Giving a DTS file a WAV header?

[wonkey_monkey]

I'm trying, with very little success, to find out how to give a DTS file a WAV header so it can be burned to a CD. I've made DTS WAVs before, but I was encoding from PCM audio at the same time. This time I already have the DTS file, and just need to give it a header.

I've tried opening the DTS file as RAW data in Audacity, then saving as WAV, but this doesn't seem to be recognised as DTS by my amp. Previous experimentation has taught me that Audacity can't be trusted not to mangle the bytes of an AC3 stream captured over SPDIF, so I can't trust it in this case either.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

David

[tebasuna51]

Try with spdifer here: http://ac3filter.net/projects/tools
spdifer

This utility encapsulates AC3/DTS/MPEG Audio stream into SPDIF stream according to IEC 61937 standard.

Usage:
spdifer input_file output_file [-raw | -wav]

Options:
input_file - file to convert
output_file - file to write result to
-raw - make raw SPDIF stream output (default)
-wav - make PCM WAV file with SPDIF data (for writing to CD Audio)

[wonkey_monkey]

Thanks - it worked, although it wasn't enough to fool MKVmerge into thinking it was PCM, and AVI Mux gives me a file with no apparent audio, so it's back to the drawing board on this one...

David

[tebasuna51]

Thanks - it worked, although it wasn't enough to fool MKVmerge into thinking it was PCM,
MKVmerge???. You can't mux these files in mkv container.
You say "give a DTS file a WAV header so it can be burned to a CD", a dtswav have a wrong wav header just to deceive the soft to burn a CD.
This kind of file is useless for other thing than burn CD.
and AVI Mux gives me a file with no apparent audio,...
AVIMux???. You can't mux these files in avi container.

[wonkey_monkey]

Sorry, I must have confused myself - I've made DTS WAVs in the past to burn to a CD, but that's not what I was trying to achieve this time. I was actually trying to trick my TV into passing through the DTS soundtrack when it plays the MKV (it won't pass through what it doesn't understand itself).

I did eventually fool MKVMerge by blanking the first few seconds of the PCMised DTS track, but my TV doesn't seem to like PCM audio either! So for now I'm giving up and using the AC3 soundtrack instead.

David

[tebasuna51]

If you have an original AC3 soundtrack 640 Kb/s don't worry, is always better than DTS standard 1536 Kb/s. Also AC3 448 Kb/s is better than DTS 768 Kb/s

[wonkey_monkey]

Really? I was under the impression that AC3 mixes are done with stereo/Pro-Logic in mind, as it's usually the default track and needs to sound good on all sorts of setups. I've certainly always found DTS tracks to be superior to AC3 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind, for example.

Mind you, I don't have all that many DTS discs...

David

[tebasuna51]

We are talking about different mixes or the same soundtrack?

BTW, when there are different mixes (maybe in some DVD's), the DTS tracks have superior volume than AC3, and AC3 superior dynamic range than DTS (different concepts about quality, but without stereo/Pro-Logic in mind).

[wonkey_monkey]

We are talking about different mixes or [sic] the same soundtrack?

If "or" was meant to say "of", then yes :)

I'll dig out my Close Encounters disc tomorrow - I don't think it wasn't just a volume difference.

I don't know where I read it, but I was under the impression that AC3 tracks on DVDs aren't as well "separated" as DTS tracks, due to being made downmix friendly, and sometimes include phase shifting for Pro-Logic (something I've admittedly never really understood!).

David

[tebasuna51]

If really there are different mixes, and you like much more the DTS mix, and you can't pass through the DTS, you always can recode the DTS to AC3 640 Kb/s. Recode always lose quality but the difference between the original and the AC3 640 Kb/s is very small.

[wonkey_monkey]

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

David