouble.

You could try IFO Edit.  The DVD Author tool has an interface similar to Rejig's.

[deadking13]

not sure what was going on, but i started another movie (iron man) and that one did fine with rejig.  it made the dvd files fine.  i haven't burned it to a disc yet, but i looked at it in dvdshrink and it looks fine.

[deadking13]

thanks again for your very useful guide.  i have a question.  what exactly is the point of taking the AC3 audio and making it into WAV format?  i've now done the reauthoring a few times without doing this and i can't seem to see any reason for doing so.  but i was wondering if there was a specific purpose for it or doing so avoids issues in the future.