[Flac] Audio tracks and channels in OggFLAC

[Terry Hancock]

On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 3:31 PM, Terry Hancock <digitante at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm essentially trying to create an Ogg file that works like DVD video does.
> [...]
>
> What tools exist to merge separate single-channel FLAC files into a
> multichannel FLAC?

Okay, I actually figured out how to do this more or less on my own, so
let me summarize.

I was expecting to need a command line utility, but Audacity, it turns
out, has the ability to remap channels as of version 1.3.3. It's
necessary to set (v1.3.12):

Edit -> Preferences... -> Import/Export -> Use Custom MIx

* Import each FLAC file into a track.
* Label in some way you can recognize
* Export
* Choose FLAC output
* Map the tracks (by label) to the correct output channel

(The FLAC 5.1 standard being: L, R, C, LFE, LS, RS)

This creates a .FLAC contain the 5.1 surround sound.

Then use the 'flac' command line utility to convert to Ogg FLAC:

$ flac my_51_MUX.flac --ogg -o my_51_MUX.oga

Then use the 'oggz-merge' utility to combine the track with video. Can
also do extra tracks:

$ oggz-merge my_Theora_video.ogv my_51_MUX.flac my_STEREO.flac
my_SP_STEREO.flac [...] -o my_combined_video_file.ogv

Playback tests fine in VLC. The drop-down audio menu gives track
choices by number for each of the tracks, and playback of sound is
what I expect.
This is with VLC v1.1.3.

So far, so good.

Thanks,
Terry