Editing audio from a VCD

[ShreemadBhagavatam]

I have a VCD and I would like to see how I can use Audacity to "remove noise". I just can't open the VCD. I tried importing raw file, but it didn't work. I shall great appreciate your able assistance.

Thanks.

[Gale Andrews]

I have a VCD and I would like to see how I can use Audacity to "remove noise". I just can't open the VCD. I tried importing raw file, but it didn't work.

Make sure you are using the current 1.3.12 Beta (Help > About Audacity). If not, download 1.3.12 from our download page. Then install FFmpeg and drag the .mpg or .mpeg files off the video CD into the Audacity window.


Gale

[ShreemadBhagavatam]

Thanks Gale. Yes, I'm running 1.3.12 beta. The VCD file is having .DAT extension, not .mpg nor .mpeg. Do I need to first convert .DAT to .MPG/.MPEG? If so, is there any recommendation on which tool to use?

Thanks.

[Gale Andrews]

I'm running 1.3.12 beta. The VCD file is having .DAT extension, not .mpg nor .mpeg. Do I need to first convert .DAT to .MPG/.MPEG? If so, is there any recommendation on which tool to use?

OK, if it's a commercial VCD, yes the files will have .dat extension. To be honest, I don't think anyone has asked this before. So you'll have to experiment. Install FFmpeg if you haven't already. It looks from the code as if Audacity will reject the .dat extension, so try renaming the file to .mpg extension. Let us know if that is sufficient. If not you can use an ISO Extraction tool like Isobuster (see this tutorial) or probably the MPEG Tools in Tmpgenc Free to produce an .mpg file that FFmpeg will be able to extract audio from.

Note that Windows Media Player should be able to play the .dat files (but possibly not the VCD directly), so that gives you the possibility of recording the audio as it plays, although it is a lossy, time-consuming way of doing it that is only a last resort.


Gale

[kozikowski]

Video CD format uses MPEG1, an early compression scheme. The video is typically 1/4 size on the disk and the quality is a cousin to VHS videotape. You see full screen video through an auto zoom feature. This is by convention. It doesn't have to be that way, but it's the most common. The compression efficiency is pretty awful and 90 minute movies are frequently carried on multiple CDs.

The sound on a VCD can be any of the supported layers, but the popular one is layer three.

Also known as MP3.

Koz

[kozikowski]

And yes, TMPGEnc will cheerfully convert back and forth between the MPEG versions and layers, but my license was money-based. Doesn't the demo do something messy to the show?

Koz

[Gale Andrews]

And yes, TMPGEnc will cheerfully convert back and forth between the MPEG versions and layers, but my license was money-based. Doesn't the demo do something messy to the show?

The link I gave was to TmegEnc Free. It doesn't as I recall stamp logos on the video or things like that, but there is no MPEG-2 (higher quality) decoding or encoding (after 30 days). Not that that matters with MPEG-1 content.


Gale

[ShreemadBhagavatam]

Thanks Gale and Koz. I was traveling and hence, could not try your suggestions. I'll try them. In the mean time, I've a question. When I use audacity with ffmpeg plug-in, to improve audio, would I be able to keep the video and audio in synch? If so, is there anything specific I would have to do?

Thanks in anticipation,

Best regards,

[kozikowski]

We've always used a video editor (or something that works like one) to put video and audio back together. I don't remember TMPGEnc being able to do that, but it's possible. There are a lot of options I wisk by without paying attention. It's certain that you will not be able to edit within a movie without a formal editor. The best you can do is process the whole sound track and dump the whole track back into the show.

It's particularly messy that you're in MPEG1. That was a very early compression format and people aren't exactly breaking down the door to support it. Last time a client showed up with MPEG1, we had to go around the building to find a way to play it.

You will probably be invited -- strongly -- to convert the movie to one of the more modern formats and edit it there.

Koz

[kozikowski]

In case I wasn't cheerful enough earlier, you will be editing the original MP3 embedded track. Audacity doesn't edit MP3, it converts to an internal format and then generates a new MP3 when you're done. Every time it does that, you increase MP3 compression damage -- bubbling, honky sound. You may find that the damage makes up for the repairs you did. Another good reason to stay away from MPEG1.

Koz