Merging Split Audio (mp3) and Video (mpg)

[Dronak]

I've got a technical question, if anyone can help me out. Members of our martial art club made some recordings of themselves performing forms we learned so that we'd have a record of them for future reference. I finally got a copy of this DVD (which my housemate kindly copied to CDs for me since I didn't have the hardware required to read the DVD) and for some reason I don't know, when the guys videotaped themselves, sometimes they got separate audio and video files. So there are mpg and mp3 pairs of files that should be joined to make one file. I have no idea of how to do that though. I web searched, but couldn't really find anything. I do remember that the guys said they were having trouble merging the separate audio and video files together and I guess in the end they gave up. Does anyone know how I could get them combined? I can live with it as is, but it would be nice to be able to combine the audio and video like they should be. Thanks for whatever help you can provide.

 

[dubljay]

Dronak... what version of Windows are you running. Windows xp has a built in program called "Windows movie maker" that allows you to drop audio tracks onto video. It is not the most sophisticated thing but it gets the job done.

There is high end stuff like Adobe premier, this is to video editing as photoshop is to picture editing. I have no clue how expensive it is, or if there are opensource clones that are available.

Edit:

Upon searching download.com I found that windows movie maker is available there.
http://www.download.com/Windows-Movie-Maker/3000-2194_4-10187903.html?tag=lst-0-1

Like I said it isn't the prettiest or most sophisticated for video editing but it does work. The only draw back is that you can only save your files as .wmv extensions.

Feel free to PM or email me if you plan on using Windows Movie Maker and get stuck, I have some experience with it.

 

[mj_lover]

movie maker will reduce the quality far to much, preire is very pricy. there are a few free prrograms out there that will do it, without to much quality loss. goodluck on your quest

 

[dubljay]

Ah good to know MJ the video files I was working with were low quality to begin with so I didn't notice much of a quality drop.

 

[Dronak]

I'm still running Windows Millenium Edition. That's on purpose -- I have some rather old games that I've read people had problems getting to work under XP even with the 98 compatibility mode. And I intend to get a new computer as soon as I can afford it, so that will have XP (or newer?) on it.

I see Windows Movie Maker in my start menu, so I could give it a try. I was playing around with the separate video and audio before and it looks like they're not perfectly aligned. If it's close enough, it'll be OK. If not, I'll probably need to edit one or the other to make them close enough before trying to merge them. Yeah, I guess it would only output in WMV format. It might be possible to convert that to something else though; I did see converters when I was web searching, but didn't pay much attention to them and exactly what they did. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll see what I can do when I feel like playing with it.

mj_lover, do you know what specific freeware programs will do the same kind of merging? Like I said, I web searched, but had trouble finding anything that looked like it would do the job. Maybe I didn't have a good set of search terms, but I tried a bunch of different things and still didn't see something that looked good.

 

[dubljay]

Found one that seems to be pretty good. Perhaps others have some experience with it.

http://desktopvideo.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.debugmode.com/wax/

I downloaded and installed it.

 

[Dronak]

Thanks for the suggestion, but apparently it won't open either mpg or mp3 files. So I can't use this unless I convert both of the component files to some other format first.

P.S. -- The Windows Movie Maker link you gave above is for an XP-only download; I can't use it with ME. But I have an older version on my system.

 

[ed-swckf]

When writing to dvd you will have both audio and video files, if when you edit these they are out of sync. then thats how they will come out on dvd. You don't really merge these files as one as you loose quality and your dvd player would just have to untangle the merged information in order to play it - put and dvd into your your computer and open it and you will see an audio TS file and a video TS file. As you have a mpg file and an mp3 file you have a few options, you won't be able to burn it to dvd as it needs encoding. it sounds like you just want to get it all in sync first and aren't to worried about getting it onto dvd so look online for some freeware. Unfortunately i don't know of any off the top of my head but i got a free copy of some software from ulead on this site a while ago http://www.artzend.com/Video%20Programs.htmi use premier and maya now and a few other bits and pieces on the dvd authoring end, but the ulead software wasn't bad and theres loads of other stuff to play around with on there.

So you can get hold of the DVD of these forms, for the amount of effort you are putting in i would personally pick up a dvd drive for your computer as they are hella cheap nowadays. but like i say you don't combine the audio and video but when you take these files through a piece of editing software you will have an output of a singular file which will be avi or wmv etc.

at that point i usually go straight to preparing the file to be encoded to write to dvd but i'm not sure exactly what it is you are wanting to do so i'll leave it at that and check here again to see if any of this was any help or if you have any other questions, i would be more than happy to answer.

 

[Dronak]

OK, more info. The files I have are on a DVD. Maybe they would work fine in a DVD player. Unfortunately, my computer only has a CD-RW drive and my VCR/DVD combo device can't read the disk. So I had a housemate copy the files to CDs for me so that I could view them now.

The audio and video seemed to be a little out of sync when I was playing them separately, more than the second or two it would take to start playing two files in two players. Maybe they're actually fine if read directly off the DVD, I don't know. As I'm currently still looking for a good job, I can't afford to buy anything that's not necessary -- no new DVD drive for me. As noted above, when I can afford it, I intend to buy a new computer that will have a DVD drive, so this won't be a problem then. I was trying to make what I have work better because I'm stuck with my current hardware for now.

A/V stuff isn't really my area, so maybe I couldn't say it properly. Basically I want to go:
Input -- two files, mpg with only video, mp3 with only audio
Output -- one file containing both video and audio
If editing software can do that, then I guess that's what I need. I don't really know how to do this stuff though.

 

[ed-swckf]

OK, more info. The files I have are on a DVD. Maybe they would work fine in a DVD player. Unfortunately, my computer only has a CD-RW drive and my VCR/DVD combo device can't read the disk. So I had a housemate copy the files to CDs for me so that I could view them now.

The audio and video seemed to be a little out of sync when I was playing them separately, more than the second or two it would take to start playing two files in two players. Maybe they're actually fine if read directly off the DVD, I don't know. As I'm currently still looking for a good job, I can't afford to buy anything that's not necessary -- no new DVD drive for me. As noted above, when I can afford it, I intend to buy a new computer that will have a DVD drive, so this won't be a problem then. I was trying to make what I have work better because I'm stuck with my current hardware for now.

A/V stuff isn't really my area, so maybe I couldn't say it properly. Basically I want to go:
Input -- two files, mpg with only video, mp3 with only audio
Output -- one file containing both video and audio
If editing software can do that, then I guess that's what I need. I don't really know how to do this stuff though.

Well there should be some freeware video editing software on the previous link and then its just a case of importing both files and lining them up. and then exporting them or rendering them as one combined file. That should be fine and will play on your computers media player assuming it can read it, if not you can download a codec or just watch it within the video editor. I'm at work right now but i shall have a look for some decent resources for video software tonight. You won't have any problem with the software assuming you can find your way around a word processor program theres really not that much difference in essence.

The other option is cracking your dvd combo so it can play the dvd, there are plenty of sites offering the methods for doing this its just a case of wether they have a method to crack your model. Or re-encoding the dvd using some authoring software like nero but free.

 

[Dronak]

OK, I'll try to look around that page of links you provided and see what I can find. My housemate said that he could copy the DVD to another format for me and gave me a DVD he wrote to test in my DVD/VCR device. It wasn't readable either, so that's why he copied them to CDs. I think I did try to find some modification for my device at some point in the past, but couldn't find anything. I have a Toshiba model and from my experience with it, it seems to be more unique than most models. For example, the remote won't operate the TV, too, and there's a separate timer record button that has to be pressed before any VCR timers will record (it also effectively locks the VCR so you can't use it at all). I can look, but I'm not sure I'll find anything along those lines. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Pale Rider]

If you have your Video CD/Super Video CD handy - I would try Pinnacle. It is an easy Video Editing program designed for that purpose. Pinnacle 8 and/or 9 works with both mpg1 (Video CD) or mpg2 (SVCD/DVD) - you can place the Video on one track and of course edit the audio on another.... thereby making sure that you have them in "sync"

Contact me if you want further assistance... as I do run a Video Production company

 

[mj_lover]

sorry, i can't find anything atm, its been a while, i believe bink was free and capable of doing what you want to

 

[Pale Rider]

Well I don't know of anything that is free out there that will do that. If you are dealing with strictly mpeg1 and mp3 - then Windows Movie Maker will do that for you. I do however have Pinnacle 7 and 8 that I will sell at a real "cheap" price. Nothing wrong with either one of them, I have just upgraded.... They will do the job you want real easily.

 

[ed-swckf]

http://www.ulead.com/vs/trial.htm

Its just a trial version, if you keep an eye out on freeware and shareware download sites you might come up with something better but without wading through a tonne of apps thats the best your gonna get out of me. Give it a try it should work fine for what you want.

 

[Dronak]

Thanks for the additional suggestions. I appreciate the help. I'll see what I can do.