Is there a filter/decoder DTS-HD Master Audio?

[mzso]

Hi!
I recently realized that when I play back the blu-ray m2ts files with my media player I'm not actually listening to the lossless Master Audio, just the fallback. I to playback this way because of the crappy blu-ray bitmap subtitles and the tedious interface of Totalmedia Theater.
I tried using the arcsoft decoder but it doesn't work.

[ramicio]

There's no easy solution, and I don't think there ever will be.

[mzso]

Originally Posted by ramicio

There's no easy solution, and I don't think there ever will be.

Hard solution then?

[ramicio]

Some people supposedly get the ArcSoft decoder working with MPC. I've never got it to work with anything but eac3to, and from there I just make them FLAC.

[Ghitulescu]

You also need to use the HDMI interface to get the FullHD audio, not the optical one (although it is possible for certain combinations of channels and sampling to use the optical, too, but provided the AVR understands the Toslink extensions). For coax you have an even lower bandwidth. In the past there were extremely few graphic cards that could also send audio through HDMI (along with the video), now there are several. And the HDMI must be HDCPed, too. The drivers must be DRMed. Any failure at any level would force the HD audio into "standard".

I assume that you solved the HW problems first before touching the SW solutions.

[ramicio]

You don't need HDMI to decode these codecs, only to pass them unaltered. You also don't need the ArcSoft decoder to do this, since it's not being decoded. FFDShow passes DTS-HD Master and TrueHD just fine. Optical and coax do not support the new lossless formats NOT because of bandwidth. They have plenty of bandwidth. They do not support it out of choice, since it's not an HDCP-protected path. If you could write your own firmwares for devices I guarantee you could send over the older cables these new formats perfectly fine. These audio formats only need HDCP paths when you use a POS piece of software that conforms legally to the industry's demands.

[Ghitulescu]

I didn't mentioned HDMI to decode HD audio, but as the only interface that supports HD audio from computer to AVR. Otherwise it makes anyway no sense to decode HD audio and to listen it in the stereo loudspeakers (or 5.1 PC speakers). I meant here that one needs to take the signal out from his system. FLAC, WAV or DTS/DD, it must travel through HDMI as no other interface I know supports 7.1 channels, 192kHz, 24b - in every combination.

Both the optical and the copper have enough bandwidth to transport HD audio, compressed or not. It's the lack of support from the industry not the medium limitation. The same copper wires can do DSL2000 today as they did 33kbps (modem) 15 years ago. It's not the medium but the technology that defines the bandwidth (up to the physical limits). Supposingly one can trick the coax/toslink interface to transfer HD audio, but then what? How to use it? The AVRs don't accept HD audio from DigitalIn, only from HDMI-in. Let's hack the AVR, too. In the end, one will have a PC that is no longer a PC but a dedicated machine, and an AVR that is not an AVR but a hacked one. All this invested time, energy and not last money to achieve something that any 100$/€ BD player does. If I may divagate a bit, I remember a Swiss company that sold digital kits for SACDs for ~600€ apiece IIRC, kits that consisted in a mainboard with 3 S/P-DIF outputs (each one for a pair of channels). This also meant that you also need to buy 3 AVRs to use it .... no wonder SACD is dead
Yes, I know that the lack of secured paths prevented the use of older digital-out to be used for HD audio.

[ramicio]

Why does it make no sense to listen to lossless audio on stereo channels or 5.1 computer speakers? Oh because when someone mentions lossy and less quality being "good enough" that's somehow "objective", but when one mentions that lossless is the best, that's somehow "subjective". SACD is not dead, it is niche. DVD-Audio is dead. The TOSLINK standard LITERALLY has the bandwidth to support 125 Mbps, in its standard. How is a PC no longer a PC just because you would hack a sound card's transport or make a piece of hardware to send new codecs over optical? They are multi-purpose, and can do many functions at once perfectly. I don't get why people say "a computer is not an audio player", "a computer is not a video player", etc. Only people who pay for others to do everything for them say anything with any amount of work is a waste of time and money.

[Ghitulescu]

Because it's not what the OP wants, and it's not about lossless but about HD audio, which may have more than 2 channels and some times also more than 5.1 channels. Why the trouble with HD audio when one can so easily get the core, at an almost unperceived difference? One can also take 6 channels anytime out from the system in analog format, supposingly the AVR still has the "SACD inputs" ...
SACD is dead to me, I haven't seen any in the part of Germany where I live, maybe in US is a different story. And it should have been for long dead (1. because it's uncopiable and 2. it's a Sony). But this is off topic.
The problem with windows is that other SW tend to interfere with the settings for audio, especially when one uses the same PC for gaming. So that one needs to redo the settings many times, which in the end will spoil the whole fun.

[mzso]

@Ghitulescu What about plain 5.1/7.1 analog output, what's your problem with that.
Also Lossless is lossless even if you listen on two channels. I compared the two and was surprised to hear quite difference. The lossless was clearer and the surround-sound effects were more pronounced even though I only listened via headphones with dolby virtual speaker.

[nixo]

Did you try the Arcsoft decoder *with* LAV Filters? That works for me.

--
Nikolaj

[ramicio]

Is anyone even actively working on getting FFDShow to decode DTS-HD Master? I know it's on the horizon, but it doesn't seem like anyone even cares, because they can just tell people they should get a receiver.

[nixo]

It seems there was a proposal to write a decoder as a SoC project: http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?..._Audio_decoder

Apparently, there was no mentor – and perhaps no applicants?

--
Nikolaj

[nurbs]

FFMPEG had a DTS-HD MA decoder as one of their offers for a Summer of Code project this year, but no one took it. I guess it's because the spec isn't open so you'd have to reverse engineer the format which is hard.
From a quick check of the mailing lists no one is working on it either. Since the task is difficult and you can play the tracks anyway using the core I doubt you'll see a open source decoder anytime soon, unless someone pays one of the devs to write it.

[Ghitulescu]

Originally Posted by mzso

@Ghitulescu What about plain 5.1/7.1 analog output, what's your problem with that.
Also Lossless is lossless even if you listen on two channels. I compared the two and was surprised to hear quite difference. The lossless was clearer and the surround-sound effects were more pronounced even though I only listened via headphones with dolby virtual speaker.

Sorry I must misunderstand you. I thought you have been concerned to get the lossless version, for quality reasons, not just because it's there.
Of course, no problem with analog output, it's much simpler, one only needs the appropriate codec. There are several audio cards that output 7.1 in analog, but AFAIK there's no AVR that takes 7.1 analog-in. And it will most probably never be, since next year is the analog sunset year, ie no more analog connections.

[mzso]

Originally Posted by Ghitulescu

Sorry I must misunderstand you. I thought you have been concerned to get the lossless version, for quality reasons, not just because it's there.
Of course, no problem with analog output, it's much simpler, one only needs the appropriate codec. There are several audio cards that output 7.1 in analog, but AFAIK there's no AVR that takes 7.1 analog-in. And it will most probably never be, since next year is the analog sunset year, ie no more analog connections.

Well, I'm unfimilar with AVRs so far. Don't how much degradation the analog connection between the AVR and the card causes, or if its noticable at all. But as I described I do get better quality even the way I listened to it.

Originally Posted by nixo

Did you try the Arcsoft decoder *with* LAV Filters? That works for me.
Nikolaj

No I didn't. First time I heard of LAV filters. What player did you use?

[nixo]

MPC-HC – but I'm not sure that matters. You just install LAV Filters somewhere and drop dtsdecoderdll.dll from the Arcsoft package in that folder.

--
Nikolaj

[mzso]

Originally Posted by nixo

MPC-HC – but I'm not sure that matters. You just install LAV Filters somewhere and drop dtsdecoderdll.dll from the Arcsoft package in that folder.

--
Nikolaj

Thanks it seems to be working. (If what is shows is valid) It even seems to be working after removing the dll file from its folder.

[nixo]

Yeah, it's working. If you're only decoding the core, it should look like this:



--
Nikolaj

[meetajhu]

LAV filter with Arcsoft dtsdecoderdll is still decoding DTS-Core. But it shows as dts-ma yet it is DTS-Core only. Currently only Dolby True HD can be decoded.

Why DTS-MA decoder isn't available?

ANS:-The way the hardware decoder for DTS-MA works is by running 2 different streams in which 1 stream runs DTS-Core and other stream has additional loss-less dts data. The real process of the HW decoder(eg:-Yamaha or Onkyo) is to check the stream for the additional loss-less data and merge the audio with DTS-Core for better dynamic range production(eg: Dialogues will sound better,small objects sounds will be much clearer etc). The merging of streams is just not a simple process of just creating a decoder, it requires a seperate software similar to Haali splitter to merge both the dts streams .

[Note:-DTS-Core+ loss-less = DTS-MA]

Eg:-Assume that DTS-Core and the Lose-less are merged by the studio into a single stream. Then Lav filter with DTS-MA decoder can decode and output at 24-bit 4k khz-6k khz.

But the problem is there are 2 seperate streams whichs needs to merged and check for newer lose-less data over the existing DTS-Core data -> This is the job done by a DTS-MA hardware decoder. So we need a separate software that does the job of merging both the streams and also removing the repeated compressed data in the DTS-Core.

Why hasn't anyone done it?

Actually there is one- Cyberlink. Yup PowerDvd 11 and 12 does true DTS-HD MA on PC via Analog. They have the decoders as well as the merging of both the streams making it the perfect player for DTS-MA.


Why not all studios use Dolby True Hd instead?

Single biggest reason Dolby True-HD decoding on PC is possible, because when a movie is using Dolby, it has 2 audio's one is a dolby 5.1 a single audio stream(for people with normal Dolby decoder) and Dolby TrueHd(for people with True Hd decoder like Onkyo and Yamaha) on the same disc making it require more space in a single Blu-Ray i.e it has a full seperate stream of 4k khz. But this is not the case with DTS-MA as it has both streams in single Audio making it require less disc space at higher bitrate.