Rip/extract audio (only) from a DVD I own??

[Sumleilmus]

OK, I already tried search using permutations of "DVD" "extract" "rip" "audio", and found only 3 fossils.

I own a DVD. All soundtrack CDs are out of print. Is there a way I can coax the audio from the DVD into some format My Friend iTunes can play? (In this case, I want the entire audio track, although having it broken into "tracks" would be nice, so as not to gag caches.)

Thanks in advance.

[voldenuit]

There must be less klunky ways of doing it, but using Audio Hijack would definitely be an option.

[ibroughton]

If your DVD source has an AC3 soundtrack then try mAC3DEC I haven't used it personally but it looks like it does the sort of thing that you want it to do. (And it's free). Most DVD sound tracks (at least the ones I own) come in AC3 format, so you might want to include that in your search if you find that mAC3DEC isn't for you. Hope this helps!

[Sumleilmus]

I just downloaded mAC3DEC, and will give it a spin shortly.

Thanks.

[Las_Vegas]

You will have to extract/decode the VOB files from the DVD first with a utility like DVDBackup (If the DVD is encoded). You will then need to Demultiplex the VOB file(s) into their separate MPEG2 and AC3 files with a utility like bbDEMUX. Once you have the AC3 files, mAC3DEC will do nicely to convert the AC3 files.

[ibroughton]

Sorry, as I thought you were searching for a utility to extract audio, I thought that these steps had already been done (oops!) but yes,and it is an easy process (even if it does sound long winded!)

[Caius]

You could just download Wiretap off the Ambrosia website. Play the DVD at the same time as you hit record in wiretap and it will save the sound to a file for you. downside is it captures all the computers output sound.

[jfunkk79]

I've found a great combination for ripping audio off dvds. Grab OSEx here http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/9830 and get mAC3dec as ibroughton mentions. Use OSEx to rip the ac3 file then use mAC3dec to convert to aif or mp3. Make sure to change "FMT" in OSEx to "Elem. Streams" and deselect the video track. This will rip to ac3 and not vob. I was hoping to find a one step ripping solution but this works pretty well.

[ShavenYak]

If you're not dead set on a free solution, Cinematize will extract the audio only and decode into AIFF or WAV. So your process becomes decrypt DVD (if necessary), extract audio to WAV, import into iTunes (and compress to MP3/AAC if desired). I haven't actually played with it yet, but it looks pretty slick.

Y'all know OSEx hasn't been updated since 2002? If it works, cool, but I'd prefer to use software that someone is still actively maintaining. I've had good luck with Mac the Ripper.

[Las_Vegas]

OSEx, for what it does, doesn't need updating. All it is, is an extractor. It works perfectly for this. One of the plusses is that it can extract into a single encoded MPEG2 file. Since most editing requires breaking up the file into your own specialized sizes, starting with one file is quite convenient.

Once you have the extracted file(s) from OSEx, follow up with MPEG2 Works, which is updated regularly. This wonderful package lets you do just about anything with the OSEx file including, but not limited to PAL/NTSC conversion. A little feat that would previously take me a week to accomplish! Yes... It also does audio extraction and re-encoding!

[Sumleilmus]

Well, I'm getting this done, sort of. Thanks to all.

I ripped the DVD with Mac The Ripper.

I extracted the VOB files to AC3 with bbdemux.

I converted the AC3 files to AIFF with mAC3DEC.

I got a different aiff file for each channel (lots of channels!).

It seems I have to mix the streams (how??) to get them to be an aiff with at least the right and left channels in stereo.

I wonder if I should throw DVD2oneX at the Mac The Ripper output (and selecting just the two channel audio) before throwing bbdemux at it?

Also, I grossly underestimated the size of all the files I would end up with from this one DVD and seriously overinflated my PowerBook, which is just now recovering.

I'm going to start over on a desktop machine with a GIGANTIC attached storage device, so as not to worry as the gigabytes pile up.

Am I headed in the right direction?

Thanks.

[ShavenYak]

You're making it too complex, I think. The latest Mac the Ripper will do the demuxing for you if you ask it to, check http://www.wormintheapple.gr/macdvd/mtr.html for details. This cuts down on some intermediate files. Also, you probably want to use "Title - Chapter Extraction" to chooes only the chapters you want. Your end result from this should be a few stereo AC3 files (do NOT grab the 5.1 stream, it won't do you any good).

I'm not familiar with mAC3dec, the last time I did this I used ffmpegX. It will take your stereo AC3 streams and convert directly to MP3 or AAC. It might be overkill for this job, but I was using it for getting some audio tracks into iTunes and putting music videos in Quicktime format.

[Sumleilmus]

I have v. 2.6 of Mac The Ripper. I agree that the documentation to which you link states that MTR 2.6 demuxes. Alas, I can't find any evidence of this (or I don't know what demuxing is). There don't seem to be any simple or advanced settings in MTR that pertain to this.

This is the output of MTR when I throw my DVD at it:

VIDEO_TS/

VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.VOB
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_0.VOB
VTS_01_1.VOB
VTS_02_0.BUP
VTS_02_0.IFO
VTS_02_0.VOB
VTS_02_1.VOB
VTS_02_2.VOB
VTS_02_3.VOB
VTS_02_4.VOB
VTS_02_5.VOB
VTS_02_6.VOB
VTS_02_7.VOB


None of these are directories, and none are AC3.

?????

[darelon]

I have no experience with audio extraction using MTR, but as suggested earlier in this thread: extracting and converting multiple audio tracks at once from music video DVD's is easily done with OSex and mAC3dec.

To demux/extract only the audio with OSex, splitting the audio in one file per chapter (usually equivalent to a song for music videos):

1. After starting OSex and inserting your music video DVD, make sure the correct title is selected by clicking on the 'Ti' button.
2. Click on the 'Vid' button an deselect the video stream(s).
3. Click on the 'Aud' button and select the appropriate audio stream (usually 2 channel AC3).
4. Click on the 'Fmt' button and select 'Elem. streams'.
5. Click on the 'Seg' button and select 'Chapter' to split the audio by track in separate files.
6. Click 'BEGIN' to start audio axtraction.

(Much easier done than described... )

The resulting AC3 files can then be converted to AIFF, WAV, MP3 or other formats with a tool like mAC3dec, or played directly with e.g. VLC.

Ciao,
Roeland.

[Las_Vegas]

Any technique you use to extract the AC3 files, they will all contain either 5.1 Surround Sound or Stereo. Surround will be in either DTS or Dolby. Only the later will decode into an audio file. Every AC3 decode utility I've found will extract Stereo and Dolby 5.1 AC3 files to Stereo AIFFs. mAC3dec is my favorite so far.

I haven't found a utility yet that will separate the Dolby 5.1 AC3 files to 6 (or 3 stereo) files, but it would be nice. Given the separate tracks, A.Pack will create a Dolby 5.1 AC3 file. I haven't found any utility yet to handle DTS files, but my player doesn't use them anyway.

[chris_on_hints]

The OSex then mAC3dec option is the best option for getting the audio out of a DVD - using Mac The Ripper or other similar programs will result in ripping the video as well, which is a clear (although temporary) waste of disk space.

my only problem is that OSex crashes when i try to run it on my G4... works fine on my dad's G5... strange.

an alternative not yet mentioned is 'DVDibbler' - which is able to output straight to mp3 audio, but im not sure you can disable the video ripping.

can anyone shed light on why OSex would not run on my G4??

[ShavenYak]

Well, I just fired up MtR on my iBook... and it's not intuitively obvious how to do it, so here's a quickie step-by-step.

1. Insert DVD and launch Mac the Ripper.
2. Click the Mode button and choose either Title Set, Title Only, or Title - Chapter Extraction. Choose which titles and/or chapters you want to extract.
3. Click the 'D' button and the Streams button will be activated. Click it and a drawer will pop out showing the streams that are available.
4. De-select your video stream and any unnecessary audio streams.
5. Click Go, and watch and wait as MtR dumps an .ac3 file onto your hard drive. It'll also put an empty VIDEO_TS folder there, don't worry about that.
6. There is no Step 6.

The one advantage OSex seems to have over MtR is the ability to automatically split into multiple files by chapter. In MtR you'll have to select each chapter individually. I'll have to put in a feature request for that.

Unfortunately, I don't have ffmpegX installed on my iBook, so I can't do a step-by-step right now, but I can do it later if anyone wants.

Las_Vegas: DTS soundtracks should get extracted into .dts files, not .ac3, although I suppose it's up to the ripping or demuxing program to get that right. There are very few tools to work with .dts files, even in the peecee world . A decent DTS encoder program typically costs $1000 or more (and it's nearly impossible to find... ahem... "evaluation " copies because most are dongle-protected). Decoders are built in to many of the peecee DVD player programs, but are usually so hidden or crippled as to be unusable for decoding stand-alone files.

It's also sometimes possible that you'll find a DVD with PCM stereo tracks. These are the ones to grab if available - real CD quality uncompressed sound. I'm guessing a ripper on the Mac would save these as AIFF files... I'll have to check that on my Hell Freezes Over DVD.

Edit: I forgot to point out another way to decode your .ac3 files... if you have Toast with Jam, you can drag the .ac3 files to a Jam CD-audio compilation, save as a disc image, then iTunes will rip it like it was a real audio CD. In fact, if you do this with .ac3 files from a DVD-audio disc, it might find the matching CD in CDDB and get your track names for you.

[Sumleilmus]

I used 0Sex and mAC3dec per Darelon's advice above, and it worked very well indeed. (Thanks for the details re the settings.) As ShavenYak points out, the nice thing about using 0Sex is getting the individual tracks. This DVD had 62 tracks, and that's what I got. I titled them, ripped to aac, and did the needful with the id3 tags in iTunes.

Red-faced, I admit that the problem I had using MTR -> bbdemx -> mAC3dec was due to overlooking a checked preference for "separate channels," hence the excessive and fragmented output.

By this point, everyone or no one wonders what was the DVD. It starred Roger Daltrey (remember The Who?), and is from 1983: The Beggar's Opera, by John Gay.

Thanks to all.

[ShavenYak]

Ouch, 62 tracks? That would induce carpal tunnel if you used Mac the Ripper. I did put in a request to the developer for splitting the output at title or chapter boundaries. No response yet, though. I might have to play with OSex, if it'll run on my G4 iBook.

[Sumleilmus]

62 tracks is the RIGHT number, just the number I wanted.

The DVD has 62 chapters. It's a ballad opera, and each chapter has one song in it.

Really, nothing needs or needed to be fixed save for my skills at using these now less unfamiliar tools.

Thanks again.