DTS-HD MA transcoding questions

[QuantumRand]

I've been noticing that a lot of my newer Blu-rays have a DTS-HD Master Audio track. As a lossless track, I figure this is probably the best to encode from. How much of a benefit does this really carry?

Ideally, I'd just passthrough the lossy 5.1 DTS track, but I've been told that AC3 is much preferred since it is more compatible with other devices. If I were to take the lossy DTS track and tanscode it into AC3 Pro Logic II at 640kbps, would that be overkill and/or would there be any significant quality loss compared to downmixing the DTS-HD to AC3 PLII 640?

Is 640kbps overkill in general? I mean, in films with thundering action, I'd like as much quality as I can get, but what would be a good bitrate for films that aren't quite so thunderous? Would PLII even be overkill for those?

I guess my main questions are these:

1: Is the lossless DTS-HD MA source the best to encode from?

2: Is the extra compatibility from AC3 Pro Logic II worth it compared to just using the lossy DTS track via passthrough?

3: Is AC3 PLII at 640kbps comparable to DTS-HD in terms of quality? What about compared to your typical lossy DTS Blu-ray track?

4: Is PLII 640 overkill for movies that don't have those hard hitting audio effects? If so, can you suggest an alternative?

PS: I have yet to get the hang of MeGUI (though I'm still trying), so I'm using one of the recent Handbrake nightlies if it makes any difference.

[Ghitulescu]

These are the questions only you can answer, and nobody else.

[mindbomb]

First decide if you want lossy or lossless.

Then decide what type of compression you want.

Vorbis for lossy, flac for lossless is pretty nice.

[QuantumRand]

First decide if you want lossy or lossless.

Then decide what type of compression you want.

Vorbis for lossy, flac for lossless is pretty nice.

I hadn't thought about using flac for lossless, thanks. That saves a ton of space compared to the original DTS-HD source. That does raise what I'm sure is a very noob question about downmixing, though.

I know DLPII works by sticking the surround channels into two stereo channels, which is great when playing back on a stereo only device, but does that hurt the quality compared to leaving the surround channels separate? I've also heard that DLPII drops the subwoofer channel. Is that true?

[hello_hello]

I guess if you're going to re-encode, a lossless source would be the best one to use.

I don't playback PLII encodes myself, at least not using a surround sound system, but I can't imagine PLII is ever going to be as good as discrete channels.

I generally re-encode multichannel DTS as multichannel AAC to keep the file size down, but that's just me. I don't have too many hardware compatibility issues to worry about.

FLAC supports multichannel audio (as does AAC), but of course you won't save as much space as when mixing down to stereo.

I don't think PLII includes a subwoofer channel. As far as I know the subwoofer channel doesn't include any extra information anyway, it's just a "boost" for low frequencies, but when converting to PLII I think generally the subwoofer channel gets mixed into the left and tight channels at -3db.

[diogen]

As a lossless track, I figure this is probably the best to encode from.What do you use for a player?
What deficiencies of the existing (lossy) soundtracks are you trying to fix?

Why emphasis on stereo?

Diogen.

[QuantumRand]

What do you use for a player?
What deficiencies of the existing (lossy) soundtracks are you trying to fix?

Why emphasis on stereo?

Diogen.

I most often use XBMC (on a Win7 media box) as my player. I'm not necessarily trying to fix any deficiencies, mostly just trying to make sure I avoid them since I don't really have the time to watch every movie after I back it up, haha.

The stereo downmix is useful since I occasionally watch movies on the bedroom TV which doesn't have surround sound. I use XBMC there too. Will XBMC (or other PC players) downmix it downmix a discreet 5.1 flac or AC3 itself?

[hello_hello]

I don't know anything about XBMC but I'd be astounded if it couldn't mix multichannel audio down to stereo.
I just use MPC-HC and even it's internal filters will downmix multichannel AC3/DTS/AAC to stereo. ffdshow's audio decoder does the same thing, and both of them have custom mixer matrices. I don't think I've ever come across a media player which won't downmix to stereo (then again I've never used a Microsoft media player), but even if XBMC doesn't downmix, your PC's audio card should.

[diogen]

I most often use XBMC...XBMC will definitely downmix to stereo.

If playing back on a PC, keep the DTS MA track as is.
When bitstreaming to a capable receiver over HDMI, you can hear the lossless sound (today or in the future).
Over SPDIF it will play just DTS core...

As a bonus: Cinavia does not survive in DTS sound...:)

Diogen.

[QuantumRand]

I don't think I've ever come across a media player which won't downmix to stereo (then again I've never used a Microsoft media player), but even if XBMC doesn't downmix, your PC's audio card should.

XBMC actually isn't a Microsoft product. It started off as a project to bring more media capabilities to the original Xbox. It's part of the GNU GPL. It's most popular in Linux flavors, but the Windows version is just as capable.

XBMC will definitely downmix to stereo.

If playing back on a PC, keep the DTS MA track as is.
When bitstreaming to a capable receiver over HDMI, you can hear the lossless sound (today or in the future).
Over SPDIF it will play just DTS core...

As a bonus: Cinavia does not survive in DTS sound...:)

Diogen.

Thanks for the info. I'll stick with discrete channels from now on.

Just one last question. DTS-HD MA is pretty huge. When I try encoding it with Flac lossless, it shrinks things down considerably. Am I losing anything by going with flac even though it's supposed to be lossless?

[diogen]

Just one last question. DTS-HD MA is pretty huge. When I try encoding it with Flac lossless, it shrinks things down considerably. Am I losing anything by going with flac even though it's supposed to be lossless?Don't know.
I haven't worked with FLAC in years.

I would find it strange to be able to compress DTS MA considerably and stay lossless at that.

A bit like ZIP-ing a RAR file...:)

Diogen.

[iSeries]

FLAC is just as lossless as DTS-MA. It is however far more efficient. Guess what the 'L' in FLAC stands for ;)

As long as it is the DTS-MA stream you are decoding and converting to FLAC and not just the core (i.e using eac3to with the ArcSoft decoder to convert to FLAC), you aren't losing anything.

[hello_hello]

XBMC actually isn't a Microsoft product. It started off as a project to bring more media capabilities to the original Xbox. It's part of the GNU GPL. It's most popular in Linux flavors, but the Windows version is just as capable.

I didn't mean to imply XBMC was a Microsoft product, only that I don't recall whether any of the Windows Media Player variants have mixdown capabilities.

iSeries has a point. Most of the standard tools only decode/convert the core (lossy part) of the DTS audio. In case you weren't aware of how it works:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTS-HD_Master_Audio
"According to DTS-HD White Paper[5], the DTS-HD Master Audio contains 2 data streams: the original DTS core stream and the additional "residual" stream which contains the "difference" between the original signal and the lossy compression DTS core stream. The audio signal is split into two paths at the input to the encoder. One path goes to the core encoder for backwards compatibility and is then decoded. The other path compares the original audio to the decoded core signal and generates residuals, which are data over and above what the core contains that is needed to restore the original audio as bit-for-bit identical to the original. The residual data is then encoded by a lossless encoder and packed together with the core. The decoding process is simply the reverse. Note that DTS-HD lossless audio coding is always variable bit rate."

[nibus]

1: Is the lossless DTS-HD MA source the best to encode from?

2: Is the extra compatibility from AC3 Pro Logic II worth it compared to just using the lossy DTS track via passthrough?

3: Is AC3 PLII at 640kbps comparable to DTS-HD in terms of quality? What about compared to your typical lossy DTS Blu-ray track?

4: Is PLII 640 overkill for movies that don't have those hard hitting audio effects? If so, can you suggest an alternative?


1) Yes. Transcoding from a lossy source will always yield inferior results. However, depending on your playback equipment and ears it might not be that big of a difference.

2) YMMV... I think probably yes (at 640kbps), but I also hate the huge size of DTS in general. It's an outdated codec.

3) I doubt many people could honestly a/b/x AC3 @ 640kbps and DTS-MA. 640 AC3 is really pretty good, and I would say is equal to the DTS core at 1509kbps. Of course there are endless opinions about this - just google "ac3 vs dts".

4) Again depends on your equipment and ears. AC3 at 448kbps still sounds pretty good, though it can benefit from the extra bandwidth of 640kbps.

AAC is also worth looking at if you are playing your media from a PC. Its a much more efficient codec and will get you closer to lossless at a fraction of the space.

FLAC is just as lossless as DTS-MA. It is however far more efficient. Guess what the 'L' in FLAC stands for ;)

As long as it is the DTS-MA stream you are decoding and converting to FLAC and not just the core (i.e using eac3to with the ArcSoft decoder to convert to FLAC), you aren't losing anything.

The one thing you are missing is the ability to bit-stream DTS-MA over HDMI to a compatible receiver, so all decoding has to be done in the player/software/computer instead of the receiver.

[QuantumRand]

Hey guys. Thanks for all the answers.

I've been looking around and it looks like (as has been mentioned) anything other than DTS-HD Passthru only encodes the core stream. I did a few runs with various audio settings on a 30 second clip and this is what I got:

No Audio - 17,506 KB
DTS-HD - 31,019 KB
FLAC 6CH - 21,653 KB
AC3 6CH(640kbps)- 19,858 KB

I could believe that DTS-MA might potentially be less compressed just to reduce performance requirements on DTS-MA capable receivers (making them cheaper to produce), but not to the point that FLAC would only be 30% the size. Encoding track 2, which was DTS 5.1, into FLAC 6CH yielded a file size of 21,610KB, so I think it's pretty definitive. I can definitely see why people prefer AC3 over DTS...Free DTS encoders don't seem to exist.

Now I'm just trying to decide if I should go with FLAC or AC3 640kbps. AC3 saves me a tiny bit of space, so I'd imagine FLAC will sound slightly better, but my receiver is AC3 compatible. I'm playing the files on a PC, so does that even matter? The player does allow AC3 pass-through to the receiver if that makes any difference. Are receivers better at mixing the audio than a PC, or will they be basically the same?

[Ghitulescu]

Are receivers better at mixing the audio than a PC, or will they be basically the same?

A clear answer. An AVR doesn't mix audio :), so the PC is better because anything is better than 0, right?

[QuantumRand]

A clear answer. An AVR doesn't mix audio :), so the PC is better because anything is better than 0, right?

Maybe "mix" was the wrong word to use. I guess what I'm asking is whether or not the receiver would be better at decoding the AC3 stream and sending the appropriate audio to the correct speakers, or would the PC be better? I'm expecting either way would be the exact same, which would mean FLAC is probably the way to go.

[Ghitulescu]

If you mean analogically use the AVR ie don't send the audio analogically from your sound card to the AVR.
If you mean digitally still use the AVR (it's called bitstreaming). All decoding chips in an AVR must have certified decoders (by Dolby Labs) while on a PC this is not always the case. If you want post-processing use the PC and send it as LPCM (if possible) or FLAC (if the AVR support it) or any lossless codec your AVR understands.

[diogen]

Now I'm just trying to decide if I should go with FLAC or AC3 640kbps.You are getting close to audiophile territory where rationality has hardly any value...:)

While trying to stay out of that, I'd say stay with AC3. Because
-you most likely won't hear the difference;
-your AVR most likely can't decode FLAC (but can AC3);
-keeping the audio in digital domain for as long as possible is a good idea; can't do that with FLAC if the AVR can't decode it.
-decoding in the PC and sending to AVR will require the PC capable of 6/7/8 channel analog out.

FLAC would be a reasonable alternative if your PC audio card can encode on the way out.
There are audio cards that offer this option.

Diogen.

[QuantumRand]

Thanks everyone. I think I've decided that I'm going to go with AC3 6CH 640kbps. I honestly don't hear any difference between that and FLAC (maybe I would with a more expensive setup, who knows), so considering the slight space savings and additional receiver compatibility with AC3, that's what I'm sticking with. My sound card can encode to AC3, but that just seems like an unnecessary extra step.

[mindbomb]

personally, i think unless you are using old equipment, ac3 isnt necessary. I picture it as more of a legacy product.

i think vorbis is much better for lossy audio.

[Ghitulescu]

Vorbis never made it to the industry. One is stuck with the computer for playing it.

[mindbomb]

i think you can say the same about flac, but I think most use it for their music over things like apple lossless.

[Ghitulescu]

There are FLAC players (now) and I think I found once also a line of AVRs that could take FLAC digitally. I don't remember now the manufacturer.

[ramicio]

When compare DTS-HD Master or TrueHD with a lossy core to a purely lossless codec, the purely lossless codec is going to be more efficient. TrueHD can run without an AC3 core, DTS-HD Master can/does not. FLAC can get 5.1 audio down to some pretty low bit rates, and sometimes even lower than a lossy 1,509.75 kbps DTS core.

I don't even know what half of the people here are bumbling about with receivers and FLAC. The English language barrier is getting quite annoying to try to read lately. There's no reason to not have a receiver that does HDMI (this isn't the 1990s, S/PDIF over coax or TosLink are DEAD to anyone who's even minutely serious about home cinema), so you decode the FLAC on the PC and it will stream the PCM to the receiver. There's no need to worry about the receiver decoding the FLAC.

People concerned with being cheapos and saving every little kilobit-per-second are not likely to hear the difference between a lossy codec and a lossless one because their only concern is being cheap and instant gratification. They can say all they want about rationality of their science and math, but it is pretty faith-based if you have any common sense.

[sneaker_ger]

I don't think any receiver allows FLAC bitstreams over HDMI. FLAC is only supported via USB file playback or similar.

[diogen]

TrueHD can run without an AC3 core, DTS-HD Master can/does not.It isn't a question of whether something is needed. Just packaging.

DTS-HD is a separate encode, let's say A encode.
But instead of storing it all by itself, it is in the form (B+C).
Where
- A = B + C (C = A - B)
- B is a DTS core track/encode (mandatory).
- C is the mathematical difference between A and B.

Dolby doesn't do it this way.
I don't have a link handy, but somebody was saying Dolby
does something similar bit depth/sampling between their codecs...

Diogen.

[hello_hello]

People concerned with being cheapos and saving every little kilobit-per-second are not likely to hear the difference between a lossy codec and a lossless one because their only concern is being cheap and instant gratification.

There's another fairly odd conclusion.
You convert the video don't you? Are you incapable of telling the difference between the original and the encode because of your own need for cheap and instant gratification, or does the reduction in file size compensate for any differences you can see?
If it's the latter, I wonder why the same wouldn't apply to audio?

[QuantumRand]

personally, i think unless you are using old equipment, ac3 isnt necessary. I picture it as more of a legacy product.

i think vorbis is much better for lossy audio.

I gave Vorbis a try, but it doesn't quite sound right to me. The best that I can explain it is that everything sounded too sharp and kind of reverby. I don't know if it didn't like the setup I have, or if it was a compatibility issue with the source, but it didn't sound like it should have.

[Ghitulescu]

People concerned with being cheapos and saving every little kilobit-per-second are not likely to hear the difference between a lossy codec and a lossless one because their only concern is being cheap and instant gratification. They can say all they want about rationality of their science and math, but it is pretty faith-based if you have any common sense.

There's another fairly odd conclusion

Unfortunatelly ramicio is right about this. We are living now in a world where one can spend 100€ to buy 2TB of space, or 2'000 movies in Divx/H.264 format.

If one is "cheap" enough to try to store 3'000 movies in the same space, then we have 3 choices:

s/he cannot notice the difference
s/he doesn't care too much, meaning the differences in quality are far too insignifiant in comparizon to the space advantages
s/he "pirated" those movies

Because someneone that paid for a BMW-worth load of movies should have the money to store them in their original quality. Only those getting them next to nothing are cheap enough to do this, because they didn't pay in the first place for ....

I work and thus I have time to watch only a movie a night. That means a "normal" 1TB of DVD-original sizes fills in my evenings for almost 2 years. Why do I need 4'000 movies or 6'000? To watch them in a lesser quality (mind you I paid the premium price for original quality) for 15 years? And to miss the next technological breakthru, like those ripping years ago their DVDs to VCDs? Only to notice these VCDs don't look nice on their new TVs? Then to AVIs? And repeating the same for Blurays?

[QuantumRand]

I work and thus I have time to watch only a movie a night. That means a "normal" 1TB of DVD-original sizes fills in my evenings for almost 2 years. Why do I need 4'000 movies or 6'000? To watch them in a lesser quality (mind you I paid the premium price for original quality) for 15 years? And to miss the next technological breakthru, like those ripping years ago their DVDs to VCDs? Only to notice these VCDs don't look nice on their new TVs? Then to AVIs? And repeating the same for Blurays?

A bit off topic, but I backup my Blu-rays because they seem to be extremely susceptible to damage. Two of my Blu-rays already have slight corruptions in the video despite only having watched them like thrice, and I certainly don't abuse them. Another reason I back them up is out of convenience. The PowerDVD software is absolutely worthless and doesn't recognize my TV as an HDCP device (it is, I promise), so the only way to watch a Blu-ray is to stream it using MakeMKV, which really is a pain. Backing it up is a one-time thing, and I let it transcode over night to give me instant playback whenever I want.

Yeah, I could back them up in their full 30GB-50GB size, but NAS storage isn't cheap (not to mention that a 30GB movie will have trouble streaming over the network). 2TB of space only holds about 50 movies. My collection is only about 20 right now, but I store other things like system backups there too. Ultimately, I only have about 1TB of space for my movies. Without compressing them, they'd never all fit.

Choosing AC3 over DTS-MA saves me about 2GB per movie. That's pretty significant. And I've so far been content with my AC3 encodes. If I happen to find that it doesn't sound good with one of my movies when I got to watch it, I can always re-rip it, assuming the disk hasn't been damaged.

[Ghitulescu]

That is a good policy.
There are only a few people in this world that would immediately say this is AC3 and not DTSMA and definitively not on regular gear.
I was an early adopter, yet I never experienced an original disc developing bad sectors over time. Yes, it was in the earliest days of CD a wave of bad pressings, but nothing since. Originals scratched in eg auto, yes, I use only copies there, by kids and dogs, but not from themselves (insufficient quality).
What I fear most, and this is the only time I'm doing backups is when the BD/DVD is "wrongly" authored, like unskipable ads and trailers and three times a day FBI warnings making me a thief (the pirates don't see these :)). I keep the original language in its best quality and the subtitles of interest, dropping everything else, including the menus, which are useless and time- and nerve-consuming.

[diogen]

I have all my movies on hard drives, play them mostly on a PC and don't have neither BD players nor optical drive in the HTPC.
The ripping is done on a different computer in the office.
Started this around the turn of the century and switched from DVD to BD as soon as muslix published his exploit.

I don't have 6,000 of them but over 1K.

Sticking to the same language, if you are so cheapo and can't buy a couple hard drives and dump the DRM-less
movies onto it (as-is or re-encoded) and prefer to waste your time to update the firmware of your BD player,
fiddle with HDCP handshaking issues, fight the 24p/60p playback, worry about how
Cinavia is going to screw you - it's your choice.

But there are better ways of doing this...

Diogen.

[Ghitulescu]

I have all my movies on hard drives, play them mostly on a PC and don't have neither BD players nor optical drive in the HTPC.
The ripping is done on a different computer in the office.
Started this around the turn of the century and switched from DVD to BD as soon as muslix published his exploit.

I don't have 6,000 of them but over 1K.

Sticking to the same language, if you are so cheapo and can't buy a couple hard drives and dump the DRM-less
movies onto it (as-is or re-encoded) and prefer to waste your time to update the firmware of your BD player,
fiddle with HDCP handshaking issues, fight the 24p/60p playback, worry about how
Cinavia is going to screw you - it's your choice.

But there are better ways of doing this...
It's a bit oof-topic, but what you described reflect better the PC world than the standalones. I'm one of the challengers to the crown of Nostradamus, read an older message of mine (I don't want to waste my time searching for it myself for a useless debate) in which I said how the PC world will be doomed by DRM, which will be beyond the reach of hackers.

[hello_hello]

Unfortunatelly ramicio is right about this. We are living now in a world where one can spend 100€ to buy 2TB of space, or 2'000 movies in Divx/H.264 format.

If one is "cheap" enough to try to store 3'000 movies in the same space, then we have 3 choices:

s/he cannot notice the difference
s/he doesn't care too much, meaning the differences in quality are far too insignifiant in comparizon to the space advantages
s/he "pirated" those movies



Sometimes I do wonder if you actually understand what you're arguing about.
ramicio claimed:
"People concerned with saving every little kilobit-per-second are not likely to hear the difference between a lossy codec and a lossless one because their only concern is being cheap and instant gratification."
I replied that I don't think it necessarily follows they can't hear a difference but maybe the large reduction in file size compensates for any minor difference they can hear. Then you reply, with the second reason on your "list" repeating what I'd already said.

Because someneone that paid for a BMW-worth load of movies should have the money to store them in their original quality. Only those getting them next to nothing are cheap enough to do this, because they didn't pay in the first place for ....

Whether you think someone "should" have the money to store movies in their original quality is irrelevant, and it's a ridiculous assumption anyway. "Original quality" implies no re-encoding at all, either video or audio. Yet most people re-encode, don't they?
Maybe they "want" a smaller, more portable copy. Maybe they just want more convenience. It's not like anyone's throwing the original discs away. The discs still contain the movies in their "original quality" don't they? I'm sure most people "should" have the money for a bookshelf to store all those discs.
As someone who boasts they don't re-encode it amazes me how in touch you think you are with the psyche of those who do.

I work and thus I have time to watch only a movie a night. That means a "normal" 1TB of DVD-original sizes fills in my evenings for almost 2 years. Why do I need 4'000 movies or 6'000? To watch them in a lesser quality (mind you I paid the premium price for original quality) for 15 years? And to miss the next technological breakthru, like those ripping years ago their DVDs to VCDs? Only to notice these VCDs don't look nice on their new TVs? Then to AVIs? And repeating the same for Blurays?

Obviously you've not noticed your "original quality" VHS tapes look pretty horrible on a new TV, or that your "original quality" DVDs don't look particularly good either. How many people bought movies they already owned on VHS in DVD format, only to do the same thing again with Bluray? Using your logic nobody should ever buy a movie again.
And once again you're ignoring the fact video conversion is a legitimate hobby regardless of the reason for doing it, whether you choose to engage in it or not. It certainly seems more legitimate a way to spend time to me than trolling threads in a forum dedicated to video encoding with anti-encoding posts.

[Ghitulescu]

Whether you think someone "should" have the money to store movies in their original quality is irrelevant, and it's a ridiculous assumption anyway. "Original quality" implies no re-encoding at all, either video or audio. Yet most people re-encode, don't they?
Maybe they "want" a smaller, more portable copy. Maybe they just want more convenience. It's not like anyone's throwing the original discs away. The discs still contain the movies in their "original quality" don't they? I'm sure most people "should" have the money for a bookshelf to store all those discs.
As someone who boasts they don't re-encode it amazes me how in touch you think you are with the psyche of those who do.
Yeah, this is debatable. Based on my experiences and some of my former and actual colleagues, I know than people don't degrade what they value. If they have paid 20€ or 30€ for Avatar, they won't lock the original away to watch instead a lower audio/video resolution on their whatever portable. Don't make me laugh ;)
Obviously you've not noticed your "original quality" VHS tapes look pretty horrible on a new TV, or that your "original quality" DVDs don't look particularly good either. How many people bought movies they already owned on VHS in DVD format, only to do the same thing again with Bluray? Using your logic nobody should ever buy a movie again.
Not really, it depends on the A/V-chain's quality, original VHS tapes may not look as a 3D BD. And a good DVD is sometimes indistinguishable from a normal BD, at least on my setup. I know however which one is which, but this doesn't spoil my viewing pleasure.
And once again you're ignoring the fact video conversion is a legitimate hobby regardless of the reason for doing it, whether you choose to engage in it or not. It certainly seems more legitimate a way to spend time to me than trolling threads in a forum dedicated to video encoding with anti-encoding posts.
Shooting wallabies or chasing foxes are hobbies, but this fact alone doesn't confer them the required common sense.
My trolling action also protects you and the other encoding-hobbyists from the consequences of your actions, so, by the grace of an example:
In the early 90ies, all these hobbyists (OK, the parents of the today's' hobbyists) started ripping the AudioCDs into MP3. That time a CD could hold sometimes more than 3x more data than the biggest consumer HDD. So their hobby was driven by necessity. On PC speakers (because, remember, Rio came years later) 128kbps sound "CD-like".
The power of these early hobbyists finally drove the studios to sell online music, in an attempt to stop illegal downloads. But, did they offer the same quality? Hell, no! What did they offer instead? 128kbps DRM-ed MP3s. Why? Why would they offer something that cannot be protected (eg WAV) when people encode them anyway to MP3, you know, hobby-wise, lack of a real social life, bla bla bla?
I'm happy the studios didn't start selling Divx[/HD] instead of DVD/BD.... but even then, these hobbyists would have most probably re-encoded them to H.264, then to H.265, then to H.266 and so on till they die.

[hello_hello]

Yeah, this is debatable. Based on my experiences and some of my former and actual colleagues, I know than people don't degrade what they value. If they have paid 20€ or 30€ for Avatar, they won't lock the original away to watch instead a lower audio/video resolution on their whatever portable. Don't make me laugh

I think maybe you just need to get out more, because you're making me laugh. This forum is proof many people do what you're claiming nobody does.

Not really, it depends on the A/V-chain's quality, original VHS tapes may not look as a 3D BD. And a good DVD is sometimes indistinguishable from a normal BD, at least on my setup. I know however which one is which, but this doesn't spoil my viewing pleasure.

Sounds like you need a better setup, although I suspect "sometimes indistinguishable" is an admission DVDs generally don't look anywhere near as good.
Of course you've defeated your own argument as I'm sure most people know whether they're playing the original disc or an encode too, and don't let it spoil their viewing pleasure either.

Shooting wallabies or chasing foxes are hobbies, but this fact alone doesn't confer them the required common sense.

I didn't know wallabies or foxes watched movies, although I've no doubt they'd still have enough common sense not to pay 20€ or 30€ for Avatar. :)

My trolling action also protects you and the other encoding-hobbyists from the consequences of your actions, so, by the grace of an example

None of your irrelevant examples show you're protecting me from the consequences of my actions in any way. First you claim hobbyists ripped MP3s out of necessity then try to connect that necessity to illegal downloads, while finally admitting none of it has anything to do with DVD/BD sales. You're just trolling around in circles now.
Where could you download DRM protected 128k MP3s? I was under the impression most DRM protected music sales came in either WMA or iTunes format, but I don't know.... the consequence of my hobby has never forced me to buy DRM protected music either. Is the 128kb MP3 claim something you just made up for effect?

[QuantumRand]

I'm a little confused here...I rip my Blu-rays because PowerDVD (and WinDVD trial) fail to recognize my HDTV as HDCP. MakeMKV allows you to stream directly from the BD, but it takes like 5 minutes to scan the contents first.

I encode my rips because not only do I have about 1TB of space to store them on my NAS, but there's no way my wireless network can stream a 30GB movie.

I'm not squeezing them down to some crappy 2GB movie file as Ghitulescu is suggesting. For the majority of my movies, I'm happy with ~6GB 720p files. For my favorites, ~8-10GB 1080p files. I'm mostly after convenience here, not compression.

The reason I was asking about DTS-MA and audio codecs was because the MA track is like 3GB, and I don't really think that an extra 40kHz outside of the human hearing range is going to be all that useful to me. I consider the ~2GB of space saving in this case as a very acceptable loss. I just wanted to make sure that the codecs I chose weren't either overkill or underkill. And I've gotten my answer as well as a lot of other useful information.

[Ghitulescu]

You can't be wrong with dolby digital. DTSMA is generally an overkill for most applications. So is TrueHD. You can even extract the core like most people do and be happy.

[hello_hello]

You can't be wrong with dolby digital. DTSMA is generally an overkill for most applications. So is TrueHD. You can even extract the core like most people do and be happy.

So DRM protected 128k MP3s is yet another question you'll just ignore?? Funny about that.

[Ghitulescu]

So DRM protected 128k MP3s is yet another question you'll just ignore?? Funny about that.

It's off-topic now (it served a precise role) and I answered this several times in a row and you still don't get it.

[mindbomb]

i think it is fine to choose lossy audio if you need to save space; it is actually probably one of the most shrewd places to make cuts since you pretty much can't notice unless you really screw up.

However, I don't like that you are using ac3 for audio. It is constant bitrate, which is just bad for overall efficiency. Decoding and encoding frequently involves giving dolby money. In the old days, you pretty much had to use DTS or AC3 to get digital surround sound, but now with HDMI, you can basically use any codec you want.

So that brings me to vorbis. it is free to encode and decode. it is variable bitrate. It is one of the most advanced lossy audio codecs available. I recommend it for lossy audio.

[ramicio]

There's another fairly odd conclusion.
You convert the video don't you? Are you incapable of telling the difference between the original and the encode because of your own need for cheap and instant gratification, or does the reduction in file size compensate for any differences you can see?
If it's the latter, I wonder why the same wouldn't apply to audio?

I re-encode to keep everything one codec and to crop out black bars. I don't care about a slight loss of quality even if it means a larger file size than the original. I care about keeping everything one container, video codec, and not seeing black bars when I want to not play full-screen. I use FLAC for lossless audio whenever possible. Whenever possible meaning that still, not all Blu-ray movies come with lossless audio. Quite pathetic. I don't care about space.

[Midzuki]

...

So that brings me to vorbis. it is free to encode and decode. it is variable bitrate. It is one of the most advanced lossy audio codecs available. I recommend it for lossy audio.

Vorbis is an OK-codec, as long as one keeps in mind the following:

-- multichannel Vorbis requires a "fast enough" computer with TONS of RAM (according to Kostya && my personal experience) ;

-- just like WMA :devil: , Vorbis has variable frame duration, so there are only 4.5 :) suitable containers for it: Ogg ( which sucks :p ), Matroska, MP4/MOV, and last but not least, ASF :D

[diogen]

I'm a little confused here...If you can squeeze forum lessons in just two, those would be
- don't believe anything you read; test first
- ignore idiots (develop your own criteria, the "I told you so!" gang is a good start).
For the majority of my movies, I'm happy with ~6GB 720p files. For my favorites, ~8-10GB 1080p files. I'm mostly after convenience here, not compression.I do about the same and find it the best trade-off.
The reason I was asking about DTS-MA and audio codecs was because the MA track is like 3GB...Storage doesn't cost much.
And DTS-MA has the DTS core as a component of itself.
So you can use DTS today and DTS-MA tomorrow when you get your equipment upgraded.

Diogen.

[hello_hello]

It's off-topic now (it served a precise role) and I answered this several times in a row and you still don't get it.

Yeah, it's funny how the second you're asked a question which you don't like, you develop an interest in what's off-topic and what isn't. An interest which didn't stop you to trolling a DTS-HD MA transcoding thread with your anti-encoding nonsense. Are you at least fooling yourself?

And no, you didn't answer the question. That's not just one of your usual transparent excuses, it's a blatant lie. I get it.

[hello_hello]

I re-encode to keep everything one codec and to crop out black bars. I don't care about a slight loss of quality even if it means a larger file size than the original.

I give up. How does any of that answer my question, or have anything to do with your claim "People concerned with being cheapos and saving every little kilobit-per-second are not likely to hear the difference between a lossy codec and a lossless one because their only concern is being cheap and instant gratification."?

[Ghitulescu]

I give up.

Thanks, and please don't break your promise.:p

[hello_hello]

Thanks, and please don't break your promise.:p

How childish can you get?