VLC media player select audio track for conversion

audioaudio conversionvideovideo conversionvlc-media-player

When using VLC media player to convert a video with multiple audio tracks into another format (that may support only one audio track) using only one audio track, how do I select the audio track that is converted? VLC defaults to the first audio track.

Specifically: I have a MKV video with two language audio tracks and I want to convert the video and the second audio track to DivX format using AVI as container. VLC however converts only the first audio track and I did not find an option for selecting another track. I also tried switching the audio track manually while conversion is under way but the audio track is silent from that point on in the outputted file.
Maybe there is an MRL option to select the audio track?

I am aware that one could use other tools like MKVToolNix to remove the undesired audio track(s) and then convert the file in VLC. However I wonder what the solution within VLC is – or whether one exists.

Best Answer

Looking at https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=115385, the options seem to be to use:

Use option --audio-track or --audio-track-id in Open Media dialog:

[v] Show more options
Edit Options [ :file-caching=300 :audio-track=0]

The audio track number (0 in above example) seems to be the audio track number as displayed in the VLC Gui when displaying the movie minus one.

Related Solutions

Windows – No suitable decoder module: VLC does not support the audio or video format “undf”.

It says that there is no audio there basically. Which VLC do you use? Does the movie plays with other soundtrack in an other player like mpc-hc(from CCCP pack) ?

If yes, you can try a fresh VLC build like 1.1.0-pre5 or something (or pre4.. if I remember clearly they are at pre5 already).

Convert specific video and audio track only with ffmpeg

You can use the -map option (full documentation) to select specific input streams and map them to your output.

The most simple map syntax you can use is -map i:s, where i is the input file ID and s is the stream ID, both starting with 0. In your case, that means we select track 0 and 4:

ffmpeg -i vidui.mkv -c:v libx264 -c:a ac3 -crf 20 -map 0:0 -map 0:4 vidui.mp4

If you want to choose video, audio or subtitle tracks specifically, you can also use stream specifiers:

ffmpeg -i vidui.mkv -c:v libx264 -c:a ac3 -crf 20 -map 0:v:0 -map 0:a:1 vidui.mp4

Here, 0:v:0 is the first video stream and 0:a:1 is the second audio stream.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows – No suitable decoder module: VLC does not support the audio or video format “undf”.

Convert specific video and audio track only with ffmpeg

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