play/sync up external audio file when playing a video

[citizenkeys]

It would very cool, even as a plugin, to be able to play a separate audio track with a separate volume control while playing a video (a volume control for the video and a volume control for the separate mp3).

Additionally, it would be a good feature to allow for two separate "seek" sliders to adjust the sync of the video and the separate audio track, and maybe save that "sync" as a file somehow.

The need for this feature arises from the fact that sometimes I watch videos and download separate, user-created commentary tracks to listen to while watching the movie. One example is RiffTrax - http://www.rifftrax.com. Another example is ShareCrow - http://www.sharecrow.com/search.html.

If someone can write, or already has written, such a plugin for VLC, please let me know.

[dionoea]

Did you try something like:

Code: Select all

vlc <Primary input> --input-slave <Secondary input>

?

[citizenkeys]

No. And I'm fairly certain that wouldn't work, since I need to manually sync the audio and video together. Sometimes the audio file or video file has something like an introduction at the beginning that messes up the sync when I try to automate it.

[BugMeNot2]

i was looking for the same thing , found this answer

How can I play external audio track with video?

Media -> Advanced Open File... and select the video file and after that tick Show more options and then Play another media synchronously... and select the audio file you want to use. Then when playing the video go to Audio -> Audio Track -> Track 2 to select the second (or whichever it is) audio track.

[OwynTyler]

i was looking for the same thing , found this answer

How can I play external audio track with video?

Media -> Advanced Open File... and select the video file and after that tick Show more options and then Play another media synchronously... and select the audio file you want to use. Then when playing the video go to Audio -> Audio Track -> Track 2 to select the second (or whichever it is) audio track.

that's phucked up to do this for every file plus it turns off the audio if you rewind the video

[calande]

This works when you play a file, but not when you convert and save it.

[somebody]

I would love this Feature.

Separate Video and Audio Controls for both files,
where you could make a Keypoint in the Audiofile, and one in the Videofile. That would be a quick method to sync two Files together. So it adjust the delay between the two files automatically.

Then it would be possible to "advanced open" two video files, take videotrack from file1, audiotrack from file2, add keypoints, press play... and it's synced.

I would love that... a lot of

[VashtheStampede]

I've got a much more aggravating situation than even the OP's Rifftrax example.

I have a Japanese Blu-Ray and a US DVD of the same series, which I've ripped to my HDD. Ideally I'd sync the HD video from the BD with the English audio off the DVD. Unfortunately, the chapter timing seems completely arbitrary and different on each disk. The DVD has 4 large chapters of an episode and a half each, whereas the BD has 4 episodes on a disc period, and a dozen files of different lengths. Currently my options seem to be:

A. Convert the BD and the DVD, losing quality and making it very difficult to ever burn them back to disc, then stitch them together as a collection of retimed MKVs.
B. Make a playlist of the BD video files, and then try to sideload a playlist of extracted audio files from the DVD (not sure if this will even work or if it will just stop after the first video/audio file transition)
C. Merge the BD video files into one file, then sideload one long audio file and pray the episode transitions are timed consistently so I don't have to adjust sync every 5min while watching

Ideally, I'd like to script something in a batch like what user "somebody" stated above, where the command line chainloads each episode at a specific time in what amounts to a playlist while sideloading the audio file with each video track in the BDMV/STREAM folder (as VLC doesn't do BD ISOs yet), even if it requires me to manually split up the English audio into files the exact same lengths as the BD chapters due to the fact that loading multiple files with one input slave doesn't work, much less loading an entire playlist of input slave files. The benefits of this would be I'd at least have a perfect backup of the incredibly overpriced imported BD, as well as the ability to script in individual sync delays for each episode if each episode is off by a different amount. I don't mind destroying the backup of the English DVD when I extract the audio tracks as the video quality is that much worse than the BD quality. If this could be incorporated as a feature or even a plugin for VLC to save me all the manual labor of making a command line batch, it would likely save me many hours of time. VLC already has extensive AV sync capability as well as the ability to start files at a specific time built in, this would just combine the two and add in the ability to merge two playlists rather than just two files. The steps would be something along the lines of:

1. Select playlist of media files
2. Fast forward through the playlist (not just the first file) to find where the episode transitions are, and make keypoints 1,2,3,4 (I could even find the transitions manually without a display window and type the file and timestamp instead)
3. Select another playlist of media files (straight audio or video+audio)
4. Fast forward to find episode transitions, and make keypoints 1,2,3,4
5. Check what you want out of the files from each playlist (which is master video track, which is master audio track, which audio track in the file should be used)
6. Export as a custom playlist

Basically, the new playlist just ignores all the the transitions imposed by the file breaks as per the two original playlists, and knows when to start playing segments of audio tracks precisely when they're needed. This would be a hassle free way to use VLC's built in sync and "start at" features to avoid the long, destructive, and resource intensive process of conversion and editing when it's really not needed (when the resulting file is just going to be played on the same computer anyways)

I've got no idea how easy or difficult this would be to incorporate officially, but it's already something I can do (albeit as a complete and total kludge) with a command line, so I hope it isn't just a total pipedream. If this feature of merging two different playlists were added, those who code such things as commercial skip software that requires image/timing break recognition might even be able to automate it further, to the point where the software can merge two playlists and delete the video from the input slave playlist just by analyzing the two sets of media files.

As the OP said: if someone can write, or has already written such a plugin for VLC, please let us know.