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Old 16th January 2007, 01:06   #41  |  Link
Warren
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Isochroma: Can you build a graph in graphedit to play the .ac3 file you demuxed?
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Old 16th January 2007, 01:16   #42  |  Link
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Can anyone confirm any part of isochroma's howto? I've tried it exactly but with an EVOB containing VC-1 & DDPlus and nothing works. When muxing into an mkv it says the ac3 is in an unknown format and won't mux it.
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Old 16th January 2007, 01:40   #43  |  Link
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Yes, I can confirm it. Here's the chain:

*.EVO -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> ffdshow Audio Decoder

Alternatively:

*.EVO -> MPEG-2 Demultiplexer -> ffdshow Audio Decoder

Make sure to set "Output -> AC3 [640]" in ffdshow Audio Decoder.

As far as I understand the technical documentation at Dolby Labs E-AC3 contains an AC3-compatible core, and ffdshow doesn't seem to have constraints regarding input bitrate, so it just recodes to AC3@640kbit.

CORRECTION:

Checked the output of a well-known movie's DD+ track, contains only garbage, so it seems that while ffdshow may be able to transmux the audio it doesn't do anything meaningful with it.

Last edited by honai; 16th January 2007 at 01:48.
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Old 16th January 2007, 01:44   #44  |  Link
Isochroma
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Yes, MKV can hold any format, but the available muxers cannot necessarily deal with certain streams.

First, there are three muxers that can put streams into MKV:
1. Gabest's DirectShow muxer
2. Haali's Directshow muxer
3. MKVToolnix
HD-DVD can store three types of video stream:

MPEG-2: MKVToolnix may be able to mux MPEG-2 ES, but probably not yet. Gabest & Haali are untested.

VC-1: MKVToolnix does not yet support VC-1. Gabest & Haali are untested.

H264: Theoretically all three muxers could do it. But in my experiments, the output of the Elecard MPEG demuxer dumped with the DVB dump filter, could only be successfully muxed by first muxing into MP4 using Yamb, then using MKVToolnix. Mosu is looking at the issue and so MKVToolnix might soon be able to handle this type of ES, which would eliminate the Yamb step.

Haali's should take the Yamb MP4 and mux it ok, Gabest's is probably a bit too old to mux AVC natively.

As for audio, the Sonic demuxer and DVB dump filter work OK, and the stream muxes with MKVToolnix just fine. But: the decoder matters, since this is an E-AC3. It looks like AC3Filter won't work, so you need to be using ffdshow's AC3 decoder filter.
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Old 16th January 2007, 01:51   #45  |  Link
Isochroma
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@Warren: Yes, it plays perfectly. Remember, I have ffdshow set to decode AC3, and no other AC3 decoder is installed.

@honai: My ffdshow is decoding straight to raw stereo audio, no transcoding is involved.

Last edited by Isochroma; 16th January 2007 at 01:55.
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:05   #46  |  Link
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Here's what my graphedit looks like:



The input stream isn't being properly recognized: "stereo 192kbps ac3". So I wonder how you extracted the 6 channel stream in your example. Or did you use Cyberlink's Audio Decoder in there somewhere to do the downmixing?
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:09   #47  |  Link
Warren
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What is that ac3 parser filter you're using?
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:11   #48  |  Link
Isochroma
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@honai: you're trying to play the audio portion directly. Use the DVB dump filter as in the example. Then see how it renders the AC3 file produced.

@Warren: when you render an AC3 file in graphedit, the system's AC3 parser filter is used. It comes with Windows.
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:13   #49  |  Link
honai
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@Isochroma

No, I'm using the DVB HDTV Dump filter, it's the box to the right. ffdshow says "S/PDIF" only because it doesn't know how to parse the input.

Which movie audio streams did you successfully convert using your method?
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:14   #50  |  Link
Warren
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Hrm i don't seem to have it, what is the filename listed as?
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:17   #51  |  Link
Isochroma
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@honai: You've made a TERRIBLE mistake!

Looking over your graph, I realize what you've done... you're using the DVB filter to write ffdshow's output!

That is not what we're supposed to be doing.

The correct graph looks like this:

filename.EVO -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> filename.ac3

the filters used for that chain are:

File Source (Async.) -> Sonic HD Demuxer -> DVB Dump Filter

When that process is done, we'll have a filename.ac3 file, which can then be rendered in a new GraphEdit session or played in MPC, provided that ffdshow is set to decode AC3.

ffdshow should be set to output AC3 as fully decoded raw audio to start with, to verify that the AC3 is playing ok, then start playing with other options.

OK, I just tested your graph setup, and it work fine with my file, so there's a format difference. Still, give the AC3 file output method a test, it may just work.

Also keep in mind, that ffdshow wasn't even built to do this job, so it's pretty nice that it works on any streams. Now's the time to encourage the ffdshow devs to add E-AC3 support.

You might also try using the Sonic HD Audio decoder, since it's built for this anyway.

On my system, the Sonic decoder won't decode the AC3 file produced, when played in MPC. The playback state never moves forward. However, when the file is muxed into a MKV, it plays just fine! So using this filter is the recommended way of doing the audio decoding.

Last edited by Isochroma; 16th January 2007 at 02:30.
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:26   #52  |  Link
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I figured out why I didn't have the ac3 parser filter
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:27   #53  |  Link
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@Isochroma

Just tested it, doesn't work, ffdshow doesn't recognize/parse that *.AC3 either. It's from "Chronicles of Riddick". Maybe the audio part in there is mastered differently than in your *.EVO sample.
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:33   #54  |  Link
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Ok so I finally figured out why everything is working for you isochroma and not for real HD DVD content.

You're using Saggitaire's homemade HD DVD that uses H264 and AC3. Retail HD DVD streams are almost exclusively VC-1 and DD+ aka E-AC3

I really wish this all worked in practice.
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:38   #55  |  Link
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@Warren: damn, you're right! So, we will now test the Sonic audio decoder filter in MPC/Graphedit...

@honai: Ok, forget ffdshow for now. Register the Sonic audio decoder filter:

1. copy CinemasterAudio.dll into your system32 dir
2. cd into system32 in the cmdline
3. regsvr32 CinemasterAudio.dll

Now close GraphEdit, take the AC3 file produced and mux it into MKV with MKVToolnix 2.0.0.

Then, in the ffdshow audio decoder config, in the Codecs list, set AC3 to DISABLED.

Then, in MPC, Options -> External Filters -> Add Filter...

Add the Sonic Cinemaster MCE Audio Decoder 4.1, and set it to Prefer, then hit OK, close and reload MPC, then open the MKV. We need to set it to Prefer, because there's probably other AC3 decoders on the system that will pick up the stream.

Before reporting your results, right-click in MPC and make sure there's only the Cinemaster filter.

Finally, Cinemaster should be able to decode ALL AC3, ie. standard too, so it would make a passable replacement for ffdshow/AC3Filter until they get E-AC3 capability.

Last edited by Isochroma; 16th January 2007 at 02:42.
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:42   #56  |  Link
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@Isochroma

What Warren said. That method won't work for actual HD-DVDs. Sonic's Audio filter won't expose any interface to select downmixing to DD 5.1, so I won't ever get DD 5.1 out of DD+ by way of that method. The only filter so far which could do the downmix is PowerDVD 7.2's internal audio decoder, but it's not available as a DirectShow filter. WinDVD 8 also comes with a downmixer, but it can only render to sound devices directly.
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:43   #57  |  Link
Isochroma
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Downmix? What do you mean? If you have less than 5.1 on your soundcard, or have it configured for 2.0/4.0/etc. then just set ffdshow to intercept raw and get it to do the downmix for you.

Ah, I see... looks like I can't get audio output using CineMaster from the Sonic HD Demuxer...

Even worse, that terrible filter won't connect to the MKV's audio out pin when rendering using MKV source!

Last edited by Isochroma; 16th January 2007 at 02:51.
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:50   #58  |  Link
honai
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Seems there's a misunderstanding here. My "sample EVO file" contains a DD+ audio stream, not a DD audio stream. No consumer a/v device can handle those yet, so you *will* need a way to downmix from DD+ to DD (i.e. in this case reduce the bitrate from 1536 to 640 kbps) in order to be able to route the audio signal via S/PDIF to the receiver. In other words, since DD+ right now and in the foreseeable future is useless for all consumers (even the XBOX360 downmixes to DD/DTS at standard bitrates) we have to find a way to convert the DD+ to a usable format, and then put that converted stream together with the elementary video stream (VC-1 or h.264) into a usable container, i.e. MKV.

Or am I missing something here?
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Old 16th January 2007, 02:55   #59  |  Link
Warren
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Sonic's audio decoder seems to only output 2.0 stereo. WinDVD's audio filter + their demuxer can also play the audio (you have to manually register the filters from WinDVD HD directory) but they depend on windows audio config to determine how many channels to output. I set the windows output to 5.1 and hit play and using infinite tee I connect the first output to directsound and the second to wave dest and then a file. 6 channels are recorded to the file but only the L&R channels have audio.
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Old 16th January 2007, 03:02   #60  |  Link
DeathMonk
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I may be confused about what you guys are trying to accomplish here.

I got some audio [king kong menu] today using intervideo's filters.. converted to wav.. works fine.
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