eac3to - audio conversion tool

[madshi]

One of the the guys [...] 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 ?
DTS-Express has no core. It consists of DTS-HD style blocks, only. Because of that libav can't decode it. I don't remember right now which decoders were able to decode it. I think ArcSoft could. Not sure about Sonic and Nero. You can search back in this thread for "Express". A few months ago I reported which decoder can do it and which not.

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.
The latest mkvtoolnix supports muxing DTS-HD. However, I've been told that when using the ArcSoft DirectShow filters, you get downgraded audio (max 48khz, 16bit). Haven't tested that myself yet, though.

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?
Not that I knew of.

[madshi]

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"
8: Subtitle, English
19: Subtitle, German, "Forced"
Track 8 is used for destination file "oc3.sup".
[s08] Extracting subtitle track number 8...
[s08] Creating file "19oc3.sup"...
I can't reproduce this problem with the command line you've used. However, I can reproduce it if you do "19:oc3.sup" (without the space after the ":"). That is a bug and will be fixed in the next build.

[yesgrey]

... then there is no need to decode this track into FLAC to get lossless audio during playback.

However, I've been told that when using the ArcSoft DirectShow filters, you get downgraded audio (max 48khz, 16bit). Haven't tested that myself yet, though.

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...

[Thunderbolt8]

what am I doing wrong, I try to make a 1 minute cut at 25 seconds of an audio track, but its not accepted
"eac3to bla.ac3 blub.ac3 -edit=0:00:25,-60000ms"

->invalid edit format "edit=0:00:25,-60000ms".

when I try it with 0:25:00 (=at 25mins) then its fine.

[madshi]

what am I doing wrong, I try to make a 1 minute cut at 25 seconds of an audio track, but its not accepted
"eac3to bla.ac3 blub.ac3 -edit=0:00:25,-60000ms"

->invalid edit format "edit=0:00:25,-60000ms".

when I try it with 0:25:00 (=at 25mins) then its fine.
Hmmmm... The cut works different than you seem to expect. You want the cut to *begin* at 0:00:25. eac3to's editing logic works in such a way that a positive edit *begins* at the specified runtime, while a negative edit *ends* at the specified runtime. This logic is inherited from the gap/overlap editing where it makes more sense this way. But I understand that for manual edits it would make more sense to always let the cut *begin* at the specified runtime, regardless of whether it's positive or negative? I'd have to change that, then. Your opinions?

For now cutting 60 seconds at 0:00:25 simply doesn't work, cause the begin of the cut would be at runtime -35 seconds. So use 0:01:25 and you'll get what you're looking for.

[rebkell]

Hmmmm... The cut works different than you seem to expect. You want the cut to *begin* at 0:00:25. eac3to's editing logic works in such a way that a positive edit *begins* at the specified runtime, while a negative edit *ends* at the specified runtime. This logic is inherited from the gap/overlap editing where it makes more sense this way. But I understand that for manual edits it would make more sense to always let the cut *begin* at the specified runtime, regardless of whether it's positive or negative? I'd have to change that, then. Your opinions?

For now cutting 60 seconds at 0:00:25 simply doesn't work, cause the begin of the cut would be at runtime -35 seconds. So use 0:01:25 and you'll get what you're looking for.

I would vote for the cut to begin at the specified runtime, it would be more intuitive and seem more natural(IMO), to pick my start point and then determine I want to cut out so and so time from this point on. Of course that's just my opinion. One reason being that I can tell that the a/v sync is off at that point, and I can just nibble away until I get what I'm looking for.

[madshi]

eac3to v2.86 released

http://madshi.net/eac3to.zip

* fixed: "1:some.ac3" instead of "1: some.ac3" failed for 2 digit track numbers
* fixed: "eac3to source movie.mkv" demuxed video instead of muxing to MKV
* negative edit now begins at the specified runtime instead of ending there
v2.80 is no longer contained in the zip file.

[Greif]

Thanks again madshi for all your hard work.

:thanks:

[Snowknight26]

Because of that libav can't decode it.

Even though libavcodec can decode DTS-HD?

http://svn.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg/trunk/libavcodec/
r15951 of dca.c, dca.h, dca_parser.c -> 'Add support for parsing and decoding DCA-HD streams.'

[Thunderbolt8]

eac3to v2.86 released

http://madshi.net/eac3to.zip

* fixed: "1:some.ac3" instead of "1: some.ac3" failed for 2 digit track numbers
* fixed: "eac3to source movie.mkv" demuxed video instead of muxing to MKV
* negative edit now begins at the specified runtime instead of ending there
v2.80 is no longer contained in the zip file.:thanks:

[madshi]

Even though libavcodec can decode DTS-HD?

http://svn.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg/trunk/libavcodec/
r15951 of dca.c, dca.h, dca_parser.c -> 'Add support for parsing and decoding DCA-HD streams.'
They mean decoding the core of DTS-HD streams.

[Thunderbolt8]

hm I not sure whether I understand the cutting process correctly. I want to cut 1 min away at 25 seconds at the beginning of the movie, so that the part, which actually begins at 1:25min now begins at 0:25 min. but when I tell eac3to to cut at 0:00:25, then the part till 1:25 is unchanged, but the part from 2:25 now begins at 1:25 :S

what am I doing wrong?

edit: nvm, got around my problem, was a part of a DVD repeating itself, apparently because of too long runtime, because of angles

[joerg-daniel]

eac3to v2.86
command line: "G:\bluray\eac3\eac3to.exe" "demuxed\english-comment2_11_audio.dts-es" "\test.ac3"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DTS Express, 1.0 channels, 1:26:10, 16 bits, 96kbps, 48khz
Decoding with ArcSoft DTS Decoder...
The ArcSoft DTS Decoder reported an error while decoding.
Aborted at file position 16384.
the file is 60 mb large

it was me asking for dts express:)

- how can I use the libavcodec with dts-hd support mentioned some posts ago?

[Thunderbolt8]

another question, when demuxing an audio track from a dvd with dvddecypter I got that line:
"0x81 - Audio - AC3 / 6ch / 48kHz / DRC / Deutsch / LBA: 19 / PTS: 00:00:00.287 / Delay: 0ms"

so does this mean now that DRC has been applied to that track? if yes, can eac3to remove it? from what I see is that dialnorm gets removed, but theres then only written that DRC is disabled for nero decoder so that it doesnt get applied when the nero decoder is processing the track. but does this mean as well that DRC, if already applied on that track before, can be removed again?

[madshi]

what am I doing wrong?
Nothing, it was my fault. Actually v2.85 did editing correctly, it just was too strict with the parameters. Then in v2.86 I fixed the parameter checking, but broke the editing. Argh... Another new build is coming...

DTS Express, 1.0 channels, 1:26:10, 16 bits, 96kbps, 48khz
Decoding with ArcSoft DTS Decoder...
The ArcSoft DTS Decoder reported an error while decoding.
Aborted at file position 16384.
it was me asking for dts express:)
See this post:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1154106#post1154106

So seemingly Nero is the best decoder for DTS-Express.

how can I use the libavcodec with dts-hd support mentioned some posts ago?
Not at all. libav CAN NOT decode DTS-HD. It can only decode the core of DTS-HD tracks. The only thing that has changed is that libav can now skip over DTS-HD data blocks, so that the core is properly decoded. That doesn't help with DTS-Express because DTS-Express consists of nothing but DTS-HD data blocks!

[madshi]

so does this mean now that DRC has been applied to that track?
I don't know exactly what DVDDecrypter means, but it definitely does not mean that DRC has already been applied. Probably it means that the AC3 track contains information about how to apply DRC, if you turn that feature in the decoder. So there's no reason to worry...

[Thunderbolt8]

I don't know exactly what DVDDecrypter means, but it definitely does not mean that DRC has already been applied. Probably it means that the AC3 track contains information about how to apply DRC, if you turn that feature in the decoder. So there's no reason to worry...
DVD Decryper, that program to rip DVDs (development discontinued since a few years already)

[madshi]

DVD Decryper, that program to rip DVDs (development discontinued since a few years already)
I know what DVDDecrypter is. I meant that I don't know what DVDDecryptor wants to say by adding the text "DRC" to the demuxed audio file.

[madshi]

eac3to v2.87 released

http://madshi.net/eac3to.zip

* fixed: negative edit was done too late (introduced in v2.86)

[Thunderbolt8]

thanks! ;)

[Kurtnoise]

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]

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

[wolfbane5]

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]

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]

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.
:thanks:

[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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.

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.

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]

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

[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".
eac3to needs AUDs to be in the stream. That is the case of all demuxed raw h264 streams from Blu-Ray, HD DVD and also from h264 broadcasts. Only self made h264 streams are usually without AUDs. I think x264 has an option for adding AUDs to the stream? If not, h264info can add AUDs, but h264info is quite slow...

[odin24]

Guys, this may seem like a silly question... Does Nero need to be installed in order to transcode an AAC track to AC3? :o

[Greif]

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.

If I am re-encoding the video into an MP4 container, which should I do? Demux the raw video stream or mux into MKV? Is one option faster/better than the other?

[yesgrey]

eac3to needs AUDs... I think x264 has an option for adding AUDs to the stream?

Yes, x264 has that option: --aud
I have encoded a new version and now eac3to recognizes it.

:thanks:

[nurbs]

If I am re-encoding the video into an MP4 container, which should I do? Demux the raw video stream or mux into MKV? Is one option faster/better than the other?

Depends on how you do the reencoding. If you use neuron2s indexing software raw will be better because it doesn't support MKV IIRC. If you are using DirectShowSource directly or with graphs mkv will be better since I don't know of any source filters (splitter) that will handle raw vc1 and avc streams.

[rica]

since I don't know of any source filters (splitter) that will handle raw vc1 and avc streams.

One of them is here:
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/6323/rawmz8.th.png (http://img88.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rawmz8.png)

BTW, Happy New Year to you all.

best.

[rebkell]

Yes, x264 has that option: --aud
I have encoded a new version and now eac3to recognizes it.

:thanks:

I should know this, but what are AUD's?

[rack04]

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

So using mkvtoolnix to merge the audio with the MKV from eac3to doesn't induce any errors?

[nurbs]

@rica:
I don't have Arcsoft, but good to know, thanks.

Happy new year.

[madshi]

I should know this, but what are AUD's?
Access Unit Delimiters. Bitstream "00 00 01 09 xx" or "00 00 00 01 09 xx". Usually only 6-7 bytes long and there's usually one between every video frame. They're ignored by the decoders, but are useful to find the right "split point" between two video frames.

So using mkvtoolnix to merge the audio with the MKV from eac3to doesn't induce any errors?
No. mkvtoolnix leaves all important video muxing properties as they were created by eac3to.