How to embed/host a film with multiple versions of audio (original, audio commentary)

[The Irish TRex]

I have 3 versions of the same short film:

1) The full film
2) The full film with audio commentary
3) The full film dubbed in Spanish

Is there a way or a program out there I could use to stream and embed a film onto a site somehow and have all three versions accessible from the same window? Each film is exactly the same length obviously, just with different audio streams. I know I could just have 3 separate videos which is fine, but I'm wondering if there is a way to have all three audio tracks (since the video is the same for all 3) selectable/interchangeable from within the same player so as the film is going, if one wanted to switch commentary on or off they could...or if one wanted to switch back to watching it in Spanish one could and it would pick up from that same spot. Make sense?

Just curious. Thanks!

 

[Ted Ramasola]

How about hosting all 3 versions and just make the links in such a way that it loads the appropriate version? It would be transparent to the user of your site, when they click spanish, the spanish version loads, but the thumbnail for your film will be just one.

 

[The Irish TRex]

How about hosting all 3 versions and just make the links in such a way that it loads the appropriate version? It would be transparent to the user of your site, when they click spanish, the spanish version loads, but the thumbnail for your film will be just one.

I think I understand what you are suggesting. I think. Ideally, it'd be cool if while the video is playing they could switch from one audio track to the other while the video is playing (even if it has to pause for a moment).

 

[TheDingo]

...Way back when I worked full time as a New Media computer programmer, we would create QuickTime MOV videos with multiple audio tracks embedded in the same video file, and the custom program that I built would enable / disable audio tracks on the fly, so you could instantly switch to another language or to a commentary audio track or even switch subtitle text tracks on or off.

I'm sure that the QuickTime container format still has this capability, but I'm not sure if there are any common QT players that can switch audio tracks on or off like our programs did.

 

[Bruce Watson]

I have 3 versions of the same short film:

1) The full film
2) The full film with audio commentary
3) The full film dubbed in Spanish

Is there a way or a program out there I could use to stream and embed a film onto a site somehow and have all three versions accessible from the same window? Each film is exactly the same length obviously, just with different audio streams. I know I could just have 3 separate videos which is fine, but I'm wondering if there is a way to have all three audio tracks (since the video is the same for all 3) selectable/interchangeable from within the same player so as the film is going, if one wanted to switch commentary on or off they could...or if one wanted to switch back to watching it in Spanish one could and it would pick up from that same spot. Make sense?

That's exactly what DVDs and BDs do in my understanding. You provide a single video file, and three audio files. While the video plays, the viewer can swap between the various audio files. I've done this many times with commercial DVDs and BDs. My blu-ray player's remote has a button just for changing audio tracks.

Authoring programs like Adobe Encore handle this. Not only is this used for languages, but also many discs, BDs in particular, often offer stereo and 5.1 dolby, and 5.1 lossless tracks, so you often get a bunch of audio tracks to pick from. Programs like Encore let you designate the default track, and you can build menus that let the viewer pick a track from a menu also. Captioning is handled similarly, but differently.

 

[The Irish TRex]

...Way back when I worked full time as a New Media computer programmer, we would create QuickTime MOV videos with multiple audio tracks embedded in the same video file, and the custom program that I built would enable / disable audio tracks on the fly, so you could instantly switch to another language or to a commentary audio track or even switch subtitle text tracks on or off.

I'm sure that the QuickTime container format still has this capability, but I'm not sure if there are any common QT players that can switch audio tracks on or off like our programs did.

That would be perfect! But yeah, I know I'm probably fighting an uphill battle with what's currently available out there.

That's exactly what DVDs and BDs do in my understanding. You provide a single video file, and three audio files. While the video plays, the viewer can swap between the various audio files. I've done this many times with commercial DVDs and BDs. My blu-ray player's remote has a button just for changing audio tracks.

I'll have to look into that should I ever want to author a Bluray/DVD with this feature (I also use Encore)...but in this case, I'm just wondering about if it's possible to do online for an embedded video on a site.