eac3to - audio conversion tool

[AnryV]

TrueHD/AC3, 5.1 channels, 48kHz
(embedded: AC3, 5.1 channels, 640kbps, 48kHz)
Extracting TrueHD stream...
Removing TrueHD dialog normalization...
Decoding with libav/ffmpeg...
Writing WAVs...
[libav] Substream 0 parity check failed <WARNING>
[libav] Substream 0 checksum failed <WARNING>
[libav] Substream 0 length mismatch. <WARNING>
The libav decoder reported error -1 while decoding. <ERROR>
Aborted at file position 262144. <ERROR>

eac3to v3.22
command line: eac3to.exe "F:\T4\fre.thd" "F:\T4\fre.wavs" -nero
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TrueHD, 5.1 channels, 48kHz
Disabling DRC for Nero (E-)AC3 decoding...
Decoding with DirectShow (Nero Audio Decoder 2)...
The DirectShow audio decoder didn't accept the input stream. <ERROR>
Aborted at file position 262144. <ERROR>

It was under w7...

Under Windows XP SP3:
TrueHD, 5.1 channels, 48kHz
Disabling DRC for Nero (E-)AC3 decoding...
Decoding with DirectShow (Nero Audio Decoder 2)...
DirectShow reports 5.1 channels, 24 bits, 48kHz
Writing WAV...
Creating file "fre.wav"...
The original audio track has a constant bit depth of 16 bits.
Superfluous zero bytes detected, will be stripped in 2nd pass.
Starting 2nd pass...
Reading WAV...
Stripping zero bytes...
Writing WAV...
Creating file "fre.wav"...
eac3to processing took 9 seconds.
Done.

The decoding by libav under XP failed too.


What this can be?


Sample - http://multi-up.com/301756

[mr.duck]

eac3to cannot fully demux my TS files (from DVB-T, UK).

Unlike other programs like tsMuxeR, eac3to at least recognizes that there are subtitles there. But -demux only extracts the video and audio.

Also when I -demux some <path>\video.ts, it extracts the audio and video to the same folder as eac3to.exe, not the video file folder and no other way of setting the output to another folder. Pretty annoying.

[Thunderbolt8]

Is a problem for eac3to (at least DTS tracks, AC3 seems ok).

PC players tested without problems: mpc-hc(Haali), vlc and KMP

Standalone player tested without problems: Xtreamer

BTW, I don't know how can compress AC3 headers. There are different values in headers: CRC's, RF protection, DRC values, ...
hm can eac3to please be fixed that way that demuxing these know problematic filetypes from .mkv files works normally again? (video streams (avc/h264, vc-1, mpeg2, flac, dts, ac3, .ass subs)

otherwise there could be problems when muxing e.g. hdtv stuff and then deleting the .ts source afterwards only to find out that you then cannot demux one of those streams from the .mkv when you need to.
thanks!

[tebasuna51]

hm can eac3to please be fixed that way that demuxing these know problematic filetypes from .mkv files works normally again? (video streams (avc/h264, vc-1, mpeg2, flac, dts, ac3, .ass subs)
+1
But the the change only is for:
* mkvmerge: enhancement: mkvmerge uses header removal compression
by default for AC3, DTS, MP3, Dirac and MPEG-4 part 2 tracks.

otherwise there could be problems when muxing e.g. hdtv stuff and then deleting the .ts source afterwards only to find out that you then cannot demux one of those streams from the .mkv when you need to.
thanks!
We always can use MkvExtract.

[Thunderbolt8]

Ive had it in the past that flac tracks extracted by mkvextract could not be recognised by eac3to afterwards. so if this problem has been fixed, I wouldnt mind to use mkvextract.

[tebasuna51]

With old versions of MkvExtract the flac tracks was extracted in ogg container by default. Now is not extract in ogg container.

2010-05-28 Moritz Bunkus

* mkvextract: feature removal: Removed support for extracting FLAC
tracks into Ogg FLAC files. Instead they're always written into
raw FLAC files. The option "--no-ogg" has been removed as well.

[Midzuki]

MKVmerge can be used for copying a FLAC track to a .mka file.

[73ChargerFan]

I have a Blu Ray disc of a tv show (Supernatural Season 1, Disc 1). The disc has the first 6 episodes of the tv show. When I run the disc through eac3to (using Clown_BD and/or Ripbot) eac3to only picks up 3 playlists (the 1st playlist is of all episodes, the 2nd playlist is of episode 1, and the 3rd playlist is of episode
Cool show, I just watched all of season 5 last week.

Use BDInfo to identify the playlists for each episode (it can sort by time.) Then you can use eac3to on each.

Or, if you don't care about chapter times, you can demux the m2ts directly (sort by file size).

IIRC, eac3to is supposed to show playlists longer than 15 minutes, so this is probably a bug.

[deathlord]

Cool show, I just watched all of season 5 last week.

Use BDInfo to identify the playlists for each episode (it can sort by time.) Then you can use eac3to on each.

Or, if you don't care about chapter times, you can demux the m2ts directly (sort by file size).

IIRC, eac3to is supposed to show playlists longer than 15 minutes, so this is probably a bug.

You can also run eac3to on the playlist files, like
eac3to xyz.mpls
This way you see, which playlist corresponds to which .m2ts file.
The bigger Problem is, you don't know the right order for the episodes, i.e. you can't tell which ist the first.
There is no guarantee that either the .m2ts file name of the .mpls file name helps you there. I have not found a satisfying solution to this problem.

[SamuriHL]

You can also run eac3to on the playlist files, like
eac3to xyz.mpls
This way you see, which playlist corresponds to which .m2ts file.
The bigger Problem is, you don't know the right order for the episodes, i.e. you can't tell which ist the first.
There is no guarantee that either the .m2ts file name of the .mpls file name helps you there. I have not found a satisfying solution to this problem.

If you want a manual way to do it, install MPC-HC and open each MPLS in that. You should quickly see which episode corresponds to which MPLS. It's a pain, yes, but, it should work.

[73ChargerFan]

There are dozens and dozens of playlist MPLS files on some blu-rays. BDInfo will load the disk structure show immediately which mpls files are of interest.

[Snowknight26]

How does eac3to know how much gain to apply after clipping's been detected?

a05 Applying -0.27dB gain...

Seems a bit strange to apply only a .27dB gain.

[tebasuna51]

How does eac3to know how much gain to apply after clipping's been detected?

Seems a bit strange to apply only a .27dB gain.
Internally the samples value are managed with float values and can overflow the max value (lossy encoder/decoder imperfections, samplerate/mix operations, ...).
The second pass restore the max peak found to the max value allowed.

When only decode (only lossy encoder/decoder imperfections) I use -no2ndpass because this overflows are always errors (can't be present in original source) and are imperceptibles. But is your choice.

[deathlord]

If you want a manual way to do it, install MPC-HC and open each MPLS in that. You should quickly see which episode corresponds to which MPLS. It's a pain, yes, but, it should work.

How do I see which episode is which? Almost no show has a text encoded in the image: "Episode 1: ...", in particular not at the very beginning of the episode. The only way I see is to start each episode from the BD structure in TMT/PDVD, start the .m2ts files in MPC and compare visually. I find this extremely unsatisfying.

Sometimes, the .mpls files are in the same order as the episodes (the .m2ts files hardly ever are). However, in some shows, you can apparently not even play each episode seperately. Example: Terminator: TSCC Season 1 in TMT, there is not a playlist for each episode, only one for all three in a row. (However, there *is* a .m2ts file for each episode.

[SamuriHL]

How do I see which episode is which? Almost no show has a text encoded in the image: "Episode 1: ...", in particular not at the very beginning of the episode. The only way I see is to start each episode from the BD structure in TMT/PDVD, start the .m2ts files in MPC and compare visually. I find this extremely unsatisfying.

Sometimes, the .mpls files are in the same order as the episodes (the .m2ts files hardly ever are). However, in some shows, you can apparently not even play each episode seperately. Example: Terminator: TSCC Season 1 in TMT, there is not a playlist for each episode, only one for all three in a row. (However, there *is* a .m2ts file for each episode.

For a show you've not seen before, this would be incredibly difficult, yes. I'm not sure if there's any easy way to determine what order to use "programmatically" as it were. The idea of loading each MPLS into MPC-HC to see what episode it is only works if you know the order they should be in and can recognize them by the first few seconds of watching it. Admittedly, this does suck. I don't know of a better way.

[deathlord]

For a show you've not seen before, this would be incredibly difficult, yes.

I usually wait for the shows to be released on blu-ray...

I don't know of a better way.

Does anyone?

[TinTime]

I don't know of a better way.

Does anyone?

No, I'm in the same boat as you. I just stick the blu-ray in my PS3 and note down the run times of anything I want to rip. Not ideal but I can't think of any other way to do it. I then run a batch script which runs eac3to against all the playlists on the disk and outputs a text file with all the playlists and run times on it so I can select the right ones easily enough.

I say bring back HD DVD. They have nice xpl files with title and chapter names in them :)

[dbone1026]

No, I'm in the same boat as you. I just stick the blu-ray in my PS3 and note down the run times of anything I want to rip. Not ideal but I can't think of any other way to do it. I then run a batch script which runs eac3to against all the playlists on the disk and outputs a text file with all the playlists and run times on it so I can select the right ones easily enough.

I say bring back HD DVD. They have nice xpl files with title and chapter names in them :)

The easiest method I had when eac3to doesn't correctly display each episode is to use MakeMKV which so far has always picked up each episode individually. Once the mkvs are created I then play the beginning of the mkv and cross reference it against TVDB to figure out the actual episode. A little manual but gets the job done.

Another option, I think a program like DVDFab you can use to rip individual episodes to mkv. Each episode in DVDFab will have a Title# which you should then be able to match off using a player like PDVD to figure out which title# is what episode (this is what I do for SD DVD tv shows)

[rica]

Guys, dunno if it's a known issue but i can not use Nero audio decoder with eac3to anymore. (with my Seven 64)
I have hd patch of Nero 7 but i can't see Nero audio decoder2; instead nero audible decoder appears.

And when i try to decode any thd with eac3to and i force it to decode with nero, here is what madshi says:

eac3to v3.22
command line: eac3to\eac3to C:\pcm\try.m2ts 3: C:\pcm\audionerothd.pcm -nero
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
M2TS, 1 video track, 2 audio tracks, 0:05:00, 24p /1.001
1: VC-1, 1080p24 /1.001 (16:9)
2: RAW/PCM, English, 2.0 channels, 24 bits, 48kHz
3: TrueHD/AC3, English, 5.1 channels, 96kHz, dialnorm: -27dB
(embedded: AC3, 5.1 channels, 640kbps, 48kHz, dialnorm: -27dB)
[a03] I'd like to use the Nero decoder, but it doesn't seem to work. <ERROR>

What's up?

EDIT: I forgot libav is the default decoder for thd because of the nero's channel limitation. But anyway eac3to had to work with nero when it's forced? I'll give it a go with ac3 and eac3 which nero supposed to be default for them.

EDIT: Yes i gave it a go with an ac3 file and eac3to couldn't decode it with its default decoder Nero and forcing it to use nero gave the same caution: "I'd like to use the Nero decoder, but it doesn't seem to work."
eac3to can not recognize Ne.Audible.ax- fake nero audio decoder2 on Seven.


Shall we forget nero anymore?

Or is there any hack?

_ _ _ _ _

[rica]

BTW, this is an "how to" guide for arcsoft decoders on Seven or Vista SP2.
Somebody may be interested:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=18884347&postcount=3065



_ _ _ _ _ _

[crl2007]

Sometimes, when I join multiple m2ts files and demux the streams, the end result shows 13 hours as duration.

http://i32.tinypic.com/141nsd2.jpg I join multiple m2ts files from branched discs, for backup as a single m2ts. So it should have 2 hours, not 13.

[hubblec4]

hello

can everybody help me with the second pass. i have a trueHD track. i want convert it to flac. when the first pass ready the second pass starts, with the message superfluous bits detected: reduce bitdepth from 24 to 16bit. but the second-pass-file sounds damaged.
But the first-pass-flie sounds good(perfect)

is there an option to disable the second pass?


and how i get a full-list of the option by eac3to?

[Inspector.Gadget]

What do you mean "sounds damaged"? What's the difference in sound between the original and the encoded FLAC file? eac3to is pretty good about throwing out only padding in lossless audio tracks.

[Midzuki]

is there an option to disable the second pass?

and how i get a full-list of the option by eac3to?

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Eac3to/How_to_Use

but I'm not sure if dropping the 2nd pass will be a solution

[hubblec4]

you cant understand speech in this file. the musik is distorted. icant explain that exactly, but you hear nothing right.

the bit depth reducing from 24 to 16 bit is not necessary. you know the option to disable the second pass?

i can manually abort the cmd after finished the first pass and then i have the firstpass-file.

[hubblec4]

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Eac3to/How_to_Use

but I'm not sure if dropping the 2nd pass will be a solution

ok. i've found it. thanks.

i think is a good solution, because the firstpass-audio sounds perfect with a bit depth of 24.
and the secondpass-file with 16bit sounds very bad.

[deathlord]

ok. i've found it. thanks.

i think is a good solution, because the firstpass-audio sounds perfect with a bitdeth of 24.
and the secondpass-file with 16bit sounds very bad.

The only reason eac3to uses only 16 bits and not 24 in this track is that only those bits contain audio information. The 8 least significant bits are empty. Eac3to does not need to do a second pass in order to strip these. So the second pass must have another reason, e.g. because eac3to detects clipping.
I suspect there is something (slightly) wrong with the file and that's why the second pass produces garbage (this happend to me once).
In any event, if the result of the first pass is ok, i.e. audio is in sync throughout the movie, you can use that of course.

[hubblec4]

here the log with second-pass

eac3to v3.21
command line: eac3to.exe "00000 - 6 - TrueHD+AC3, German, 5.1 channels, 48kHz DELAY 125ms.thd+ac3" "deu.flac" -50mb
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TrueHD/AC3, 5.1 channels, 48kHz
(embedded: AC3, 5.1 channels, 640kbps, 48kHz)
Extracting TrueHD stream...
Decoding with libav/ffmpeg...
Encoding FLAC with libFlac...
Creating file "deu.flac"...
The original audio track has a constant bit depth of 16 bits.
Superfluous zero bytes detected, will be stripped in 2nd pass.
Starting 2nd pass...
Decoding FLAC...
Reducing depth from 24 to 16 bits...
Encoding FLAC with libFlac...
Creating file "deu.flac"...
The processed audio track has a constant bit depth of 16 bits.
eac3to processing took 25 seconds.
Done.

[Snowknight26]

eac3to v3.21
Enough said.

[Atak_Snajpera]

@madshi
can you add option to automatically ignore .m2ts in playlist if number of audio channels is not constant. In this example also frame rate is different in first file.

Movie Downfall
eac3to v3.22
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) 00014.mpls, 00034.m2ts+00014.m2ts, 2:35:21
- Chapters, 35 chapters
- VC-1, 1080p24 /1.001 (16:9)
- AC3, German, stereo, 48kHz

00034.m2ts
M2TS, 1 video track, 1 audio track, 0:00:37, 29.766p
1: Chapters, 35 chapters
2: VC-1, 1080p24 /1.001 (16:9)
3: AC3, German, 2.0 channels, 192kbps, 48kHz, dialnorm: -27dB

00014.m2ts
M2TS, 1 video track, 1 audio track, 0:00:29, 24p /1.001
1: VC-1, 1080p24 /1.001 (16:9)
2: AC3, German, 5.1 channels, 640kbps, 48kHz, dialnorm: -27dB



Sample
http://www.mediafire.com/file/zyyedjiqmn5jvy3/DOWNFALL_CLIPPED.zip_0
http://www.mediafire.com/file/hujn1tlkz3mynv2/DOWNFALL_CLIPPED.zip_1
http://www.mediafire.com/file/n1zmqnzzllztzkz/DOWNFALL_CLIPPED.zip_2

you will have to combine them before extracting:
copy DOWNFALL_CLIPPED.zip_0 /b + DOWNFALL_CLIPPED.zip_1 /b + DOWNFALL_CLIPPED.zip_2 /b DOWNFALL_CLIPPED.zip /b

[hubblec4]

Enough said.

ok you have right. with eac3to3.22 it works. eac3to make the second-pass and reduce the bitdepth to 16bit. but the file size is the same like 24bit. before the 24bit file was 1,4gb and the 16bit-file 0,9gb.


why two passes? the truehd+ac3-source is 16bit and eac3to convert it to 24bit first and then to 16bit??

so i can use the switch -down16 then start eac3to one pass only.

[yesgrey]

why two passes? the truehd+ac3-source is 16bit and eac3to convert it to 24bit first and then to 16bit??
It starts converting to 24bit because it's the indicated bit depth. After processing the entire file eac3to realizes that the effective bit depth is 16 bit, hence the bit depth reduction.

If you start using always the -down16, the files which would be effectively 24 bit will be reduced to 16 bit, and you might not want that.

[hubblec4]

If you start using always the -down16, the files which would be effectively 24 bit will be reduced to 16 bit, and you might not want that.

no, thats for this conversion only.

other 16bit sources will directly encoded with 16bit.

[deathlord]

no, thats for this conversion only.

other 16bit sources will directly encoded with 16bit.

TrueHD is always 24 bit, but sometimes it only contains 16 bit of audio data, which can only be seen after reading the whole track. Some time ago, eac3to wrote two tracks, a 16 and a 24 bit one. Apparently, now eac3to starts a second pass to write a 16 bit track in case it was only 16 effectively. So if you always use -down16 on thd tracks, you will lose the least significant 8 bit of audio data in case of a "real" 24 bit track.
However, if this is an audible loss of audio quality is highly questionable. I only use 16 bit for all formats.

[ron spencer]

Just a quick question google has not helped with.

I would like to downmix dts to 2.0, which is easy. But I cannot seem to find what flac compression options eac3to uses? Can I choose 8? Or does it do that by default?

thanks!!!

[deathlord]

eac3to uses level 8:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1222771&highlight=flac+level#post1222771

[hubblec4]

TrueHD is always 24 bit, but sometimes it only contains 16 bit of audio data, which can only be seen after reading the whole track. Some time ago, eac3to wrote two tracks, a 16 and a 24 bit one. Apparently, now eac3to starts a second pass to write a 16 bit track in case it was only 16 effectively. So if you always use -down16 on thd tracks, you will lose the least significant 8 bit of audio data in case of a "real" 24 bit track.
However, if this is an audible loss of audio quality is highly questionable. I only use 16 bit for all formats.

ok i understand this stuff now.
i dont use the switch -down16 for other convertions. only in this case.
with the v3.22 create eac3to a 24bit firstpass file and then the secondpass file with 16bit, which works fine. the original truhd.file is defintiv 16bit.

[mastrandrea]

Hi, is there a way to stretching an audio file to a given time?
In my case I would like to stretch a track by adding 400ms to it, is it possible with eac3to?

(Thanks for this really useful tool!)

[hubblec4]

Hi, is there a way to stretching an audio file to a given time?
In my case I would like to stretch a track by adding 400ms to it, is it possible with eac3to?

(Thanks for this really useful tool!)

stretch by 400ms?? i think you mean a delay of 400ms.

you can use this switch +400ms
(eac3to input.xxx output.xxx +/-400ms

[mastrandrea]

No, I was meaning I need to sync audio and video, and the audio is 400ms shorter.

[rica]

Guys,

Haven't got any response to this post, pls:

http://forum.doom9.org/showpost.php?p=1417047&postcount=10321


_ _ _ _ _

[rica]

And another question even i'm not sure being in the right place?

What code should be used in converting any lossless HD audio to PCM before remuxing to BD with TSMuxer? (if i want to make a PCM BD?)

eac3to input.thd(dtshd) output.pcm
and later
pcm2Tsmu input.pcm output.pcm (to be recognized by TSMuxer)

OR,

eac3to input.thd(dtshd) output.wav

Or, doesn't matter?
_ _ _ _ _

[dansrfe]

@ rica post 1

forget nero. libav works fine if not better.

@ rica post 2

I don't think it matters.

[rica]

Thanks.

1) OK i forgot nero but i still wonder where is neroaudiodecoder2?

2) Yes, thanks.

[SamuriHL]

Rica, are you just thinking about Nero for the DTS-HD MA decoding? TMT3's DTS-HD MA codec works fine if you register it properly, but, I think you know that? Am I missing something?

EDIT: Oh, sorry, you meant to use Nero for TrueHD decoding. Yea, libav does a fine job of that. Nero's not needed.

[rica]

EDIT: Oh, sorry, you meant to use Nero for TrueHD decoding. Yea, libav does a fine job of that. Nero's not needed.

Samuri,
the question was not nero needed or not; it was why i can not use it even it's worse than libav or even i force it to be used in eac3to?
And where is this f***g nero decoder?

[SamuriHL]

Samuri,
the question was not nero needed or not; it was why i can not use it even it's worse than libav or even i force it to be used in eac3to?

Yea, I don't know the answer to that one. I haven't installed Nero in a very long time.

[rica]

Pls reinstall it on your seven and tell me where it is?
You will see Ne.Audible.ax- fake nero audio decoder2 on Seven.
And i need a hack. But i haven't been able to do.

[SamuriHL]

Oh god no. :) I don't have a recent version of Nero. I don't even know what the last version I bought was. 8 maybe? I'm not spoiling a good 7 install with that! :D

[rica]

Nero 7; what i've been speaking about which eac3to supposed to be used to use. With its HD patch.