eac3to - audio conversion tool

[The_Keymaker]

Hello madshi and forum members,

I've been away for awhile but am now back to archiving my movie collection. However, I have a problem.

I tried to decode the 7.1 DTS-HD audio of the Blu-Ray disc "The Golden Compass" and received an error message about the Arcsoft decoder. I ran eac3to -test and received the dreaded "Arcsoft DTS decoder does not seem to be installed".

I have the LATEST purchased (non-trial) version of Total Media Theater (v 2.1.6.128) and my version of the dtsdecoderdll.dll is 1.1.0.0. I've read about some issues with the Arcsoft decoder and eac3to (on page 267 and 268 of this thread) but found no solutions.

I am running on Windows Vista 32 and i am using eac3to version 2.84.

Can you (or anyone else) offer any help?

Thanks
The_Keymaker

[Chumbo]

Originally Posted by The_Keymaker

Hello madshi and forum members,

I've been away for awhile but am now back to archiving my movie collection. However, I have a problem.

I tried to decode the 7.1 DTS-HD audio of the Blu-Ray disc "The Golden Compass" and received an error message about the Arcsoft decoder. I ran eac3to -test and received the dreaded "Arcsoft DTS decoder does not seem to be installed".

I have the LATEST purchased (non-trial) version of Total Media Theater (v 2.1.6.128) and my version of the dtsdecoderdll.dll is 1.1.0.0. I've read about some issues with the Arcsoft decoder and eac3to (on page 267 and 268 of this thread) but found no solutions.

I am running on Windows Vista 32 and i am using eac3to version 2.84.

Can you (or anyone else) offer any help?

Thanks
The_Keymaker

Not sure if it was here, but awhile back someone had an issue with the purchased version and wound up installing the trial first and then updating or something like that which then worked. It may be in this thread or elsewhere. I'm sorry I can't remember where I saw this.

[The_Keymaker]

Hello Chumbo! Good to see you here.

I re-read the older posts and found the solution. I had to add the the following to my path statement:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcSoft\Bin

However, since this issue is prevalent and the solution arcane, I would humbly suggest madshi make note of it in his fist post.

Regards,
The_Keymaker

[madshi]

Originally Posted by Atak_Snajpera

Is something wrong with libav that we need support for other decoders?

Originally Posted by nautilus7

Nero and ArcSoft use Dolby's reference code for their decoders, so they might offer better sound quality, but the difference should be negligible, if any.

Yes, my main reason for supporting other decoders is that they're reference decoders and they do output slightly different results compared to libav, although I won't dare to judge whether there's any audible difference. The one thing which makes me prefer the reference decoders is that I can be (relatively) safe that the decoding will be bug free, while with libav there may be a higher danger of decoding bugs...

Originally Posted by magic144

just wondering if possible in a future update, can the audio edit function be used to insert silence for a +delay, rather than looping the audio at that point - would be superb if that could be done for at least AC3 and DTS

That would be possible to do, but regardless of whether we loop audio or add silence, we still should search for an edit point where audio volume is low and nobody is talking etc, right? So if we have such an edit point, wouldn't looping audio actually be preferred? I've found that in the edits I've done so far, looping audio most often resulted in a "perfect" result. I usually couldn't even find the edit points after the sync was complete. Of course this only works that well if you choose a good edit point (low volume, no talk, see above). So based on my experience I really don't see a need for an option to include silence - unless we're talking about edits that are bigger than just a few hundred milliseconds.

Your opinion?

Originally Posted by wolfbane5

Had no idea eac3to could extract the dts core by itself; well that solves my problem there.

Generally eac3to does most of the processing on its own. There are only a few exceptions where externally installed components are needed. The most important being MKV muxing and full audio decoding of some audio formats (not all).

Originally Posted by wolfbane5

I was curious as to why there isn't support for .m2ts and .ts outputs?

Because it's really difficult to implement in a proper way.

Originally Posted by yesgrey3

You are still including eac3to 2.80 in the pack. Is 2.85 not yet stable enough?

Up until v2.84 there still have been new bugs found which didn't exist in v2.80 yet. So v2.80 did have a purpose at least until now. Hopefully v2.85 is now better than v2.80 in every way. But we'll have to wait and see about that. If no new bugs show up this week, I might delete v2.80 from the zip in the next release.

Originally Posted by The_Keymaker

I re-read the older posts and found the solution. I had to add the the following to my path statement:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcSoft\Bin

However, since this issue is prevalent and the solution arcane, I would humbly suggest madshi make note of it in his fist post.

Will do that...

[mrr19121970]

Originally Posted by madshi

Because it's really difficult to implement in a proper way.

We use tsmuxer to build the streams back together again at the end. I've tried to automate this as best I can here:

http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=24388

but it would be super if (in the absence of direct .m2ts & .ts support) that you could find a way to dynamically build the meta file based on:

Chapter List
Video Type
Audio Type & Language

Thanks, Mike.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by mrr19121970

We use tsmuxer to build the streams back together again at the end. I've tried to automate this as best I can here:

http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread.php?t=24388

but it would be super if (in the absence of direct .m2ts & .ts support) that you could find a way to dynamically build the meta file based on:

Chapter List
Video Type
Audio Type & Language

The problem with this approach is that you'd have to tell eac3to exactly which tracks you want to have stored into the final m2ts file. If there are commentary tracks and maybe multiple audio dubs, the eac3to command line would be monstrous. Currently I'm usually simply doing "eac3to source movie.mkv" and then I'm deleting all audio tracks and subtitle tracks I don't need. Doing this in one step is difficult. If there are multiple commentary tracks, I even test all of them and choose only those which seem to be worthwhile to me. Such a thing could only be done in one step if there was a way to make all decisions before doing the all-in-one-step-processing. Maybe for you it works that way, if you are not interested in testing audio tracks before deciding. But for me it doesn't work that way, because I need to test audio tracks before deciding...

[mrr19121970]

yes, for me it's quite simple. my command line is generally:

eac3to q:\ 1) 2: video.* 3: english.ac3 4: german.ac3

it's only when that deviates (say english only, german & french) that things get tricky. in this case eac3to already knows what format for the video & audio, what names have been chosen and the language.

i was thinking of some sort of scraping script, but at the moment i can live as is.

[nautilus7]

Originally Posted by madshi

That would be possible to do, but regardless of whether we loop audio or add silence, we still should search for an edit point where audio volume is low and nobody is talking etc, right? So if we have such an edit point, wouldn't looping audio actually be preferred? I've found that in the edits I've done so far, looping audio most often resulted in a "perfect" result. I usually couldn't even find the edit points after the sync was complete. Of course this only works that well if you choose a good edit point (low volume, no talk, see above). So based on my experience I really don't see a need for an option to include silence - unless we're talking about edits that are bigger than just a few hundred milliseconds.

Your opinion?

I totally agree. An option for adding silence would be nice for such (longer) edits.

[The_Keymaker]

Hello madshi,

My main backup server is nearly Identical (file and program locations) to my workstation but when i run eac3to -test it tells me Surcode, MKVtoolNix and Arcsoft don't seem to be installed. It tells me Arcsoft isn't installed even after I modified my Path environment variable.

Can you tell me how eac3to checks for the presence of these programs so I can modify my Path environment and directories so eac3to can find them?

Thanks!
The_Keymaker

[htpc@rischer.at]

There ist a bug in 2.85 obviously: look at subtitle 19, the bolded lines

E:\..\EAC3TO>eac3to j: 3: oc3.vc1 4: oc3_eng.ac3 6: oc3_deu.ac3 19: oc3.sup
EVO, 1 video track, 4 audio tracks, 12 subtitle tracks, 2:02:09
"Feature Presentation"
1: Joined EVO file
2: Chapters, 34 chapters without names
3: VC-1, 1080p24 /1.001 (16:9) with pulldown flags
4: E-AC3, English, 5.1 channels, 640kbps, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
5: E-AC3, French, 5.1 channels, 448kbps, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
6: E-AC3, German, 5.1 channels, 448kbps, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
7: E-AC3 Surround, English, 2.0 channels, 192kbps, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
"Commentary"
8: Subtitle, English
9: Subtitle, French
10: Subtitle, German
11: Subtitle, German, "SDH"
12: Subtitle, Dutch, "Dutch"
13: Subtitle, Danish, "Danish"
14: Subtitle, Finnish, "Finnish"
15: Subtitle, Norwegian, "Norwegian"
16: Subtitle, Swedish, "Swedish"
17: Subtitle, English, "Forced"
18: Subtitle, French, "Forced"
19: Subtitle, German, "Forced"
Track 8 is used for destination file "oc3.sup".
[a04] The Nero decoder doesn't seem to work, will use libav instead.
[a06] The Nero decoder doesn't seem to work, will use libav instead.
[v03] Extracting video track number 3...
[v03] Removing VC-1 pulldown...
[a06] Extracting audio track number 6...
[a04] Extracting audio track number 4...
[a04] Removing E-AC3 dialog normalization...
[a04] Decoding with libav/ffmpeg...
[a04] Remapping channels...
[a04] Encoding AC3 <640kbps> with libAften...
[a06] Removing E-AC3 dialog normalization...
[a06] Decoding with libav/ffmpeg...
[a06] Remapping channels...
[a06] Encoding AC3 <640kbps> with libAften...
[v03] Creating file "oc3.vc1"...
[a04] Creating file "oc3_eng.ac3"...
[a06] Creating file "oc3_deu.ac3"...
[s08] Extracting subtitle track number 8...
[s08] Creating file "19oc3.sup"...

[The_Keymaker]

A little progress...

For Arcsoft, I had to add the following to the environment path: C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcSoft\Bin

AND

Manually register filters AsAudio.ax, AsAudioHD.ax and AsAudioEffectHD.

The_Keymaker

[magic144]

@madshi
regarding silence edit/insertion - I agree, these insert points should be short and at 'quiet' moments - I've only ever had to use such a feature when the audio has been b0rked, e.g. by a bad TV commercial edit or some other error/glitch

I happened to hear from Tebasuna51 about this and it was mentioned that to insert silence requires lots of individual samples at all different rates and encoding types to have 'at hand' for use by the tool, so it wasn't straightforward, whereas looping merely requires duplicating what is already there, so I think it would be a bit of an effort to do for now - I guess delaycut can do the job, it was just a "nice to have included in eac3to" option in my way of thinking - if it could all be automated in the one tool (and eac3to is rapidly becoming the swiss-army-knife of all tools!)

thanks for giving it some attention anyway - bottom line is I use it quite infrequently and can use delaycut instead!

[wolfbane5]

The_Keymaker: I've been having the same issue as you - surcode, mkvtoolnix and arcsoft aren't being recognized by eac3to. madshi offered this advice in an earlier post if you happened to miss it:

Originally Posted by madshi

eac3to gets the mkvtoolnix path from one of these registry values:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\mkvmergeGUI\GUI\installation_path
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\MKVtoolnix\UninstallString
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\MKVtoolnix\DisplayIcon

If you have properly installed mkvtoolnix, all of these should be set. 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.

madshi also mentioned that re-installing the programs with admin rights may solve the issue.

Originally Posted by madshi

making the ArcSoft DTS decoder work in eac3to:

Sometimes the ArcSoft DTS decoder doesn't work even after you've installed the full retail software. This can usually be fixed by manually adding the ArcSoft "Bin" folder (e.g. "C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcSoft\Bin") to your environment search "path".

How do I do this?

[madshi]

Originally Posted by magic144

regarding silence edit/insertion - I agree, these insert points should be short and at 'quiet' moments

That's not what I said. If you need long edits then you need long edits. "Should be" or not doesn't matter...

Originally Posted by magic144

I happened to hear from Tebasuna51 about this and it was mentioned that to insert silence requires lots of individual samples at all different rates and encoding types to have 'at hand' for use by the tool, so it wasn't straightforward, whereas looping merely requires duplicating what is already there, so I think it would be a bit of an effort to do for now

Actually adding in silence instead of looping is not difficult at all (technically). My only question is whether it actually makes sense. Because I think (for short edits at least) looping gives better results. So why adding an option for an inferior solution? I don't like adding options to eac3to, unless there's a really good reason for that...

Originally Posted by magic144

bottom line is I use it quite infrequently and can use delaycut instead!

Again you're misunderstanding me. I have not declined your request (yet). I've just posted my opinion that looping is better than silence. If you find a good argument for why adding silence instead of looping would be better then I'm all ears...

Originally Posted by wolfbane5

How do I do this?

Search for "environment path" on google.

[magic144]

@madshi,
sorry for any confusion - I only meant to convey that I use it *very* infrequently and I can't think of a compelling reason to add it into eac3to vs. using delaycut/other - except my own laziness (which I freely admit was my main reason for proposing it) in having to use 2+ tools instead of 1 :-)
...others who may be interested in this facility may want to add their 2 cents if they want it for specific reasons

looping is perhaps not as good as silence insertion in long edits where you have to otherwise loop so many packets as to end up looping preceding/following non-silent packets in the insert, but like I said, this is only useful if the audio is quite badly b0rked and is therefore a very infrequent occurrence...
(specifically, I was playing around with a broken TV episode yesterday which needed a +200ms adjustment at one point, and the eac3to edit looping thing just didn't avoid repeating audible stuff around the gap - in the end I used Audition to insert silence at the exact (short but already silent) point in the stereo signal and took the 'lossy' hit and reencoded the ABR mp3)

so there it is - I am but one user of your fabulous free product, so I leave it to others to add their voices as to if they think it would be something really worthwhile and why

thanks!
m

[madshi]

Can we find a specific edit size where looping stops being useful? E.g. everything smaller than 1 second: Looping. Everything larger than 1 second: Silence? I'm asking because I'm trying to avoid adding another option. Every additional option makes using eac3to more complicated. But if there's no specific edit size we can agree on, then maybe adding an option for silence is necessary...

[mrr19121970]

One of the the guys here:

http://forum.slysoft.com/showthread....122#post159122

is wanting to convert DTS-Express. there is nothing about it on page #1 here, so I just tried it. It doesn't work with libav/ffmpeg. i was wondering if this was by design ?

regards. mike.

[wolfbane5]

Originally Posted by madshi

making the ArcSoft DTS decoder work in eac3to:

Sometimes the ArcSoft DTS decoder doesn't work even after you've installed the full retail software. This can usually be fixed by manually adding the ArcSoft "Bin" folder (e.g. "C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcSoft\Bin") to your environment search "path".

So I googled it but I'm still not quite clear on what I'm doing. I just haven't used the command prompt that much yet, hence why I'm not that familiar with it. My best guess would be:

PATH=C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcSoft\Bin ?

[rebkell]

Originally Posted by wolfbane5

So I googled it but I'm still not quite clear on what I'm doing. I just haven't used the command prompt that much yet, hence why I'm not that familiar with it. My best guess would be:

PATH=C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcSoft\Bin ?

On an XP machine, go to My Computer -> View System Information -> [Advanced Tab] -> Environment Variables
Highlight the Path Variable and click the edit button, at the end of the others items in the path, add
;C:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcSoft\Bin

the semicolon(; ) separates the other directories in the path

[The_Keymaker]

ThanKs to Wolfbane, chumbo and madshi eac3to can recognize all the necessary filters. Now I have two questions.

1. I can decode and playback a demuxed DTS-HD audio track using Zoom Player and the Arcsoft AudioDecoderHD directshow filter. My question is, can I remux this audio track into MKV with demuxed video? Does MKVtoolNix support this? If this is possible, then there is no need to decode this track into FLAC to get lossless audio during playback.

2. When playing back the DTS-HD audio track using Zoom Player, the ArcSoft directshow filter seems to default to 2 channel and I have to pull up the filter's properties and select 5.1 or 7.1 channels. Is there a way to automatically enable this filter to output 5.1 or 7.1 as default?

Thanks in advance.

The_Keymaker