How to copy DTS track from one movie file to another?

[TrevorS]

I just started backing up some of my discs to HDD and probably have a lot to learn. What tools are available to do what and etc. I want to copy a two volume dvd (part 1 + 2) to hard drive as a single file keeping the DTS 5.1 track. I used DVD Decrypter to extract the VOBs and BOV2MPG to convert the parts to MPG files.

I then tried to use Avidemux to join the parts, but it would only allow me to keep the AC3 tracks, not the DTS. I also have a copy of the BD counterpart and am wondering how to apply it's DTS track to my DVD sourced file. Another solution would be to be able to join the two parts without losing the DTS track in the first place. The post join file is Mkv, though I haven't compressed it yet. The BD sourced file is also Mkv.

I have Handbrake, but it doesn't appear to allow importing a track from another file, I was hoping to find something like that. Can anyone give some hints?

[TrevorS]

Found a program called VOBrator that extracted the two DVD DTS tracks (didn't provide a type extension) and I named them type "dts", so the next step would be to join them end to end and then re-merge into the above Avidemux joined Mkv file. However, I don't yet know how to do either of those things :/!

Found a program called Audacity, but it doesn't recognize DTS files.

Found a program called DTSTrim that supposedly performs concatenation and trimming of DTS files, but it's not concatenating the two files I got from VOBrator. I'm wondering what type of files it actually created, some other kind of container? VLC plays them fine, but could they actually be VOB instead of DTS?

Uh, oh! Think I just discovered the problem, I think VOBrator is converting the DTS to PCM, which means it's no use to me. Help!

[tebasuna51]

You can use MakeMKV (http://www.makemkv.com/download/) to backup your DVD's to MKV directly.

After you can join the 2 mkv parts with MkvMerge or extract the dts tracks with eac3to and join with a simple binary copy (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=170890)

[TrevorS]

Great tip, MakeMkv followed by MkvMerge followed by HandBrake did a beautiful job of creating exactly the file I wanted. :)

I did discover PGCdemux does a very nice job of extracting the individual data streams from the decrypted VIDEO_TS folder. The resulting DTS files could then be cleanly joined using DTStrim.

However, still hadn't solved the problem of merging it into the Mkv file I'd created and was looking at MuxMan which apparently requires MPEG for the video when I saw your response. I already had the separate MPEG2 files from VOB2MPG, but hadn't yet found a way to join them outside of AviDemux, but it's output is a container and not Muxman compatible. Hadn't tried ac3to yet, I'm seeing there's a lot of freeware out there, probably most having both advantages and disadvantages. In order to use the DOS copy, I'm presuming I'd open a dos window and navigate to the correct directory (think some of my directory/file names are too long for DOS), or else perhaps move copies of the files to a root directory (C:\ perhaps) and exercise the copy there.

Thanks very much for your help, that MkvMerge utility seems very powerful! I tried muxing a Part 1 subtitle text file to a Mkv with Part 2 appended (originally from separate discs), It looked good in progress but I guess MkvMerge isn't clever enough to offset the time stamps in the second part by the duration of the first part. Wonder if there's some other utility that would make that adjustment?

[TrevorS]

Wonder if there's some other utility that would make that adjustment?
Looks like there is, just checking out Jubler Subtitle Editor :)!

Follow up: Jubler is excellent, very glad I found it!