Audacity Forum

Hi Steve. In your instructions you say that importing audio directly from a DVD can sometimes be problematic. I do this but whilst the first .vob file imports ok, any second, or third and so on, file imported ends up with a few minutes of silence at the beginning. Is there a reason why Audacity does this or is it a quirk of the program?

Ok, having just experimented with your method, it appears that whilst there is no silence at the beginning of the first file, there is silence at the beginning of subsequent files whether they were imported from a copy or directly from the DVD. Obviously, I'm able to delete these silences and then cut and paste the file onto the end of the previous file and so on.

In addition to the question in my previous post, I'd like to know if there is an easier way of making several files into one longer file - the method I currently use seems convoluted. For example, I know that using the "Find Silence" option in the "Analyze" menu will produce a "silences" label below the waveform but how do I remove them without resorting to editing?

Also, and I'm aware that you may not have an answer for this, why should it be that the first .vob file doesn't have silence at the beginning but the subsequent files do? If the audio on the DVD plays continuously, why do the individual files not show this?

...file imported ends up with a few minutes of silence at the beginning.

... why should it be that the first .vob file doesn't have silence at the beginning but the subsequent files do? If the audio on the DVD plays continuously, why do the individual files not show this?

A few minutes is surprising... But they are not complete "files", they are 1GB (or less) file fragments, so there is no proper header at the beginning of each fragment. The DVD player seamlessly joins the files and bascally treats them as one big file.

I'd like to know if there is an easier way of making several files into one longer file -

There are tools & methods of joining the VOBs. This page suggests a couple of tools and tells you how to do it with the Windows command line. You might simply try Googling "Join VOB". I use Corel Video Studio ($100 USD) to open/import the audio/video (from non-encrypted DVDs), and from there I can optionally create an audio-only file. I usually make a WAV file for editing.

I know that using the "Find Silence" option in the "Analyze" menu will produce a "silences" label below the waveform but how do I remove them without resorting to editing?

I can't help you with that, but if I did it manually I'd be done by now. Im usually working with concert videos, so if I'm making individual tracks, I want to edit and fade-in/out the applause/crowd noise at the beginning/end of each song.

There's always an easier way of doing things, isn't there?

Anyway, I already have DVD Decrypter installed on my PC and it does exactly what I want, ie:

GrahamB wrote:an easier way of making several files into one longer file...

so I can use Audacity to split the audio as I want and not as it was originally as that's always wrong.

Thanks for the help Doug, much appreciated.