[MPlayer-users] fixing a/v sync when encoding (mini tutorial)

[D Richard Felker III]

I know this is a popular topic on the list, so I thought I'd share a
few comments on my experience fixing a/v sync. As everyone seems to
know, mencoder unfortunately doesn't have a -delay option. But that
doesn't mean you can't fix a/v sync. There are a couple ways to still
do it.

In example 1, we'll suppose you want to re-encode the audio anyway.
This will be essential if your source audio isn't mp3, e.g. for DVD's
or nasty avi files with divx/wma audio. This approach makes things
much easier.

Step 1: Dump the audio with mplayer -ao pcm -nowaveheader. There are
various options that can be used to speed this up, most notably -vo
null, -vc null, and/or -hardframedrop. -benchmark also seemed to help
in the past. :)

Step 2: Figure out what -delay value syncs the audio right in mplayer.
If this number is positive, use a command like the following:

dd if=audiodump.wav bs=1764 skip=[delay] | lame -x - out.mp3

where [delay] is replaced by your delay amount in hundredths of a
second (1/10 the value you use with mplayer). Otherwise, if delay is
negative, use a command like this:

( dd if=/dev/zero bs=1764 skip=[delay] ; cat audiodump.wav ) | lame -x - out.mp3

Don't include the minus (-) sign in delay. Also, keep in mind you'll
have to change the 1764 number and provide additional options to lame
if your audio stream isn't 44100/16bit/littleendian/stereo.

Step 3: Use mencoder to remux your new mp3 file with the movie:

mencoder -audiofile out.mp3 -oac copy ...

You can either copy video as-is (with -ovc copy) or re-encode it at
the same time you merge in the audio like this.

Finally, as a variation on this method (makes things a good bit faster
and doesn't use tons of temporary disk space) you can merge steps 1
and 2 by making a named pipe called "audiodump.wav" (type mkfifo
audiodump.wav) and have mplayer write the audio to it at the same time
you're running lame to encode.

Now for example 2. This time we won't re-encode audio at all. Just
dump the mp3 stream from the avi file with mplayer -dumpaudio. Then,
you have to cut and paste the raw mp3 stream a bit...

If delay is negative, things are easier. Just use lame to encode
silence for the duration of delay, at the same samplerate and
samplesize used in your avi file. Then, do something like:

cat silence.mp3 stream.dump > out.mp3
mencoder -audiofile out.mp3 -oac copy ...

On the other hand, if delay is positive, you'll need to crop off part
of the mp3 from the beginning. If it's (at least roughly) CBR this is
easy -- just take off the first (bitrate*delay/8) bytes of the file.
You can use the excellent dd tool, or just your favorite
binary-friendly text editor to do this. Otherwise, you'll have to
experiment with cutting off different amounts. You can test with
mplayer -audiofile before actually spending time remuxing/encoding
with mencoder to make sure you cut the right amount.

I hope this has all been informative. If anyone would like to clean
this message up a bit and make it into part of the docs, feel free. Of
course mencoder should eventually just get -delay. :)

Rich