eac3to - audio conversion tool

[rica]

(Madshi, please correct me if i am wrong.)

I got an m2ts file carrying DTS-HD High Resolution audio as a sample.

Extracting dts-core:

command line: eac3to\eac3to.exe "F:\HITMAN_F4\BDMV\STREAM\00002.m2ts" 4: "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\eac3to-output\new.dts" -core

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**************

[a04] Extracting audio track number 4...
[a04] Extracting DTS core...
[a04] Creating file "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\eac3to-output\new.dts"...
Video track 2 contains 135576 frames.
eac3to processing took 10 minutes, 23 seconds.
Done.

Extracting dts-hd:

command line: eac3to\eac3to.exe "F:\HITMAN_F4\BDMV\STREAM\00002.m2ts" 4: "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\eac3to-output\out.dts

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**************

[a04] Extracting audio track number 4...
[a04] Creating file "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\eac3to-output\out.dts"...
Video track 2 contains 135576 frames.
eac3to processing took 10 minutes, 30 seconds.
Done.

If you have noticed no decoder seems active in processing information lines:

[a04] Extracting audio track number 4...
[a04] Extracting DTS core...

or:

[a04] Extracting audio track number 4...

If i would translate the command line into a graph file, this would be:

Madshi's Source Filter(+demuxer) > Dump

So no decoder exists here; madshi's source filter just extracts core or hd file.


But if we are trying to convert the source file to any other format; lets say dts to ac3, dts to wav, dts to flac, this time decoders and encoders will be in the game.

So as to convert the source file to another format you have to decode it first with a decoder and re-encode it with an encoder.

Here are the default decoders which madshi and eac3to selects:

default decoders used by eac3to:

MP1, MP2, MP3: libav/ffmpg

(E-)AC3: Nero

AAC: NeroTrueHD: libav/ffmpeg

DTS(-HD): ArcSoft

For best DTS decoding you need:
(1) ArcSoft DTS Decoder - version 1.1.0.0 or newer

For best AC3, E-AC3 and AAC decoding you need:
(1) Nero 7 (Nero 8 won't work!)
(2) Nero HD-DVD / Blu-Ray plugin"

If you have one of those above, eac3to automatically selects the appropriate one; if not, it is gonna select the compatible default decoder filter you have.

The most important part of the re-encoding process is not encoding or encoder itself but is decoding and selected decoder since there has never been any perfect encoder available yet which is getting the the best re-encoded file using the worst decoded source.

So i think madshi doesn't advise any encoder except surcode for dts; which means any other default encoder will be accepted by eac3to.


Decoding dts-hd (with arcsoft which is selected by eac3to as default) into ac3 (with default ac3 encoder filter):

eac3to v2.56
command line: eac3to\eac3to.exe "F:\HITMAN_F4\BDMV\STREAM\00002.m2ts" 4: "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\eac3to-output\newest.ac3"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***************

[a04] Extracting audio track number 4...
[a04] Decoding with ArcSoft DTS Decoder...
[a04] Encoding AC3...
[a04] Creating file "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\eac3to-output\newest.ac3"...
Video track 2 contains 135576 frames.
eac3to processing took 10 minutes, 55 seconds.
Done.

Decoding dts-hd (with forced libav codec which is selected by user) into ac3 (with default ac3 encoder filter) -note: just for trial:

eac3to v2.56
command line: eac3to\eac3to.exe "F:\HITMAN_F4\BDMV\STREAM\00002.m2ts" 4: "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\eac3to-output\new.ac3" -libav
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
****************

[a04] The libav DTS decoder doesn't decode the full DTS-HD information.
[a04] Extracting audio track number 4...
[a04] Extracting DTS core...
[a04] Decoding with libav/ffmpeg...
[a04] Remapping channels...
Loading white noise (needed for dithering)...
[a04] Encoding AC3...
[a04] Creating file "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\eac3to-output\new.ac3"...
Video track 2 contains 135576 frames.
eac3to processing took 10 minutes, 28 seconds.
Done.


If i would translate the command line into a graph file this would be:

Madshi's Source Filter(+demuxer) > Arcsoft decoder (or Libav Decoder) > AC3 encoder > File writer (*.ac3)

Have a look at the final lines:

[a04] Extracting audio track number 4...
[a04] Decoding with ArcSoft DTS Decoder...
[a04] Encoding AC3...

or:

[a04] The libav DTS decoder doesn't decode the full DTS-HD information.
[a04] Extracting audio track number 4...
[a04] Extracting DTS core...
[a04] Decoding with libav/ffmpeg...
[a04] Remapping channels...
Loading white noise (needed for dithering)...
[a04] Encoding AC3...


BTW: madshi, is it possible to give encoder info which is been using by eac3to while processing?


_ _ _ _

[tebasuna51]

So i think madshi doesn't advised any encoder except surcode for dts; which means any other encoder as default by system will be accepted. (if you have one):

Nope, is more important the encoder and eac3to include the free ac3 encoder Aften (libaften.dll) and the free encoder flac (libflac.dll).

Don't exist dts free encoder then sugest Surcode.

For aac encode there are faac (in ffmpeg) but for better quality use the free (for download) NeroAacEnc using the pipe:
eac3to input stdout.wav [param] | neroaacenc [param] -if - -of output.m4a

[rica]

Nope, is more important the encoder and eac3to include the free ac3 encoder Aften (libaften.dll) and the free encoder flac (libflac.dll).

Don't exist dts free encoder then sugest Surcode.

For aac encode there are faac (in ffmpeg) but for better quality use the free (for download) NeroAacEnc using the pipe:
eac3to input stdout.wav [param] | neroaacenc [param] -if - -of output.m4a

OK, i didn't know the backstage very well;
Thanks for that valuable information
but it doesn't change the reality :
"encoder is important ofcourse but decoder is more and more important than the encoder"

EDIT: If you have a real master audio which doesn't need any decoder; yes this time "the encoder" will be the King :)
The better would be, of course ,is having the best decoder and the best encoder twins for re-encode needed files.
But for re-encoding needs, at least decoder must be better than the encoder; not the encoder...
BTW, I suppose if madshi would have thought the encoders are more important than the decoders , he wouldn't care if they were free or not but would suggest them like he did in decoder recommendatitions.

EDIT: Madshi; we need you...


_ _ _ _ _

[3ngel]

The latest Trial Version of TotalMediaExtreme 1.0.6.30 downloaded from the ArcSoft site doesn't work.
Eac3 output something .dll missing (Magcore etc..), but even putting them in System32 the eac3to says "Doesn't seem to be installed"

[tebasuna51]

BTW, I suppose if madshi would have thought the encoders are more important than the decoders , he wouldn't care if they were free or not but would suggest them like he did in decoder recommendatitions.

About losless flac encoder only exist the free one, but for ac3 there are many not free encoders.

You can use the Surcode Dolby Digital encoder (http://www.surcode.com/low/products/products.htm) ($995) to ac3 encode. I don't know if is better than Aften but at least is Dolby certified.

[xkodi]

The latest Trial Version of TotalMediaExtreme 1.0.6.30 downloaded from the ArcSoft site doesn't work.
Eac3 output something .dll missing (Magcore etc..), but even putting them in System32 the eac3to says "Doesn't seem to be installed"

the old "totalmediaextreme_retail_trial_e.exe" was version 1.0.6.28 and about 150MB in size, the new "totalmediaextreme_retail_trial_e.exe" that is currently on their site is version 1.0.6.30 and only about 100MB in size probably a lot of files are missing including those for proper dts decoding.

[madshi]

I have a question about this. If you want to mux a Blu-Ray structure with tsMuxer, then it requires for the AC3 core to remain intact inside the TrueHD file.
When I want to remove dialogue normalisation with your wonderfull application, then I am 'forced' to detach the TrueHD stream from the core.

Is there maybe an undocumented option to still remove the dialogue normalisation, but maintain the full track? If not, maybe this can be a future request for your excellent application.
Can TsMuxer mux TrueHD streams in the first place? I think I've read that it doesn't do that (at least not properly).

Tnanks for the response; do you mean "dts core" or are there any standalone orbitlee DX Source filter?
There is a source filter available from Orbit Lee somewhere. Don't know where. You will have to do a search...

If it´s possible to make a m2ts output, would you try that then ?
Almost everything is "possible". But that doesn't mean that I'll do it.

It probably does. But we don't need the decoder for decoding, only for applying dolby pro logic IIx or dolby headphone.
That means we can feed it 16bit in the first place, there will be no problem with downconverting.
Of course 24bit tracks will have to be converted to 16bit by eac3to first, so it might take a bit longer. But that's not really a problem. And I assume you agree 16bit-quality is enough if pro logic is applied to the audio afterwards.;)

I personally downconvert everything to 16bit in eac3to. I think 24bit is a waste of diskspace.:D So the dplIIx functionality would also be very useful for me in madflac.
I don't like compromises. And I don't like spending hours and hours on something which is crippled to start with.

was a fix made (which i have not read) with the edward scissorhands 3/1 dts conversion
I've improved (with tebasuna's help) the decoder's channel mapping. But I've not yet added support for any "funny" channel mappings when doing Aften encoding. Might do that later.

I created the 50Mb sample and, yes, it still produces the error "The program channel mapping changes in the middle of the stream"
Thanks, I'll check this out.

Yeap, question is why eac3to shown discontinuety error, & not when just remuxed nothing changing by TSMuxer.
eac3to behaves correctly. TsMuxer removes the discontinuities.

Secondly, i want you add feature to demux tracks on other location. It's not implemented yet.
"eac3to C:\0000.m2ts D:\ -demux"
That has been discussed just a page or 2 before your post.

do you have any plans for including h.264 pulldown removal?
Yes.

something seems to be wrong with Blu-ray subtitle demuxing for seamless branching movies.
The movie I've got here is split into two (unequal) m2ts parts and subtitles which are supposed to be in the second part, already occur in the first part.
Hmmmmm... I hope I can reproduce the problem here. I'll try. Maybe I'll need samples, maybe not...

Madshi, are there any plans to release the source code and/or provide Linux binaries?
No and no.

it doesn't seem as though anyone's got this working through Wine or other software.
A while ago somebody said it works with Wine. The DirectShow decoders don't seem to be working, though.

If not, can you recommend any applications capable of detecting the dialog normalization/removing it, and doing the channel remapping?
I'm sorry, I've no knowledge about Linux at all, nor about which tools are available for Linux which do such things...

interesting, there is now DirectShow DTS Encoder filter (dtsencoder.ax).
:)

Just wanted to thank madshi once again for the aac support, I've been playing around with the Hauppauge HD-PVR capture device and trying to cut commercials with h264ts_cutter and it leaves some horrible audio/video sync problems behind and eac3to fixes them right up and this is with just one ts file, it recognizes the gaps and overlaps and corrects them.
Thanks for the feedback! :) I haven't fully tested AAC gap/overlap detection, so it's nice to hear that it works that well.

"The program channel mapping changes in the middle of the stream." repeats many times in both places it appears above. Let me know if you want a sample.
I already have got a sample, but I'm not sure which movie that was. So if you could upload another sample, that may be helpful.

If DTS Express decoding was ever implemented in libavcodec, would eac3to be able to use it too?
If it's implemented under the LGPL license then yes. It doesn't seem probable that it gets implemented anytime soon, though. The libav DTS splitter isn't even able to properly detect and skip DTS-HD blocks yet, although I told the libav DTS maintainers how to do that. As far as I can say there's zero work being done on any DTS-HD support. The libav decoder currently supports only simple 5.1 decoding, not even 6.1 or 96khz. So I wouldn't expect any big progress anytime soon. Unless a new programmer shows up who'd do all the work...

EDIT: If you have a real master audio which doesn't need any decoder; yes this time "the encoder" will be the King :)
If you have highest quality sources then if you don't want to lose any quality you should be using lossless compression (FLAC). Both AC3 and DTS encoders lose quality. Maybe not much, but some quality is lost.

BTW, I suppose if madshi would have thought the encoders are more important than the decoders , he wouldn't care if they were free or not but would suggest them like he did in decoder recommendatitions.
Testing/judging decoders is easier than testing encoders. As long as an encoder doesn't do any terrible mistakes your best bet it to use your own ears to find out which encoder is best. Personally, I don't recommend any lossy encoder over another because I'm simply not qualified to judge their quality. What I can say is that FLAC is lossless, so that's the "best" encoder for quality. Of course it means that filesize is relatively big. As for lossy encoders: Choose your own poison, please.

[Yraen]

I already have got a sample, but I'm not sure which movie that was. So if you could upload another sample, that may be helpful.




The program channel mapping changes in the middle of the stream.
[v02] The program type (4352) changes from $83 to $81.
Aborted at file position 35201290240.



I've no problem finding a sample that has "The program channel mapping changes in the middle of the stream" but I am having trouble finding a sample that has "The program type (4352) changes from $83 to $81". It's about 3/4 of the way through the .m2ts files. Is that part important or do you feel it is probably caused by the channel mapping changing stream? I'll try again later to reproduce the latter part and get some type of sample up later.

[xkodi]

available Intro and Trial (Try and Buy) versions of Arcsoft TotalMediaTheatre (TMT) and TotalMediaExtreme (TME) and which of them work with eac3to:

1. TMT Intro version 2.1.6.120 - "TotalMediaTheatre_Retail_INTRO_E.exe" (md5 77ea5ecdc52af9f20d646cc352389cc2):

http://base.arcsoft.com/downloads/intro/TotalMediaTheatre_Retail_INTRO_E.exe

2. TMT Intro version 2.1.6.113 - "arcsoft_totalmediatheatre_engintro.exe" (md5 1a791141c0ed6fecd5cfdd8e9bf5527d):

http://base.arcsoft.com/downloads/intro/arcsoft_totalmediatheatre_engintro.exe

3. TME Trial version 1.0.6.30, includes TMT version 2.1.6.120 - "totalmediaextreme_retail_trial_e.exe" (md5 f349e119a80a8bb54b93b89994f575b1):

http://base.arcsoft.com/downloads/tbyb/totalmediaextreme_retail_trial_e.exe

4. TME Trial version 1.0.6.28, includes TMT version 2.1.6.110 - "totalmediaextreme_retail_trial_e.exe" (md5 cc8b379d8fd03a888a64b205cee6c3ee):

since 4 August 2008 not available anymore

5. TMT Update to version 2.1.6.120: TotalMediaTheatre_2.1.6.105_2.1.6.120_Update_ALL.exe (md5 b7e4ae0e305fb36a1a323ca72108a1f7):

http://www.arcsoft.com/downloads/digitaltheatre/arcsoft/totalmediatheatre_2.1.6.105_2.1.6.120_Update_ALL.exe

6. TMT Update to version 2.1.6.121: TotalMediaTheatre_2.1.6.105_2.1.6.121_Update_ALL (md5 2d6e97765ec5f249a93bd6e74a0cf6b0):

http://www.arcsoft.com/downloads/digitaltheatre/arcsoft/totalmediatheatre_2.1.6.105_2.1.6.121_Update_ALL.exe

7. TME Update to version 1.0.6.29, updates TMT to version 2.1.6.113 (md5 a145a747ba1c82874626a7d9457b988a):

http://base.arcsoft.com/downloads/totalmediaextreme/arcsoft/TotalMediaExtreme_1.0.6.23_1.0.6.29_Update_ALL.exe

8. TME Update to version 1.0.6.30, updates TMT to version 2.1.6.120: TotalMediaExtreme_1.0.6.23_1.0.6.30_Update_ALL.exe (md5 034130216a7edbe5998728c731f12dba):

http://base.arcsoft.com/downloads/totalmediaextreme/arcsoft/TotalMediaExtreme_1.0.6.23_1.0.6.30_Update_ALL.exe

1. is completely broken: clean installation of 1. on clean installation of Windows - TMT doesn't start at all, because "uDigital Theatre.exe" hangs on startup, eac3to also doesn't work saying that MagCore.dll is not found

1. + 6.: clean installation of 1. updated to version 2.1.6.121 with 6. on clean installation of Windows - fix the problem that TMT 2.1.6.120 doesn't start at all, because "uDigital Theatre.exe" hangs on startup, but eac3to still doesn't work saying that MagCore.dll is not found

3. is completely broken: clean installation of 3. on clean installation of Windows - TMT doesn't start at all, because "uDigital Theatre.exe" hangs on startup, eac3to also doesn't work saying that MagCore.dll is not found

2. works great

2. + 5. and/or 6. works great

4. doesn't include DTS-HD MA decoder

4.+ 7. and/or 8. works great

if you first install working version (2.; 2. + 5. and/or 6.; 4. + 7. and/or 8.), then uninstall it and install not-working version (1.; 1. + 6.; 3.) they also start to work. however, seems that the safest path is to install older Try and Buy version and then go with web updates to the latest version, too bad that 4. is not available anymore on their web site, but 2. is still available.

[edit 20080812]
1.; 1. + 6.; 3. also work, see the following post for the fix:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1168931#post1168931

[shambles]

there was a request to add 24/1.001fps->24fps conversion support to eac3to.. what i'd like though is support for 24->24/1.001 for those few 24fps blu-ray titles like infernal affairs

[~bT~]

@ xkodi

tyvm! very helpful post.

update: thanks to you I have finally got it working!!!

[madshi]

I've no problem finding a sample that has "The program channel mapping changes in the middle of the stream" but I am having trouble finding a sample that has "The program type (4352) changes from $83 to $81". It's about 3/4 of the way through the .m2ts files. Is that part important or do you feel it is probably caused by the channel mapping changing stream? I'll try again later to reproduce the latter part and get some type of sample up later.
I'm not sure. A sample with the "program type change" would be helpful in any case cause I don't have such a sample yet. Thanks...

available Intro and Trial (Try and Buy) versions of Arcsoft TotalMediaTheatre (TMT) and TotalMediaExtreme (TME) and which of them work with eac3to
Thank you. That must have cost you a lot of time!

[rica]

If you have highest quality sources then if you don't want to lose any quality you should be using lossless compression (FLAC). Both AC3 and DTS encoders lose quality. Maybe not much, but some quality is lost.


Testing/judging decoders is easier than testing encoders. As long as an encoder doesn't do any terrible mistakes your best bet it to use your own ears to find out which encoder is best. Personally, I don't recommend any lossy encoder over another because I'm simply not qualified to judge their quality. What I can say is that FLAC is lossless, so that's the "best" encoder for quality. Of course it means that filesize is relatively big. As for lossy encoders: Choose your own poison, please.

Sure, you will always lose the quality; much or less but you will lose anyway whenever use an encoder.
I was just comparing the importance of the decoders with encoders in re-encoding process.

You can compare the encoders trying different ones on the same master lossless audio and you can select one of them. (if you want to re-encode them- the price will be the quality loss)
Remember what madshi says :
an encoder doesn't do any terrible mistakes
But decoders might make terrible mistakes by which no any perfect encoder recovers.
So i say for re-encoding process:
Priority is on the decoder.

But if you have a master audio and want to re-encode it, you can compare just encoders since there is no need of decoding of the source file. So there are no decoders to compare as well in this case.

What if you have a compressed audio and you want to re-encode it:
You have to decode it first and
You have to re-encode to another format.
This is where decoders have priority.

You can trust your ears while listening the files decoded by different decoders and can compare them but if you dont have very sensitive ears you would never see the difference between the files made by different brand encoders which encoding to the same format.(if you are using the same decoder but different brand encoders)

[deathlord]

I don't like compromises. And I don't like spending hours and hours on something which is crippled to start with.

Ok, I understand that. Maybe cyberlink adds 24bit support some time. I will try to keep track of this.
For the time being, could you add an undocumented switch that attenuates back right and back left to 0.76 when "7doubling" is applied?

[yonta]

1. is completely broken: clean installation of 1. on clean installation of Windows - TMT doesn't start at all, because "uDigital Theatre.exe" hangs on startup, eac3to also doesn't work saying that MagCore.dll is not found


Reboot Windows after installing TMT and it works.

Add this folder to your 'PATH' environment variable and ArcSoft DTS Decoder also works fine.

c:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcSoft\Bin\

[rica]

Hi guys, need some help; THX in advance:

This works: (just one EVO)

eac3to v2.56
command line: eac3to\eac3to.exe "F:\TERMINATOR_3_HDDVD\HVDVD_TS\PEVOB_1.EVO" 3: "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\eac3to-output\try.ac3"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EVO, 2 video tracks, 7 audio tracks, 4 subtitle tracks, 0:54:56
1: VC-1, 1080p24 /1.001 (16:9) with pulldown flags
2: VC-1, 480p30 /1.001 (3:2)
3: E-AC3, English, 5.1 channels, 640kbit/s, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
4: E-AC3, French, 5.1 channels, 640kbit/s, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
5: E-AC3, Spanish, 5.1 channels, 640kbit/s, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
6: E-AC3, English, 2.0 channels, 192kbit/s, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
"Director Commentary"
7: E-AC3, English, 2.0 channels, 192kbit/s, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
"Crew Commentary"
8: E-AC3, English, 2.0 channels, 192kbit/s, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
"Cast and Crew Commentary"
9: E-AC3, 2.0 channels, 192kbit/s, 48khz, dialnorm: -27dB
10: Subtitle, English
11: Subtitle, English, "SDH"
12: Subtitle, French
13: Subtitle, Spanish
[a03] Extracting audio track number 3...
[a03] Removing dialog normalization...
[a03] Decoding with DirectShow (Nero Audio Decoder 2)...
[a03] DirectShow reports 5.1 channels, 24 bits, 48khz
[a03] Encoding AC3...
[a03] Creating file "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\eac3to-output\try.ac3"...
Video track 1 contains 79048 frames.
Video track 2 contains 98729 frames.
eac3to processing took 10 minutes, 55 seconds.
Done.


This doesn't work: (both EVOS together)

C:\>eac3to\eac3to.exe "F:\TERMINATOR_3_HDDVD\HVDVD_TS\PEVOB_1.EVO+PEVOB_2.EVO" 3: "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\eac3to-output\try_new.ac3"
Source file "F:\TERMINATOR_3_HDDVD\HVDVD_TS\PEVOB_1.EVO+PEVOB_2.EVO" not found.


What am i doing wrong?

[Beastie Boy]

Your source should be:

F:\TERMINATOR_3_HDDVD\HVDVD_TS\PEVOB_1.EVO+F:\TERMINATOR_3_HDDVD\HVDVD_TS\PEVOB_2.EVO
Cheers, Beastie.

[rica]

Thanks a lot Beastie Boy :thanks: :stupid:

[lexor]

Remember what madshi says :
an encoder doesn't do any terrible mistakes
But decoders might make terrible mistakes by which no any perfect encoder recovers.
So i say for re-encoding process:
Priority is on the decoder.


That's creative use of quotations you've got going there. Madshi said "As long as an encoder doesn't do any terrible mistakes". In light of which your reply becomes irrelevant to the discussion. If you gonna change what people say, you might as well just have a conversation with yourself and not bother madshi about it.

[lexor]

if you first install working version (2.; 2. + 5. and/or 6.; 4. + 7. and/or 8.), then uninstall it and install not-working version (1.; 1. + 6.; 3.) they also start to work.

I don't understand that sentence. If you already have working install of 2+6 (giving you a working and latest version install that according to your analysis "works great"), why would I want to uninstall it and install a non-working version and update it to working (exactly the same +6, I had to start with)?

[rica]

That's creative use of quotations you've got going there. Madshi said "As long as an encoder doesn't do any terrible mistakes". In light of which your reply becomes irrelevant to the discussion. If you gonna change what people say, you might as well just have a conversation with yourself and not bother madshi about it.

It's clear what i said, i didn't want and never want to bother madshi about these stupid things.

[madshi]

Hey Madshi, something seems to be wrong with Blu-ray subtitle demuxing for seamless branching movies.
I've checked my source code and I don't know what's wrong. I fear I'll need samples with which the problem can be reproduced. Maybe the last 50MB of the first part and the first 50MB of the 2nd part would help? Or maybe you can tell me which movie this is. Maybe I happen to own it, too.

I created the 50Mb sample and, yes, it still produces the error "The program channel mapping changes in the middle of the stream"
Hmmmm... Your samples doesn't produce this error on my PC! :( Can you please recheck, just to be sure?

[madshi]

For the time being, could you add an undocumented switch that attenuates back right and back left to 0.76 when "7doubling" is applied?
I have on my to do list to check what ArcSoft is doing when I ask it to output 8 channels for a 6.1 track. I'll decide what to do after I've done this check.

there was a request to add 24/1.001fps->24fps conversion support to eac3to.. what i'd like though is support for 24->24/1.001 for those few 24fps blu-ray titles like infernal affairs
Yes, that makes sense. I'm planning to add support for any cross conversion between 23.976, 24.000 and 25.000.

[madshi]

eac3to v2.57

http://madshi.net/eac3to.zip

* added automated support for Nero AAC command line encoder
* added "quality=0.xx" (0.00 - 0.99) parameter to control AAC encoder quality
* added Nero AAC encoder check to the "-test" list
* "-test" checks whether a new Haali Matroska Muxer version is available
* "-test" checks whether a new MkvToolnix release build is available
* "-test" checks whether a new MkvToolnix beta build is available
* "-test" checks whether a new Nero AAC encoder version is available
* added TRP container support (TS files without PMT/PAT)
* parameter "-extensible" is no longer supported (it's default now)
* new parameter "-simple" can be used to disable the "-extensible" wav header
* decoded TrueHD tracks: bitdepth is now automatically analyzed in more detail
* option "-analyzeBitdepth" manually activates extended bitdepth analyzation
* DVB subtitle tracks are listed now - can't be demuxed, though
* option "-check" doesn't fail on DTS Express tracks, anymore
It was already possible to use the Nero AAC encoder with eac3to by using stdout/stdin. But having it automated in eac3to now has some advantages:

(1) It's much easier to use. Just do "eac3to source.whatever dest.aac".
(2) The full eac3to output text including progress bar etc is still working.
(3) There can be multiple operations at the same time.

Basically the Nero AAC encoder is implemented in such a way that you shouldn't notice a difference to any other encoder (e.g. libAften or libFlac). However, what I personally don't like so much: The Nero AAC encoder refuses to encode to raw AAC streams, instead the newly encoded track always ends up in an MP4 container. No big deal, though, I guess.

Encoding is always done with VBR. Default quality is 0.50. You can change the encoding quality e.g. by doing: "eac3to source.whatever dest.m4a -quality=0.35".

[nautilus7]

Hi madshi, thanks for the update and the new features.

I noticed this (maybe a bug?):

eac3to -test

Nero Audio Decoder (Nero 7 or older) works fine
ArcSoft DTS Decoder (1.1.0.0) works fine
Sonic Audio Decoder (4.3.0.169) works fine
Haali Matroska Muxer (2008-03-29) is up to date
Nero AAC Encoder (1.1.34.2) is up to date
Surcode DTS Encoder (1.0.29.0) is installed
MkvToolnix (2.2.0.0, 2008-05-15) is up to date
There's a new beta version (2.2.0.0, 2008-05-15) available
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/win32/pre

[madshi]

I noticed this (maybe a bug?):

eac3to -test

MkvToolnix (2.2.0.0, 2008-05-15) is up to date
There's a new beta version (2.2.0.0, 2008-05-15) available
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/win3/pre
It's a bug that eac3to claims there'd be a new beta although you already have the latest one. That problem will be fixed in the next eac3to build.

[bmnot]

hey madshi, I have a .ts that doesn't have a have a discontinuity error until the very end (it was made with tsmuxer i think). since -ignoreDiscon is no longer available, how do I convert this file to mkv with eac3to?

[madshi]

since -ignoreDiscon is no longer available
It is still available!

[SpaceAgeHero]

I've checked my source code and I don't know what's wrong. I fear I'll need samples with which the problem can be reproduced. Maybe the last 50MB of the first part and the first 50MB of the 2nd part would help? Or maybe you can tell me which movie this is. Maybe I happen to own it, too.

The movie is called "Bruce Almighty". I have only tested the german version "Bruce Allmächtig" though. If you can't get hands on the movie I'd need to know how to strip usable samples for you.

Thanks. :)

[Thunderbolt8]

Hmmmm... Your samples doesn't produce this error on my PC! :( Can you please recheck, just to be sure?
did this refer to the starship troopers US disc? if yes, I remuxed it (playlist 00000) and I did not get that message.

thanks for the new version again!

regarding that trueHD more detailed bitdepth analyzing thing, what was the reason for this change? could there something be wrong so that actual bitdepth of some track might have been mistaken? do we have to redo truehd -> flac conversion with the new eac3to version now?

btw. I have the latest mkvtoolnix version the program says my version is from 2008-03-04, even though my version is the lastest one when I click on 'about'. I just noticed that I have it installed twice, so could it be possible that he checks the 'programme' dir as default? might also be possible that the other installation, which is my up to date one, has only always been copied over and no installation registry entries have been made.

[madshi]

The movie is called "Bruce Almighty". I have only tested the german version "Bruce Allmächtig" though. If you can't get hands on the movie I'd need to know how to strip usable samples for you.
I don't have that one (yet?). You could use a hexeditor to cut samples. I'd try to copy the last 50MB of the first m2ts part as one sample. And the first 50MB of the 2nd m2ts part as another sample. Then you can test whether joining them will still result in incorrect subtitle timings. If not, you may have to cut even bigger samples... :(

Here's the hexeditor I'm using: http://www.mh-nexus.de/

regarding that trueHD more detailed bitdepth analyzing thing, what was the reason for this change?
Just the wish for more detailed information for statistical purpose. See here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=760714

could there something be wrong
Not that I know of.

btw. I have the latest mkvtoolnix version the program says my version is from 2008-03-04, even though my version is the lastest one when I click on 'about'.
What date does the about box show? 2008-03-04 may be the latest official release build. But it's surely not the latest mkvtoolnix beta build.

[Thunderbolt8]

the about box shows may 15 2008

[Ranguvar]

How about support for automatically ReplayGain-scanning the input and applying the gain (with or without clipping prevention) on encode? :)

[Yraen]

did this refer to the starship troopers US disc? if yes, I remuxed it (playlist 00000) and I did not get that message.


I had the errors on that disc. I finally got the time to look into it, and all of my errors were on titleset 1 and 2. Looking deeper, that joins two other m2ts files with the main movie file, pip. That generated my errors. The titleset I wanted was farther down the list. Too used to it being the first titleset. My mistake. Guess I shouldn't demux/mux when tired. :)

[madshi]

the about box shows may 15 2008
In that case eac3to seems to find the wrong file on your harddisk. Must be caused by the registry entries pointing to the wrong folder.

How about support for automatically ReplayGain-scanning the input and applying the gain (with or without clipping prevention) on encode? :)
The problem is that I'd need two passes to find the right gain to prevent clipping. But eac3to is built to do almost everything in one pass. I guess I could add clipping detection and post a warning. And I could probably also add a parameter to lower the volume by a specified amount. Would that do the trick for you?

[Thunderbolt8]

I can confirm that subtitle problem for seamless branching, when I remux close encounters (CE), then the length of the whole movie is 2:14:17 with last spoken line at ~2:13:24. for the non hearing impaired english subs though this line is at 2:02:17, which is much too early, while the same line with hearing impaired english subs ist located at 2:06:21, which is different and still too early.

[Roscoe62]

did this refer to the starship troopers US disc? if yes, I remuxed it (playlist 00000) and I did not get that message.

No, it was the Region A version of Mr & Mrs Smith. I fear now that there's something a bit weird going on with my PC. I'm gonna have to dig a bit deeper....or build a new PC.:(

[xkodi]

Reboot Windows after installing TMT and it works.

Add this folder to your 'PATH' environment variable and ArcSoft DTS Decoder also works fine.

c:\Program Files\Common Files\ArcSoft\Bin\

thanks for the fix, it works.

[Snowknight26]

When doing the Doomsday Blu-ray, I noticed that the playlist view showed DTS-HD (secondary) even though selecting that playlist shows it as being DTS Express.

[rica]

Hi guys,
if you are planning to trim the media you got before re-encoding, first of all you should put it into a TS container.

What if you have a vc1 based mkv file remuxed by Haali or eac3to?

Do you know what to meet after remuxing that mkv into a TS with TSMuxer?

I would suggest this: (sample here is an HD DVD)

eac3to\eac3to.exe F:\TERMINATOR_3_HDDVD\HVDVD_TS\PEVOB_1.EVO+F:\TERMINATOR_3_HDDVD\HVDVD_TS\PEVOB_2.EVO 3: "C:\Users\rica\desktop\try\trial.vc1

instead of this:

eac3to\eac3to.exe F:\TERMINATOR_3_HDDVD\HVDVD_TS\PEVOB_1.EVO+F:\TERMINATOR_3_HDDVD\HVDVD_TS\PEVOB_2.EVO "C:\Users\rica\Desktop\try\try.mkv"

Have a look at :

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1169791#post1169791





_ _ _ _ _

[Jan Marijniszoon]

Can TsMuxer mux TrueHD streams in the first place? I think I've read that it doesn't do that (at least not properly).

I think you're right. I did a test...it muxes the track, but the playback seems problematic. But if tsMuxer improves in the future, it might still be a handy option to have in your program, although it would be rarely used offcourse.

[LessThanJake]

Encoding is always done with VBR. Default quality is 0.50. You can change the encoding quality e.g. by doing: "eac3to source.whatever dest.m4a -quality=0.35".

I think q=0.5 as default is too big. The encoded files are even bigger than the source for some inputsstreams (at least for AC3-5.1) (table (http://www.abload.de/img/neroclilqu.png))
To get transparency q=0.35 is enough.

Anyway, no big deal to set the -quality 0.X switch, it´s just a suggestion. :)

----------

Edit:
Short question concerning -down2:
When doing AC3-5.1 --> 2CH-WAV manually using besweet, I can specify how channel-mixing have to be done.
For example:
beSweet.exe -core( -input "audio.ac3" -output "audio.wav" -2ch ) -azid( -n1 -s stereo -c light -L -3db ) -ota( -norm 0.98 )
How are LFE und surroundchannels mixed into L+R when using
eac3to input.whatever output.m4a -down2?

greets
LTJ

[xkodi]

How are LFE und surroundchannels mixed into L+R when using
eac3to input.whatever output.m4a -down2

from eac3to help:


-down2 downmix multi channel audio to stereo (Dolby Pro Logic II)
-mixlfe mix LFE in (when doing stereo downmixing, see "down2")

so, -down2 do Dolby Pro Logic II downmix, where LFE is not included, you can find the downmix matrix here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Pro_Logic

probably, eac3to uses exactly the same matrix.

with -mixlfe, LFE is included in the downmix too.

[edit]

@madshi

i took the DPLII matrix from wikipedia and with mplayer and the "pan" filter i'm doing:

mplayer -ao pcm:file=20.wav -af pan=2:1:0:0:1:0.707:0.707:0.707:0.707:-0.8165:0.5774:-0.5774:0.8165 51.wav

but the result is different than eac3to. so, is my pan filter command wrong or i'm missing something?

[xeonicxpression]

Can eac3to take a DTS-HD or MA or DTS-ES discreete and ouput a wav for each channel all 6.1 of them? I ask this because DTS Surround Suite from DTS is the same price as the surcode product and it is able to encode DTS-ES so we wouldn't be stuck with surcodes 5.1 support.

[EPiPH0NE]

Can eac3to take a DTS-HD or MA or DTS-ES discreete and ouput a wav for each channel all 6.1 of them? I ask this because DTS Surround Suite from DTS is the same price as the surcode product and it is able to encode DTS-ES so we wouldn't be stuck with surcodes 5.1 support.

eac3to input.dtshd output.wavs

[tebasuna51]

i took the DPLII matrix from wikipedia and with mplayer and the "pan" filter i'm doing:

mplayer -ao pcm:file=20.wav -af pan=2:1:0:0:1:0.707:0.707:0.707:0.707:-0.8165:0.5774:-0.5774:0.8165 51.wav

but the result is different than eac3to. so, is my pan filter command wrong or i'm missing something?

I don't know the exact final matrix used by madshi. Look here (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1078903#post1078903).

Your mix is:
Lt' = FL + 0.707xFC + 0.707xLF - 0.8165xBL - 0.5774xBR
Rt' = FR + 0.707xFC + 0.707xLF + 0.5774xBL + 0.8165xBR

The default downmix in BeHappy is:
Lt' = 0.3254xFL + 0.2301xFC + 0.2818xBL + 0.1627xBR
Rt' = 0.3254xFR + 0.2301xFC - 0.1627xBL - 0.2818xBR

Differences:
- The LFE channel is not used by Dolby recommendation, but is optional in BeHappy and eac3to.
- The coefficients are normalized (100%). With your matrix you can obtain overflows until 380.79 %.
- The coefficients in surround channels have a little correction, 0.866 and 0.5 instead 0.8165 and 0.5774 (un-normalized values). Is based in a old Besweet-Azid discussion and was assumed to produce a better channel separation. Verified by my test using PowerDVD dpl2 soft decoder.
- The signs in surround channels are inverted. With original signs the BL channel is inverted when use PowerDVD dpl2 soft decoder.

[xkodi]

tebasuna51, thank you very much for providing excellent information as always!

i read you post about downmixing with AviSynth, but AFAIU it is not on-the-fly during playback. are there other plugins like the mplayer pan filter that are capable to do downmixing on-the-fly? is there a place where i can find more good downmix matrices for things like 5.1->2.0, 6.1->2.0, 7.1->2.0, 7.1->5.1, etc?

it would be very cool if there is DirectShow filter that accept any downmix matrix as settings and output the the downmixed audio.

[deathlord]

it would be very cool if there is DirectShow filter that accept any downmix matrix as settings and output the the downmixed audio.

You can do that in ffdshow audio decoder, I think.

[tebasuna51]

i read you post about downmixing with AviSynth, but AFAIU it is not on-the-fly during playback. are there other plugins like the mplayer pan filter that are capable to do downmixing on-the-fly? is there a place where i can find more good downmix matrices for things like 5.1->2.0, 6.1->2.0, 7.1->2.0, 7.1->5.1, etc?

it would be very cool if there is DirectShow filter that accept any downmix matrix as settings and output the the downmixed audio.

I think is out of scope of this thread. If you want more info about downmix you can open a new thread.

- .avs files can be played by mpc and others players.
- with DS ffdshow and ac3Filter you can define any matrix.
- you can use these coeficients with mplayer (some versions have problems with multichannel remapping)

[xkodi]

tebasuna51, thank you again! when i've done more research and have more questions, maybe i will open separate thread for the subject.

deathlord, thank you for the hint!