DVD editing - where is the audio TS file?

[Keneu Luca]

I havent edited from a DVD in YEARS. And I do not remember this problem.

 

After Ive copied the DVD to my hard drive and open the copied DVD folder, it has the VIDEO TS FOLDER and the AUDIO TS FOLDER. But when I open the audio folder, its empty. Why is this? The dvd plays with its audio intact. How am I supposed to edit the audio from the dvd if I cannot access it?

 

Thanks

[Keith Walters]

I havent edited from a DVD in YEARS. And I do not remember this problem.

 

After Ive copied the DVD to my hard drive and open the copied DVD folder, it has the VIDEO TS FOLDER and the AUDIO TS FOLDER. But when I open the audio folder, its empty. Why is this? The dvd plays with its audio intact. How am I supposed to edit the audio from the dvd if I cannot access it?

 

Thanks

If your editing software can read .VOB files it should automatically extract the audio and display it a a separate track (or tracks).

 

"TS" stands for "Transport Stream" and means that all sorts of different data (multichannel sound, picture, subtitles etc) are all incorporated into a single stream of data that can be conveniently stored or distributed. In virtually all DVDs this is stored as a series of .VOB (video Object) files in the video_TS folder. For all practical purposes, the audio you need to edit is going to be found in there.

 

The original DVD format also made provision for storing an extra-high-fidelity soundtrack which could be decoded by expensive high-end DVD players, and this was stored in a separate folder called "Audio TS". The idea was that ordinary players could still extract the "standard" sound that is interleaved with the MPEG2 files stored in the "Video TS" folder, while well-heeled users with fancy Home Theatre setups could enjoy the superior sound stored in the Audio_TS folder.

 

In practice the Audio TS folder is almost never used, even though many players (even quite cheap ones) are now capable of extracting Super Hi-Fi files!

 

Some very early DVD players produced an error message if an Audio TS folder was not present, so most discs include one, even though it never contains anything. However, I would be pretty confident that the pickup lasers in all those would have expired long ago, so it isn't really necessary now, and many discs don't include it. On the other hand, it takes up so little space that there seems no reason not to put one on there "just in case".

 

There is an alleged "Super Hi-Fi Audio" format called SACD, and that does use DVD discs with an Audio TS folder, but that market never really went anywhere.