eac3to - audio conversion tool

[Kurtnoise]

Originally Posted by madshi

I meant that I don't know what DVDDecryptor wants to say by adding the text "DRC" to the demuxed audio file.

it's just an info from the IFO file...nothing is applied to the track itself.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by Kurtnoise13

it's just an info from the IFO file...nothing is applied to the track itself.

Ah, thanks.

[wolfbane5]

Originally Posted by madshi

Surcode is located by checking these registry values:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Minnetonka Audio Software\SurCode DVD-DTS\Home
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Minnetonka Audio Software\SurCode DVD DTS\Home

Again, if you have properly installed Surcode, these registry values should be set. Re-installing the programs with admin rights may solve the issue.

I reinstalled arcsoft via an update with admin rights and eac3to now recognizes it. It still doesn't recognize surcode is installed despite installing with admin rights. Any ideas?

[The_Keymaker]

Originally Posted by yesgrey3

Also, if you decode the track into FLAC, I believe you will get a smaller file. At least, from the few tracks I have done it, the size was always smaller...

I just tried this and can confirm the FLAC audio track file is smaller then the demuxed DTS-HD audio track file. Why is this? Is the DTS-HD container/compression scheme less efficient than FLAC? Or, is there something being lost in the FLAC conversion process?

Regards
The_keymaker

[nautilus7]

FLAC is more efficient. Also, don't forget that DTS-HD Master Audio can't be less than 1536kbps because of the DTS core inside, which reduces efficiency.

[The_Keymaker]

Originally Posted by nautilus7

FLAC is more efficient. Also, don't forget that DTS-HD Master Audio can't be less than 1536kbps because of the DTS core inside, which reduces efficiency.

Thanks Nautilus.

[rica]

Also my latest trials proved the only way of listening lossless audio formats as is (24 bit) over analog cables on conventional receivers is transcoding them to flac via eac3to.
Thanks to madshi again; hope you will make the madecoder filter someday which allows us to listen the lossless audio as is.

[The_Keymaker]

Based on suggestions from forum members, I've decided to mux (into MKV) the FLAC audio track instead of the DTS-HD audio track (which seemed to not playback very well in Zoom Player anyway).

One question though, in the past when I muxed my HD-DVD into MKV, I used a timecode file in MKVToolnix (23.976). Is it still necessary to do this?

If so should it be for the audio track or the video track or both?

Thanks!
The_Keymaker

[nautilus7]

If you let eac3to mux the video (and automatically remove pulldown) into mkv you don't need anything more. Just do a second manual pass with mkvmerge to mux audio, etc (again with no timecode).

[cavediver]

I'm working on the Jethro Tull Live in Montreux Blu-Ray. The movie is contained in two m2ts files one of which is only 00:00:01 in length. The movie contains one video file and three audio tracks: DTS-HD MA 5.1, AC3 5.1, and LPCM 2.0. The movie is h264/AVC, 1080i at 29.970 fps. It's not playing real smooth through the Popcorn Hour. If I use eac3to to change the frame rate of movie from 29.970 to 23.976 will I need to do anything to the audio tracks to make them sync with the new frame rate, or will they be ok native? Or do I just need to demux the movie to a raw h264 file and let eac3to fix whatever pulldown or stuff is going on with the video file?

[rica]

The best way i'd suggest is to:
1) Demux to elementary streams (including transcoding to flac) with eac3to.
2) Remux to mkv with MkvMergeGui 2.4.1.

Originally Posted by The_Keymaker

Based on suggestions from forum members, I've decided to mux (into MKV) the FLAC audio track instead of the DTS-HD audio track (which seemed to not playback very well in Zoom Player anyway).

[The_Keymaker]

Thanks Nautilus and Rica. That is what I'll do.

[rica]

Originally Posted by cavediver

I'm working on the Jethro Tull Live in Montreux Blu-Ray. The movie is contained in two m2ts files one of which is only 00:00:01 in length. The movie contains one video file and three audio tracks: DTS-HD MA 5.1, AC3 5.1, and LPCM 2.0. The movie is h264/AVC, 1080i at 29.970 fps. It's not playing real smooth through the Popcorn Hour. If I use eac3to to change the frame rate of movie from 29.970 to 23.976 will I need to do anything to the audio tracks to make them sync with the new frame rate, or will they be ok native? Or do I just need to demux the movie to a raw h264 file and let eac3to fix whatever pulldown or stuff is going on with the video file?

In my experience, especially concert BD Disks are natively interlaced; so you can't remove pulldown.
If there is a pulldown, eac3to will remove it.
So the best way; first demux the video via eac3to and check the frame rate with Mediainfo after demuxing.
If nothing has changed, it is clear the movie is nativelly interlaced and nothing to do with it.
If it returns to 23.96, that means you've removed the pulldown and no need to make any change on audio since the the original is 23.96 already.
But if you change it to 25 fps you have to use speedup option in both video and audio while demuxing.

[rack04]

Using eac3to v2.87 I'm having trouble with Ratatouille Blu-ray.

Using the command line:
eac3to "F:\Blu-ray\RATATOUILLE"

Gives me three seemless branches with the same duration. The first 1) is called angle 1, the second 2) is called angle 2, and the third 3) is called angle 3. When I play this disc using PowerDVD I don't have the option to change angles so I wonder if there really are angles on this disc.

Can anyone tell me what the difference is in the various angles?

[Snowknight26]

Play the different m2ts files and see for yourself?

[cavediver]

Originally Posted by rica

In my experience, especially concert BD Disks are natively interlaced; so you can't remove pulldown.
If there is a pulldown, eac3to will remove it.
So the best way; first demux the video via eac3to and check the frame rate with Mediainfo after demuxing.
If nothing has changed, it is clear the movie is nativelly interlaced and nothing to do with it.
If it returns to 23.96, that means you've removed the pulldown and no need to make any change on audio since the the original is 23.96 already.
But if you change it to 25 fps you have to use speedup option in both video and audio while demuxing.

Thanks Rica. You were right. It is natively interlaced at 1080i60. I fixed the problem by setting the output on the PCH to 1080i60.

[wolfbane5]

Originally Posted by rack04

Using eac3to v2.87 I'm having trouble with Ratatouille Blu-ray.

Using the command line:
eac3to "F:\Blu-ray\RATATOUILLE"

Gives me three seemless branches with the same duration. The first 1) is called angle 1, the second 2) is called angle 2, and the third 3) is called angle 3. When I play this disc using PowerDVD I don't have the option to change angles so I wonder if there really are angles on this disc.

Can anyone tell me what the difference is in the various angles?

I haven't seen Ratatouille on bluray so I can't say what each angle is. I'd recommend checking on the bluray itself. The best way to explain angling is this:

ex. If you've seen any of the Star Wars movies, in the beginning is the slanted yellow text. In the DVD Menu, you can choose to watch the movie in Eng/Fr/Spa and in doing so you also choose which version of the text is to be shown when starting the movie. When ripping DVD's to the computer with DVDDecrypter, you can choose which angle is ripped; I'm not as sure with bluray.

[joerg-daniel]

I tried to convert the dts express track

eac3to v2.86
command line: eac3to 2_11_audio.dts audio.wav -nero
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DTS Express, 1.0 channels, 1:26:10, 16 bits, 96kbps, 48khz
Disabling DRC for Nero (E-)AC3 decoding...
Decoding with DirectShow (Nero Audio Decoder 2)...
The WAV writer didn't receive the format information.
Aborted at file position 62045184.

is this the right audio decoder?
where can i see if the nero hd coder is installed?

[madshi]

Originally Posted by The_Keymaker

I just tried this and can confirm the FLAC audio track file is smaller then the demuxed DTS-HD audio track file. Why is this? Is the DTS-HD container/compression scheme less efficient than FLAC?

It is always this way. FLAC is usually noticably smaller than DTS-HD Master Audio. The reason is simply that DTS wastes space by using a lossy core. That makes things less efficient. FLAC is a much simpler approach without any lossy components, which makes it much more effective. The DTS approach makes some sense, too, though, mainly because the lossy DTS core can be transported over SPDIF, while multichannel FLAC can't.

Originally Posted by The_Keymaker

One question though, in the past when I muxed my HD-DVD into MKV, I used a timecode file in MKVToolnix (23.976). Is it still necessary to do this?

No. Muxing HD DVD to MKV is 100% the same compared to Blu-Ray, when letting eac3to doing all the dirty work. No special tricks needed at all.

Originally Posted by rica

The best way i'd suggest is to:
1) Demux to elementary streams (including transcoding to flac) with eac3to.
2) Remux to mkv with MkvMergeGui 2.4.1.

That is NOT the best way. To my best knowledge mkvtoolnix' elementary stream muxing is inferior compared to eac3to. I've found several bugs in mkvtoolnix' elementary stream muxing, none of which are present in eac3to. If you want to end up with an MKV you should always let eac3to do the video muxing to MKV. The situation may be different when you want to end up with TS or m2ts. Then demuxing to elementary streams may make sense. But not when you want to get an MKV in the end. I've spent a lot of time comparing the different MKV video muxers and all of them have (different) problems. I'm not aware of any current problems with eac3to's MKV video muxing.

Originally Posted by joerg-daniel

I tried to convert the dts express track

eac3to v2.86
command line: eac3to 2_11_audio.dts audio.wav -nero
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DTS Express, 1.0 channels, 1:26:10, 16 bits, 96kbps, 48khz
Disabling DRC for Nero (E-)AC3 decoding...
Decoding with DirectShow (Nero Audio Decoder 2)...
The WAV writer didn't receive the format information.
Aborted at file position 62045184.

is this the right audio decoder?

Looks like that to me. Can you upload a sample of the original m2ts source file, please? I guess 50MB should do. Alternatively you can upload 10MB of the demuxed DTS Express track. But the original m2ts file might help more...

[yesgrey]

Originally Posted by madshi

If you want to end up with an MKV you should always let eac3to do the video muxing to MKV.

madshi,
I am currently testing x264 encoding to find the best options for my encodings. I am creating h264 raw streams with x264 and then mux them into mkv with mkvmerge 2.4.1. After reading the above, I have tryed muxing with eac3to but it always says: "The format of the source file could not be detected".
I am using eac3to v2.87.

Here is the first 1MB of one of the files, it's a 23.976fps stream:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=GX84ITRG

Could you take a look at it? Or eac3to does not support x264 h264 raw streams?

Thanks in advance