MKVmerge not supporting DTS-HD/TrueHD?

[jfromeo]

I have two demuxed audio tracks from original source, a DTS-HD MA and a TrueHD one, both pure (no DTS/AC3 core) with *.dtshd and *.truehd extensions.

But when I try to remux any of them with MKVmerge, I can't even select them as they have an extension not supported by the muxer. If I change it to *.dts the program recognises them but I'm not sure it remuxes them in their original format as they both appear as DTS audio tracks once added to the GUI.

Looking MKVmerge functions, it only supports the following formats:

AVI as the video and audio source (only raw PCM, MP3 and AC3 audio tracks at the moment)
OGG as the source for video, audio (Vorbis, raw PCM, MP3 and AC3 audio) and subtitle streams (Kate and simple text formats).
WAV as the audio source
AAC audio files (ADTS AAC files and AAC from MP4)
AC3 audio files
DTS audio files
MP3 audio files
RealVideo and RealAudio from RealMedia files
FLAC audio files (both raw FLAC and OggFLAC)

Do I have to convert them to FLAC before remuxing?

[jfromeo]

Any hint on that?

How do you demux your TrueHD/DTS-HD MA audio tracks when they have a core with them?

[nurbs]

Do I have to convert them to FLAC before remuxing?
Apparently yes.

How do you demux your TrueHD/DTS-HD MA audio tracks when they have a core with them?
eac3to. But why demux them if you have to convert them to flac anyway because you want to mux it to mkv?

[jfromeo]

Well, if possible, I would like to maintain them as they are in the BD (although I'll be losing the ratio compression from FLAC codec), that is DTS-HD MA and TrueHD.

But I'm reading the eac3to wiki and I found:

DTS-HD decoding can be archived through:

* "Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder 4.3" DirectShow filter (commercial software)
* ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre (commercial software)

Both decode bit-perfect. Sonic is limited to 5.1 or 6.1 channels depending on the source track, while ArcSoft can output up to 7.1 channels.
As a result ArcSoft is the default decoder for DTS-HD.

So I guess first I need the Arcsoft one for correctly 7.1 demuxing the DTS-HD MA audio tracks (Libav / ffmpeg decoder can demux 7.1 TrueHD, it's freeware and ships with eac3to package).

But the problem would be how to remux them into an mkv with MKVmerge as it doesn't recognise those formats.

[nurbs]

You don't need any decoder to demux the tracks. You need the decoders to decode them. If you want to keep the tracks as they are you have to use .m2ts or another container that supports them (I don't know any others).

[yonta]

Lastest mmg.exe can mux DTS-HD MA/HRA and TrueHD streams.
You can use lastest MediaInfo to verify your muxed files.
Audio #1 is a conventional DTS stream.

Audio #1
ID : 1
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 3mn 24s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 510 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Surround: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 24 bits
Stream size : 36.9 MiB (23%)

Audio #2
ID : 2
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile : HRA
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 3mn 24s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 2 047 Kbps
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Surround: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 24 bits
Stream size : 50.0 MiB (31%)

Audio #3
ID : 3
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile : MA
Codec ID : A_DTS
Duration : 3mn 24s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Channel(s) : 8 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Surround: L R, Wide: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 24 bits

Audio #4
ID : 4
Format : TrueHD
Codec ID : A_TRUEHD
Codec ID/Info : Dolby TrueHD
Duration : 3mn 24s
Channel(s) : 8 channels
Sampling rate : 96.0 KHz

[jfromeo]

Thanks so much, but how do you add the *.dtshd audio streams on MKVmerge?

It has no problems with *.dts, *.thd...etc, but I can't select the *.dtshd file as it looks like it isn't supported:

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/4172/nuevaimageni.jpg

Do you simply change the file extension to *.dts, and add it? Or select "All files (*.*)"?

Thanks in advance.

[yonta]

File extensions do not matter because mmg.exe doesn't rely on them to identify file types.
You can use .dts for all dts variants or you can just drag 'n drop them onto mmg.exe.

[jfromeo]

Thanks yonta, it worked. I added all the audio and video streams with random extensions (*.rdf, *.fjs...etc), checked the output mkv file from mkvmerge with MediaInfo and they were all correctly remuxed (video VC-1, audio #1 DTS-HD MA, audio #2 DTS).

Thanks again! :)

[Mosu]

File extensions do not matter because mmg.exe doesn't rely on them to identify file types.
You can use .dts for all dts variants or you can just drag 'n drop them onto mmg.exe.

^^ This. mkvmerge supports both TrueHD and DTS-HD muxing. DTS-HD is indeed a bit confusing because the CodecID in the resulting file is the same as for normal DTS: A_DTS. The CodecID for TrueHD is A_TRUEHD.

mkvmerge does not care about file extensions at all; it determines the file type by analyzing the content. I don't think there are standard file extensions for DTS-HD and TrueHD; a lot of people use different extensions. You can either select "All files (*.*)" in mmg or drag & drop the file from e.g. Explorer.

[stax76]

I think on windows most people are used to file extensions with 3 chars so would use dts instead of dtshd. Some applications don't always use 3 chars, file extensions like c h vb cs csproj vbproj etc. are common for instance. I think that makes things easier so I wish people would stick to dtshd, mka instead of mkv, m4a instead of mp4 etc. I use such extension in StaxRip wherever possible.

[Mosu]

I can add .dtshd, .dts-hd, .truehd, .true-hd to the list of known file types in mmg. In fact I think I will unless I forget about it ;)

[sneaker_ger]

mkvmerge does not care about file extensions at all

Just as a side note: with the exception of MPEG-2 program streams. (recent addition in version 3.1.0)

[Mosu]

Just as a side note: with the exception of MPEG-2 program streams. (recent addition in version 3.1.0)

There are other exceptions as well, but that's a bit beside the point for the discussion of DTS HD/TrueHD :)

[nautilus7]

I can add .dtshd, .dts-hd, .truehd, .true-hd to the list of known file types in mmg. In fact I think I will unless I forget about it ;)
Also add .thd for TrueHD, please. It's what eac3to use.

[Mosu]

Also add .thd for TrueHD, please. It's what eac3to use.

.thd and .thd+ac3 were alreay present.

[nautilus7]

Sorry, my bad.