Poll: Do you Re-Author your RiffTrax?

[kingdaddy]

I wish someone could or would post a tutorial of how to re-author a DVD and overlay the audio track using simple freeware tools.  I have all the typical re-authoring tools and downloaded a program that is supposed to let you voice over but I couldn't figure out how to open up the DVD audio track or even find it after ripping with DVD Decryptor.

[BathTub]

That is the point of the step by step thread.

[gammer]

Kingdaddy,

The truth of it is that there is no "easy", push 1 button method...I wish there was!
Some of the methods described in the Tech Support section use Freeware tools. But if your looking for a 1 program 'does all', you're not going to find it.

As for right now, you will need several tools and allot of patience to make a re-authored DVD.

There is allot of expertise in this forum, so feel free to ask questions so we can help.

[BathTub]

yeah gammer knows where it's at.

http://www.rifftrax.com/smf/index.php?topic=413.0 is the big thread.

[kingdaddy]

Kingdaddy,

The truth of it is that there is no "easy", push 1 button method...I wish there was!
Some of the methods described in the Tech Support section use Freeware tools. But if your looking for a 1 program 'does all', you're not going to find it.

As for right now, you will need several tools and allot of patience to make a re-authored DVD.

There is allot of expertise in this forum, so feel free to ask questions so we can help.

I know this, as I said I am already familiar with ripping and making backup DVDs and the difficulty in this.  The problems start when trying to demux the audio from the picture and identify this audio track and then finding the proper tools to do the voice overlay.  I was just hoping out loud that someone was using common freeware to do all of this and has or would post a step by step procedure as to how and what is specifically needed.

This cant be as hard as trying to rip  and separate a DTS audio track from a concert DVD and store it on your computer for playback and I have seen step by directions for this, although it still didn't work for me.

[PJD]

I re-author for the convienece of re-viewing and bringing them over to my buddys places for get togethers.

I rip with DVD Shrink
Then I open the ripped file with Nero.

QUESTION FOR NERO USERS:What is the correct way to open the ripped files? It says they can be opened as a single file or something and then I end up cutting out tons of trailer and preview crap but either way I open it it seems to take fucking forever to load into Nero, is this normal with a Pentium 4 3GHz CPU and 512 Mb of RAM? I had a proiblem ripping Top Gun, thje scenes seemed out of order and I have no idea what happened.

I then add the RiffTrax using the add second soundtrack/audio feature.
The hardest part is getting the audio levels even. Anybody else having this problem on Nero? What are you guys using to fix this? I can't figure out how to get just the audio form the movie into Soundforge ort Adobe Audition or anyting else.

I then burn the disk.

I then watch all the time.

I'd love some ideas on how to smooth out the proccess a little. The openeing and levels are the problem for me right now.

[Minnesota]

hmm that actualy sounds simple ^^ I might finally take the plunge with this nero program... sounds like all you do is click the add audio button and then your done (I use shrink, dvd decrypter for burning already)

well might try re-authoring, I'm pretty lazy

[gammer]

The openeing and levels are the problem for me right now.

As far as I can tell, the only thing that is available to adjust audio levels properly is the Gold Wave Voice Over plugin. But of course, you have to use it with GoldWave. Basically this plugin turns down the movie volume whenever a riffer says his line.

There is a topic on this in the Tech Support section.

[Nunyerbiz]

Personally, I don't like the voice over plugin. It takes a little longer, but I usually can find a happy medium between the movie levels and the rifftrax level where they can both co-exist without the movie just being faded out. I don't know why, but the voice over plugin just strikes me as too obtrusive. I guess it's a carry-over from my MST watching days, but they never just dropped the movie volume whenever they said a line... so it bothers me in Rifftrax.

[gammer]

Personally, I don't like the voice over plugin. It takes a little longer, but I usually can find a happy medium between the movie levels and the rifftrax level where they can both co-exist without the movie just being faded out. I don't know why, but the voice over plugin just strikes me as too obtrusive. I guess it's a carry-over from my MST watching days, but they never just dropped the movie volume whenever they said a line... so it bothers me in Rifftrax as well.

I've also noticed that allot of the MST movies were originally in Mono and the audio levels were much more even. However there was a few times when I noticed that the MST movie audio was turned down so you can here M+TB's riffing.

I guess its all personal taste. I do prefer not using the Voice Over plug in. And I will not use it if possible, however I just found certain movies needed to have it to hear all the riffs. More so with the latest RiffTrax as apposed to some of the first ones.

I find that with the ones where I can get a happy medium, that it sounds like Mike and guest are shouting at you when its a quiet scene.

[Nunyerbiz]

Yea.. I can see that being the case at least in TPM and Matrix, where they did ALOT of talking over the movie with no regards to the movie dialogue itself. (Something that I'm never a huge fan of, that's not to say it's funny or not funny... just not my preference). Most of my own author jobs I was able to pull it off to my satisfaction. If the rifftrax comes across as a little loud in parts, I find that preferrable to the plug-in, which can be a little jarring when it kicks in. I like Mike and/or friends to be at the front of the mix just loud enough to where you never miss a riff. If I have to go back and re-tweak the levels a little more and re-author... it's only time and some loose change wasted on a DVD.

[PJD]

I think a lot of the audio problems come from the fact that different movies have different levels and aren't mixed as well and the newerr stuff is mixed for 5.1 so when you have it on a single channel it's all over the place. My experience has been Halloween had a low signal level and The Matrix was all over the place. If I could figure out how to isolate the audio from the movie and get it into Sound Forge or Adobe Audition I could compress it (limit the dynamic range) so the rifftrax would be more easily blended.

Anybody have sugestions for this?

[gammer]

I think a lot of the audio problems come from the fact that different movies have different levels and aren't mixed as well and the newerr stuff is mixed for 5.1 so when you have it on a single channel it's all over the place. My experience has been Halloween had a low signal level and The Matrix was all over the place. If I could figure out how to isolate the audio from the movie and get it into Sound Forge or Adobe Audition I could compress it (limit the dynamic range) so the rifftrax would be more easily blended.

Anybody have sugestions for this?

When you say 'isolate', I assume you mean: get the AC3 file by itself?
If so, then allot of us are using DVD Decrypter to demux the M2V and AC3 file off the DVD. From this point, allot of us are dropping the audio into either GoldWave or Audacity for mixing/editing.

There is a tool in GoldWave that will lower the volume when it goes above a certain db (that you specify). I tried to use it, but it didn't sound good to me and it was very abrupt. Thats why I switched to the GoldWave Voice Over plugin, where you can control the smoothness of the vol being turned up and down and by how much.

[SecretAgentSuperDragon]

When I overlay the rifftrax onto the audio in audacity, I just scan through the movie audio quickly and see which parts have giant audio increases (action parts). I did this in Reign of Fire, just scanned through the audio till I saw a loud part that would probably drown out the riffs, highlight the loud part, click amplify under the Effect tab, and bring the decibel level at -3.0 or -4.0 db, and see how that works. If it still needs to be lowered, I just hit amplify again(ctrl r). That's worked great for all of mine.

[PJD]

I think a lot of the audio problems come from the fact that different movies have different levels and aren't mixed as well and the newerr stuff is mixed for 5.1 so when you have it on a single channel it's all over the place. My experience has been Halloween had a low signal level and The Matrix was all over the place. If I could figure out how to isolate the audio from the movie and get it into Sound Forge or Adobe Audition I could compress it (limit the dynamic range) so the rifftrax would be more easily blended.

Anybody have sugestions for this?

When you say 'isolate', I assume you mean: get the AC3 file by itself?
If so, then allot of us are using DVD Decrypter to demux the M2V and AC3 file off the DVD. From this point, allot of us are dropping the audio into either GoldWave or Audacity for mixing/editing.

There is a tool in GoldWave that will lower the volume when it goes above a certain db (that you specify). I tried to use it, but it didn't sound good to me and it was very abrupt. Thats why I switched to the GoldWave Voice Over plugin, where you can control the smoothness of the vol being turned up and down and by how much.

See, thats the problem. I don't even know what file format I should be looking for to open up in an audio editor. I have several audio editing programs with excellent compression, BUT I cant figure out what file format I am looking for and where to find it after using DVD DeCryptor.
Is it what you said above, AC3?