Midas/Azid is alive

[Midas]

Hello everyone,

I'm happy to inform everyone that I'm alive and improving on Azid. The next version of Azid is imminent, with a couple (serious) of bugfixes and enhances:

- The DRC bug is fixed
- Azid support streaming and piping for transcoding
- Linux version of azid
- +++

(More about the news later.)

Anyhow, for this I ask YOU: Is there any features/bugs that you'd like me to implement/fix? If you want this feature included in Azid 1.8, reply to this thread or send me a mail.


Thanks,
Midas.

[MaTTeR]

Hi Midas

Welcome back! Anxious to get my hands on the new version:D

[DarkAvenger]

I am *very* glad you are back. I guess you no longer have to reply my emails, as I have found out most of it. :) Don't forget to mail me latest azid.dll!

feature, we'd like to see:

when having overflows, print out on which channel.

[glenn]

Number one wanted feature: Native two-pass decoding, to stop overflow errors once and for all. Sadly, none of the other alternatives (BeSweet gui, gordian knot) are 100% accurate, they still generate overflows sometimes.

Thanks for providing the community with an essential and unique piece of software! =)

[DarkAvenger]

With the upcoming HeadAC3he no more overflows will occur. (Right now, only in 6ch decode observed.)

[LotionBoy]

I'd have to agree with the request for built in two-pass to kill overflow errors. That would rock.

LotionBoy

[DSPguru]

guys ! don't you read the news :) ?!
there are no overflows since BeSweet v1.1 .

[MaTTeR]

Overflows are only occuring with 6ch audio files. So I don't understand the problem anyway.

Whoelse besides myself and Christian are making 6ch Ogg files? This is when the overflows typically occur.

[DSPguru]

NO overflows whatsoever :D

[MaTTeR]

Originally posted by DSPguru
NO overflows whatsoever :D

Yes but no Ogg whatsoever either;) Sorry I couldn't resist man.

[DSPguru]

hehe ;)

[Midas]

Hi all,

I have lost my list of the azid.dll subscribers. Can those of you that want azid.dll for (development of) applications please send me a message with your mailaddress and I'll send you azid 1.8 as soon as its released.

Please include the name and description of the application that you will use it for as well.

I'm planning on releasing azid 1.8 around this week, latest at the monday 18. february.


Midas.

[DarkAvenger]

Another, well rather cosmetic, but somewhat useful feature, I'd like to see:

Include a version function in the dll like lame has, so we can easily distinguish between version.

thx,

D A

[zulu]

Hi Midas,

i noticed that the current azid.exe always returns a returncode !=0, no matter if an error occured or not.

i wrote a little ac3/mp3 transcoding frontend which calls azid and checks the returncode to determine if everything went fine before lame is executed. since azid never returns 0, i have to use some kind of workaround to check if the azid decoding part finished without any errors.

will this be fixed in the next release?

[MaTTeR]

D A,

Are you working on a DTS decoder? Chris mentioned it yesterday in the chat room.

Or would this be a function of Azid? More and more people seem to be asking for it. It doesn't seem viable for DivX rips though:)

[DarkAvenger]

Huh? Then you know more than me. no I am def. not makng a DTS decoder. Without docs quite impossible.

DTS would only make sense on DTS->6ch OGG transcode.

[user]

dts files encoding would be useful.
Sometimes the dts track is better than the ac3 5.1 track.

Then users could take the dts 5.1 sound if they want and decode it to wav, downmix to stereo surround like with ac3 now....

Something different:

is there a program to add wav header to dts track ?
Like you can add wav header to ac3 with DA's HeadAChe.

Then you can listen to some dts soundtracks via CDplayer.

Perhaps new function for HeadAC3he ?



azid:

It is not really a bug.
Some time ago I asked and reported about following solution:

problem:
sort of gain / overflows of eg. AC3 2.0 streams.
With usual DD 5.1 the max value is on top of sort text file.
Then usual destination of gain etc. is no problem.
No problem for BeSweet either.

But 2.0 DD streams:

Often max gain is like 14.2 db.
As result you would calculate: 20.0 - 14.2 = 5.8 db.

But : sorting in text file:
as "highest" value is written:
9.9 db decreasing to 2.0 db.
Then in the middle/end of text:
14.2 db decreasing to 1.0, 0.0 db.

You understand what's the problem ?

If you automatically look out for highest gain value on top of text file list, then you get wrong.
You would choose 9.9 db instead of correct 14.2 db.

Result: gain too high, clipping, very worse.

In one of the last BeSweet versions (about 1 month ago) I watched this behaviuor. (as I did month ago, when I used manually command line azid, but then I found out, that I have to look in the middle of text file behind 2.0 db to find really highest gain...)

I have not tried HeadAC3he with this aim, but you can try yourself easily with a Dolby Digital/AC3 2.0 stream that you decode to stereo wav with maximizing gain as usual.

Either azids sort behaviour gets changed or BeSweet/HeadAC3he's functionality gets changed, so that they "scan" the text-file to find really highest gain, not just taking first value on top, 9.9 db, if highest gain (bigger than 9.9, eg. 14 db) is in middle of text-file.

[DarkAvenger]

HeadAC3he makes its own gain calculations, that's why it worked correctly from day1 with 2ch targets.

Use the search function for DTS and why you shouldn't downmix it. Maybe time to add this to the FAQ...

[KoVaR]

hi
what i would like to see is:
increase/decrease auto-found value by XX dB

[ChristianHJW]

Hey Midas, thats nice to have you back !! I thought Dolby labs were after you and had put you in jail because we had no sign of life for quite some time here :scared: ...

To add something more useful : Now as we have 6 ch Vorbis encoding thanks to DA's modified Vorbis.dll, could you think of adding DTS decoding to Azid ? Is this based on AC3 or Dolby somehow or something completely different ? I hate the idea of having to transcode the 5.1 AC3 to Vorbis ....

[DarkAvenger]

FORGET about DTS. It is something completely different form someone competely different. Arghhh.

I mean it would be something else, if someone finds DTS docs, which uhhh fell of the lorry...

[Doom9]

dts is an even more strictly closed format than Dolby Digital.. don't think there's any public docs at all.. you can't even decode DTS using the ds filters taken from windvd or powerdvd... and guess how trilled steven spielberg would be to send out a couple of C&D letters to whoever reverse engineers the format..

[LigH]

Dear Midas,

I hope you remember that a few reports have been posted here about occasional clicks, especially in very quiet scenes, from the age when AC3 to MP3 conversion vas made with writing an intermediate WAV file... It would be nice if everyone who experienced this issue could check if the same problem occurs with BeSweet as well - I'm just afraid this would require some heavy and time taking test session.

[DarkAvenger]

Hey, Ligh, I guess these clicks were due to the DRC bug, which he fixed. :)

[Divine]

I am glad the DRC bug is fixed. It kept me staying with DSENC/Soft Encode.

I don't know if you ever got my email, (didn't get a reply) but i was the one who sent you the small .ac3 (proofing the bug) back in oct. I have also had an email conversation with DA about it.

Anyway, i guess i am waiting for the update. ;)

[Midas]

Yes, thanks. You helped me identify a rather serious bug (that didnt just only affect DRC I'm afraid). Your small testcase, proved to a rather helpful resource.

The new release is on its way within a week or so.

Thanks,
Midas.