[MPlayer-users] How programmatically determine the correct one of two english soundtracks for an encode

[Ron Johnson]

On 07/07/2012 05:02 PM, Graham Lawrence wrote:
> I thank you all for your help and comments.  I guess its really an
> unanswerable question.  There seems to be no hard and fast rule as to
> which soundtrack would be movie and which commentary.  I'll just have
> to accept the occasional need to re-encode some movies.

Metadata regarding what audio track is which is sometimes embedded in 
the title.  HandBrakeCLI knows how to extract it.  I use vlc to go 
through each DVD to decide which titles and audio tracks to extract.

$ HandBrakeCLI --scan -t 3 -i FIREFLY_D4.iso
[17:11:23] hb_init: starting libhb thread
HandBrake svn4816 (2012070701) - Linux x86_64 - http://handbrake.fr
4 CPUs detected
Opening FIREFLY_D4.iso...
[snip]
   + audio tracks:
     + 1, English (AC3) (Dolby Surround) (iso639-2: eng), 48000Hz, 192000bps
     + 2, Francais (AC3) (Dolby Surround) (iso639-2: fra), 48000Hz, 
192000bps
     + 3, Espanol (AC3) (Dolby Surround) (iso639-2: spa), 48000Hz, 192000bps
     + 4, English (AC3) (Director's Commentary 1) (2.0 ch) (iso639-2: 
eng), 48000Hz, 192000bps



$ HandBrakeCLI --scan -t 1 -i PSYCH_S3D1.iso
[17:13:31] hb_init: starting libhb thread
HandBrake svn4816 (2012070701) - Linux x86_64 - http://handbrake.fr
4 CPUs detected
Opening PSYCH_S3D1.iso...
[snip]
   + audio tracks:
     + 1, English (AC3) (5.1 ch) (iso639-2: eng), 48000Hz, 448000bps
     + 2, English (AC3) (2.0 ch) (iso639-2: eng), 48000Hz, 192000bps


> Wish I'd known about mkv's versatility vs avi earlier, but I found the
> whole subject of encoding so complex I wrote a script to make all the
> decisions for me, and committed to avi because the mencoder
> documentation is heavily oriented to avi.

:)

I did the same, using HandBrakeCLI, first to mkv then (because of 
synchronization quirks in pause/restart using mplayer) to mp4.

-- 
"There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be
done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental
disaster, you need people with high IQs."
Thomas Sowell