DTS Express

[Ch3vr0n]

Hey Jdobbs,

I'm about to process another disc, however i've run into an "issue". The stream status windows shows that the main movie contains secondairy video and a DTS express audio stream.

For some reason i cannot seem to find the correct language nor be able to double click on the stream.

Will this have an "impact" on the secondairy video and ifso what is it ?

[Capsbackup]

There is currently no free program able to process DTS Express.. tsMuxer will not.
You can still get a working secondary video, but there will be no audio track for it.:(

[k-c-ksum]

what is it with the DTS Express audio that makes it it unusable? All other audio tracks found on bluray can be demuxed/muxed. Whats so special about DTS express? Could it be demuxed with eac3to then re-encoded to ac3 or do pip tracks have to use dts express only?

[jdobbs]

what is it with the DTS Express audio that makes it it unusable? All other audio tracks found on bluray can be demuxed/muxed. Whats so special about DTS express? Could it be demuxed with eac3to then re-encoded to ac3 or do pip tracks have to use dts express only? It's a TSMUXER issue -- it just doesn't recognize it for demuxing or remuxing. You can't "reencode to AC3" because:

1. You have to be able to decode it to convert it to anything.
2. You can't use standard AC3 for secondary audio, only DD+, for which there is no freeware encoder (I know of)

[k-c-ksum]

It's a TSMUXER issue -- it just doesn't recognize it for demuxing or remuxing. You can't "reencode to AC3" because:

1. You have to be able to decode it to convert it to anything.
2. You can't use standard AC3 for secondary audio, only DD+, for which there is no freeware encoder (I know of)

that rules recording it via analogue and re-encoding then :(
Has Tsmuxer development stopped or Is dts express being worked on?.

I thought my backups with PIP had no sound due to me not highlighting the correct track. Doh

[Ch3vr0n]

sry it took so long to respond. Had other pressing matters to attend to. Its a damn shame DTS-Express cant be decoded (yet). Cause i currently have couple discs backed up on white-blue verbatim BD-r DLs. This was before i knew about BDRB and how to use it. I had planned on compressing them to full white faced printables, cause well with a label on them they just look better and the video quality wouldnt be an issue cause bdrb does an excellent job.

Guess ill have to keep em on dl and wait till a dts-e decoder becomes available.

[jdobbs]

that rules recording it via analogue and re-encoding then :(
Has Tsmuxer development stopped or Is dts express being worked on?.

I thought my backups with PIP had no sound due to me not highlighting the correct track. Doh If the original is DD+ then you're fine... but if it is DTS Express I know of no way to remux it into the output stream.

[k-c-ksum]

this old nutshell again, is it actually being worked on by anyone or is it seen as an un needed task

[Ch3vr0n]

Well ignoring the fact you dug up a 3 month old topic, think jdobbs said he planned on figuring out a way himself to decode dts-express. No news on that part though

[deank]

Of course if there was some support for tsMuxeR author things could've been different.

DTS Express needs few lines of code in tsMuxeR... It is just that roman (the author of tsMuxeR) either stopped visiting doom9 or has no real reason to do it.

Dean

//

I wonder if there is a way to 'trick' blu-ray players with marking DTS audio at lowest bitrate (768) as DTS-Express in the playlist. Of course it is way out of the standard, but... just an idea...

After all, if mediainfo manages to detect DTS EX properties by just reading ~200 bytes (I tried it), why not tsMuxeR. :) I believe adding support for dts-ex in tsmuxer is much more easier than dts-hd, which is already implemented.

[Capsbackup]

@deank;
Perhaps a new challenge on your list! :)
It does not appear tsMuxeR will be updated, since it has been approx. 1 year since they have been heard from. :(
Between jdobbs and yourself, from what I have seen you both accomplish so far, and in a pretty short period of time, this would seem like a small obstacle. :p

[Midzuki]

I wonder if there is a way to 'trick' blu-ray players with marking DTS audio at lowest bitrate (768) as DTS-Express in the playlist. Of course it is way out of the standard, but... just an idea...

IIRC, madshi himself has written that DTS-Express is a quite different beast --- no DTS-"core", to begin with. Besides, the firmware might not be "smart" enough to ignore the misidentification of the stream-type and play it back anyway. :confused:

As for the "normal" lossy DTS --- a.k.a. "Coherent Acoustics" --- , the lowest bitrate available to the end-user, in the latest releases of the Master Audio Suite, is 192kbps, for mono audio (one could get even 126kbps in the version 1.0, which unfortunately became "abandonware" since the death of HD-DVD).

[deank]

No 'core' because it is SD audio... just like DTS, but different header and packet syntax.

I just suggested to change values in the playlist as a simple try. I can't test it, because I can't burn BD-R/RE discs but it may worth the try.

I've never been into audio processing (since the early days of CoolEdit)...

I emailed roman with a few questions, so lets see if he'll answer to my request.

Dean

[k-c-ksum]

Well ignoring the fact you dug up a 3 month old topic, think jdobbs said he planned on figuring out a way himself to decode dts-express. No news on that part though

dont want to start new threads everytime that why i revived this thread again, as its been a while i was curious to see what , or if anyone had tried to impliment demux/remuxing it since the op date



I emailed roman with a few questions, so lets see if he'll answer to my request.

Dean
fingers crossed

[rippn]

I would love to see this implemented, imo this is the only lacking feature in dvd rebuilder, and a big one at that because I would say almost 33% of disks have it, and you can't do a full backup without it, well you can but to me missing audio is not really a full 100% backup.

[deank]

@deank;
Perhaps a new challenge on your list! :)
It does not appear tsMuxeR will be updated, since it has been approx. 1 year since they have been heard from. :(
Between jdobbs and yourself, from what I have seen you both accomplish so far, and in a pretty short period of time, this would seem like a small obstacle. :p

:)

It is just that almost all is in there - in tsMuxeR. And this fact alone is a bit discouraging, and programming + testing a new muxer will take months, just like it was with tsMuxeR.

I just hope that roman will get back to us with something.

[A.Fenderson]

I try to donate to (or purchase from) the creators of all the incredibly useful free apps that I use on a regular basis (BD-Rebuilder and ImgBurn to name two of my favorites), and seeing as how I use tsMuxeR myself directly and via BD-RB all the time, I would gladly donate to the creator if they might consider adding this last little feature to their program which (so far as I know) would make it pretty much complete for Blu-ray usage.

I just ran across my first DTS-Express BD last night, and decided to skip trying to rebuild it until I could get time to research it today and find out why I couldn't add the audio track. So I checked another rip: uh-oh, another pesky DTS-Express track!

So, would anyone else be willing to contribute monetarily to encourage the continued development of tsMuxeR?

[k-c-ksum]

eac3to can demux it, just need to be able to reencode to dd+ mono track which tsmuxer supports?

[jdobbs]

eac3to can demux it, just need to be able to reencode to dd+ mono track which tsmuxer supports?

So after you demux it, what do you do with it? If you can't remux it, it's of no use... there also isn't a freeware encoder that will do either of the two acceptable secondary audio types (DTS Express and DD+).

[k-c-ksum]

So after you demux it, what do you do with it? If you can't remux it, it's of no use... there also isn't a freeware encoder that will do either of the two acceptable secondary audio types (DTS Express and DD+).

is 2 channel DD supported in secondary stream?

edit - crap, it isnt.

any way to impliment eac3to as the remuxer?

[jdobbs]

is 2 channel DD supported in secondary stream?

edit - crap, it isnt.

any way to impliment eac3to as the remuxer?My plan right now is to manually demux/remux it into the stream that was created by TSMUXER.

[k-c-ksum]

appears txmuxer can remux dts-express, sort of. i used a plain old dts track from a dvd, opened this in tsmuxer, i then renamed the dts express file to the same as the already selected dts file from the dvd, added a video file and muxed them both. once done opening this causes tsmuxer to warn that some streams can be procesed, just like when you try to open the original. Only thing is i cant hear the audio, not sure if its because its not located in the same position as the original so the bd structure points to the wrong location or if eac3to messsed up the demux to begin with. Might be worth a try for you seasoned BD genius's :)

[jdobbs]

appears txmuxer can remux dts-express, sort of. i used a plain old dts track from a dvd, opened this in tsmuxer, i then renamed the dts express file to the same as the already selected dts file from the dvd, added a video file and muxed them both. once done opening this causes tsmuxer to warn that some streams can be procesed, just like when you try to open the original. Only thing is i cant hear the audio, not sure if its because its not located in the same position as the original so the bd structure points to the wrong location or if eac3to messsed up the demux to begin with. Might be worth a try for you seasoned BD genius's :) Interesting. So how did you demux the DTS Express file to begin with?

I've been working on a routine to pull the DTS from the original and merge it with the output of TSMUXER into a third stream. I then replace the M2TS with my new stream. It's working, but it adds about 40 minutes to the process (for the merge).

[Capsbackup]

Interesting. So how did you demux the DTS Express file to begin with?

I've been working on a routine to pull the DTS from the original and merge it with the output of TSMUXER into a third stream. I then replace the M2TS with my new stream. It's working, but it adds about 40 minutes to the process (for the merge).

eac3to, I believe, allows demux of the DTS Express. I have tried Clown_BD, which is a front end to eac3to, since I am not a good command line user, :p , and it uses eac3to also to demux the DTS Express.
I am running a test right now to confirm. :)

[k-c-ksum]

Interesting. So how did you demux the DTS Express file to begin with?


the "eac3to" app. its a sweet demuxer.

i used the clownbd gui. but command line junkies probably wont bother with that :)

[jdobbs]

eac3to, I believe, allows demux of the DTS Express. I have tried Clown_BD, which is a front end to eac3to, since I am not a good command line user, :p , and it uses eac3to also to demux the DTS Express.
I am running a test right now to confirm. :) Yeah, but adding that additional process for demuxing would be just as slow as doing it myself -- not to mention another 8-9MB more to add to the zip file for downloads... I hate including more than one program that does essentially the same thing.

There is also some unclear text in two of the licensing documents that might be interpreted to not allow donations -- and I don't take chances with other people's interpretations of licenses.

[Capsbackup]

Interesting. So how did you demux the DTS Express file to begin with?


Yes, eac3to does demux the DTS Express.
From Bourne Identity, DTS file is 162MB and:
eac3to processing took 4 minutes, 50 seconds.
I only demuxed this track using Clown_BD, thus the relatively short demux time. :)

[Capsbackup]

Yeah, but adding that additional process for demuxing would be just as slow as doing it myself -- not to mention another 8-9MB more to add to the zip file for downloads... I hate including more than one program that does essentially the same thing.

Understood! :)
eac3to.zip = 3.99MB.
I am very comfortable with whatever your method will be when you decide. :cool: You have yet to dissapoint! :p
And if it adds 40 minutes plus to a full backup with secondary video/audio, I will just go to bed earlier or sleep later.;)

[jdobbs]

Yes, eac3to does demux the DTS Express.
From Bourne Identity, DTS file is 162MB and:
eac3to processing took 4 minutes, 50 seconds.
I only demuxed this track using Clown_BD, thus the relatively short demux time. :)

Huh? You can't scan a 40GB file and demux something in less than 5 minutes...

[jdobbs]

Understood! :)
eac3to.zip = 3.99MB.
I am very comfortable with whatever your method will be when you decide. :cool: You have yet to dissapoint! :p
And if it adds 40 minutes plus to a full backup with secondary video/audio, I will just go to bed earlier or sleep later.;) And... it only applies on titles that have secondarys -- and only on secondaries that are DTS Express. The routine is skipped on all others. I'm still trying to optimize it... I've already gotten it down from 60 minutes to 40... I'm not sure if I can find any other ways to speed it up.

[Capsbackup]

Huh? You can't scan a 40GB file and demux something in less than 5 minutes...

This quote was straight from the eac3to log. I deselected all other options to demux, keeping only the DTS Express audio. I know that is a very short demux time, which is why I mentioned it was the only track demuxed. :)

[Capsbackup]

And... it only applies on titles that have secondarys -- and only on secondaries that are DTS Express. The routine is skipped on all others. I'm still trying to optimize it... I've already gotten it down from 60 minutes to 40... I'm not sure if I can find any other ways to speed it up.

Based on my experience, 40 minutes does sound like a long time, but we all must understand that if the original has secondary video/audio, and the secondary audio is DTS Express, then this extra time will apply.
For those type of full backups, the extra wait will be worth it to keep the entire original disc structure complete. :)
Besides, with the several speed options you have with x264, and the faster cpu's available today, most users have already experienced major speed increases already. :p

[jdobbs]

This quote was straight from the eac3to log. I deselected all other options to demux, keeping only the DTS Express audio. I know that is a very short demux time, which is why I mentioned it was the only track demuxed. :) It really doesn't matter what the log says... impossible is still impossible. That would require reading the file @ 133MB/s even completely ignoring the overhead of looking at each 192 byte packet to find the PID and the write time. On an SATA drive I would expect to see about 32MB/s (real speed, not to be confused with SATA transfer rate). I know my USB 2.0 video drives usually copy files at a rate of just about 20MB/s give-or-take (read & write), because I do that all the time. It takes almost a half-hour just to copy a 40GB file (from USB 2.0 to SATA) with no additional processing.

Of course I'm assuming 40GB -- how big is the source M2TS?

Just to be sure, I'm going to write a quick read-only loop through a file and see what I get.

If your system can scan a file that fast... mine needs to be converted to a boat anchor.

[drmih]

I played around with eac3to some time ago as a possible way of handling the secondary audio before I realised it was the remuxing that was the problem. It definitely can extract it (but we all know that now) but it certainly didn't take that long to extract it.

**Just checking on a disc at the moment and to extract the audio only from a 30Gb disc took about 5 minutes.

[deank]

Probably madshi should answer about what is the approach...

I think that the 'time to demux/covert' is calculated after the initial scan is completed, and sometimes it takes A LOT OF TIME... If the initial scan goes through the files and finds the packets it needs (for the first 5-15 mins) then of course a demux is possible for the next (reported) 5-10 mins.

I just checked and my laptop's internal HDD gives me about 25-30MB/s with simple copy so copying/scanning 30000MB would take at least 15-20 mins.

[drmih]

I actually demuxed an image from the HDD to the same HDD - it did take a minute or two (no longer to do the original scan when I highlighted the file - I used a GUI) but then to extract a 500 Mb ac3 file from a 30GB disc took 5 minutes (I didn't demux the whole disc just a sample audio track) - that wasn't just the reported time but actual clock time.

[Capsbackup]

It really doesn't matter what the log says... impossible is still impossible. That would require reading the file @ 133MB/s even completely ignoring the overhead of looking at each 192 byte packet to find the PID and the write time. On an SATA drive I would expect to see about 32MB/s (real speed, not to be confused with SATA transfer rate). I know my USB 2.0 video drives usually copy files at a rate of just about 20MB/s give-or-take (read & write), because I do that all the time. It takes almost a half-hour just to copy a 40GB file (from USB 2.0 to SATA) with no additional processing.

Of course I'm assuming 40GB -- how big is the source M2TS?

Just to be sure, I'm going to write a quick read-only loop through a file and see what I get.

If your system can scan a file that fast... mine needs to be converted to a boat anchor.

Just for clarity, I ran it again, and the log is posted.
My setup is just to demux the DTS Express audio track, # 8.
eac3to v3.24
command line: "C:\Users\Ed\Desktop\DVD Tools\eac3to\eac3to.exe" "G:\BD RIPS\BOURNE_IDENT" 1) 8: "G:\BOURNE_IDENT BDRB\Audio_8_English.DTS" -progressnumbers -LOG="G:\BOURNE_IDENT BDRB\LOGS\eac3to_PASS3_LOG.LOG"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
M2TS, 2 video tracks, 5 audio tracks, 5 subtitle tracks, 1:58:17, 24p /1.001
1: Chapters, 20 chapters
2: VC-1, 1080p24 /1.001 (16:9)
3: VC-1, 480p24 /1.001 (3:2)
4: DTS Master Audio, English, 5.1 channels, 24 bits, 48kHz
(core: DTS, 5.1 channels, 24 bits, 1509kbps, 48kHz)
5: DTS, Spanish, 5.1 channels, 24 bits, 768kbps, 48kHz
6: DTS, French, 5.1 channels, 24 bits, 768kbps, 48kHz
7: AC3 Surround, English, 2.0 channels, 192kbps, 48kHz, dialnorm: -27dB
8: DTS Express, English, 2.0 channels, 24 bits, 192kbps, 48kHz
9: Subtitle (PGS), English
10: Subtitle (PGS), Spanish
11: Subtitle (PGS), French
12: Subtitle (PGS), Spanish
13: Subtitle (PGS), French
[a08] Extracting audio track number 8...
[a08] Creating file "G:\BOURNE_IDENT BDRB\Audio_8_English.DTS"...
Video track 2 contains 170168 frames.
Video track 3 contains 170168 frames.
eac3to processing took 4 minutes, 49 seconds.
Done.

The source is The Bourne Identity, 00010.m2ts is 32.1GB.
............................................................................
I use eSata for my storage/backups, with SATA2 Internal HD's placed in a Vantec external 3.5"/2.5" dock. I backup the original rip to my internal SATA HD to this external dock. I can back up a 40GB Blu-ray in about 10 minutes! ( sometimes less if I don't try to multitask during the transfer :p )
I have gone down the USB 2.0 path for data transfers before, and I will admit this is the one area that I could not maintain patience! So now all of my backups go on internal SATA drives that I can either place in this dock or internally in my PC.:cool: ( I prefer the external dock though! )

EDIT:
Just did a 22.0GB transfer from a USB 2.0 external HD to my PC's desktop, 12:52! :(

[k-c-ksum]

an extra 40 mins is nothing compared to the encode time. An extra hour for a backup with dts express secondard audio verses no dts-e audio. Its a no brainer. Good job jdobbs :)

[jdobbs]

Probably madshi should answer about what is the approach...

I think that the 'time to demux/covert' is calculated after the initial scan is completed, and sometimes it takes A LOT OF TIME... If the initial scan goes through the files and finds the packets it needs (for the first 5-15 mins) then of course a demux is possible for the next (reported) 5-10 mins.

I just checked and my laptop's internal HDD gives me about 25-30MB/s with simple copy so copying/scanning 30000MB would take at least 15-20 mins. That makes sense, and I think you probably hit the nail on the head. You can always scan in 15-20mins and keep a file of pointers to packets/pids... then 5 minutes for an extract would be fairly easy since you're only reading a small part of the M2TS. Then (as is probably the case with Capsbackup) every time you reopen it you already have the map and you don't have to scan again.

Of course that won't help me, since I have to scan it once and rewrite immediately. So 20 mins + 5 mins = 25mins -- plus I also have to remerge it into the new TSMUXER-created M2TS -- so 40 minutes is probably about right.

[jdobbs]

Ok... I got sidetracked and just finished the read test. It takes about 11 minutes to read a 34GB M2TS file on a high-end SATA drive with absolutely no processing -- just a read loop. So it's faster than I thought (about 56MB/s) -- but still not fast enough to possibly read in 5 minutes.

[Capsbackup]

Ok... I got sidetracked and just finished the read test. It takes about 11 minutes to read a 34GB M2TS file on a high-end SATA drive with absolutely no processing -- just a read loop. So it's faster than I thought (about 56MB/s) -- but still not fast enough to possibly read in 5 minutes.

I guess that means no boat anchor! :p
Sorry if I was the cause of your side track, was just relaying the test results ( that eac3to can demux DTS Express) and eac3to log from that test.:o
I was not implying anything or anymore from the test, just sharing an experience. :)

[rippn]

Can't wait for the release that supports DTS Express, it's going to be like Christmas morning for a 5 year old!!!

[jdobbs]

Can't wait for the release that supports DTS Express, it's going to be like Christmas morning for a 5 year old!!! There are still a couple of minor issues. I'll probably release one more version, and then include DTS Express support in the next.

[Ch3vr0n]

If you need a DTS-E tester before you release the next official "beta", i've got plenty of discs lying arround with an embedded stream (Fast & Furious box set) and i'd be happy ot help out

[deank]

DTS-Express seems like a nice candidate for a PRO-only version.

Don't you think that there are too many posts like "I backed up like 100 blu-rays without problems using BD-Rebuilder, but now I have a problem..." and on the other hand - not that many thanks and donations.

Dean

[rippn]

I'll gladly pay for pro, happily did with dvd rebuilder! And I've said it before and I'll say it again, thanks so much for the hard work on this fantastic piece of software!!!

[kieranrk]

eac3to only has to read the first few bytes or so of each TS packet so the numbers aren't unreasonable.

[setarip_old]

@kieranrk

Hi!

You might want to use a spell checker ;>}

[jdobbs]

eac3to only has to read the first few bytes or so of each TS packet so the numbers aren't unreasonable. If you knew how computers work with hard drives, you'd know that doesn't matter. At the operating system level it can't read "the first few bytes" -- you have to read sectors as a minimum and most often you read clusters. Since a sector is larger than a packet -- you end up having to read every single byte of the 40GB file just so you can access those first few bytes of each packet.

[jdobbs]

appears txmuxer can remux dts-express, sort of. i used a plain old dts track from a dvd, opened this in tsmuxer, i then renamed the dts express file to the same as the already selected dts file from the dvd, added a video file and muxed them both. once done opening this causes tsmuxer to warn that some streams can be procesed, just like when you try to open the original. Only thing is i cant hear the audio, not sure if its because its not located in the same position as the original so the bd structure points to the wrong location or if eac3to messsed up the demux to begin with. Might be worth a try for you seasoned BD genius's :) I tried this (using TSDEMUX to extract the DTS Express). TSMUXER returns as if the stream was muxed -- but it isn't. I tried muxing with only the demuxed DTS Express file and the M2TS had a zero length.

Too bad, I was hoping I could "fool" it into muxing for me. Oh, well... back to my original plan.