Looking for a eac3 7.1 encoder

[sfatula]

I don't think eac3to does this, libav doesn't seem to support it, ffmpeg does not, etc. However, I have discovered that Plex does use ffmpeg via a special external library they seem to create on the fly to transocde to eac3. I can't find eac3_eae reference anywhere but Plex, and of course no source code. I wonder where they got it?

Anyone know of a library anywhere I could use to encode to eac3 7.1?

[eca2424]

Any news?

[tebasuna51]

7.1 for what? Maybe Atmos...

[hajj_3]

Anyone know when patents for E-AC3 aka Dolby Digital Plus expire? I can't find anything on google, just info about regular dolby ac3. Also, I can't even find a date for when E-AC3 was even released so i can't even add 20yrs to that for a rough estimate.

[amichaelt]

Anyone know when patents for E-AC3 aka Dolby Digital Plus expire? I can't find anything on google, just info about regular dolby ac3. Also, I can't even find a date for when E-AC3 was even released so i can't even add 20yrs to that for a rough estimate.

If it helps, the A/52B revision of the ATSC standard that contained the eac-3 specification was published in June of 2005.

[eca2424]

These guys encoding 7.1 eac3. How?

[DELETED by rule 6]

[Sparktank]

These guys encoding 7.1 eac3. How?

Rule 6 violation. We don't discuss pirated stuff here.

[l00t]

The only way to do it, is to use Dolby's Media Producer Suite. It costs about $3000 grand and available for Windows and OSX.

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/professional/content-creation/products/dolby-media-producer-suite.html

[hajj_3]

I think this might be the list of patents for Dolby E-AC3/Dolby Digital Plus: TS 102 366 https://www.docdroid.net/xEqhKmr/initdecl-pdf

The last U.S patent seems to be US6246345 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6246345B1/) which seems to have expired on 2019-07-08.

[filler56789]

The only way to do it, is to use Dolby's Media Producer Suite. It costs about $3000 grand and available for Windows and OSX.

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/professional/content-creation/products/dolby-media-producer-suite.html

Not the only way, apparently...

The MainConcept Dolby Digital Plus Pro SDK components support both Dolby Digital (AC-3) as well as Dolby Digital Plus (EAC-3) audio for encoding and decoding.

Encoding and decoding for different channel layouts ranging from mono, stereo, 5.1 up to 7.1 for the perfect Dolby audio experience.

https://www.mainconcept.com/eu/products/for-developers/audio/dolby-digital-plus.html

[SeeMoreDigital]

And here's a link to the 'MainConcept Dolby Digital Plus Pro SDK Data Sheet' Data sheet: https://www.mainconcept.com/fileadmin/user_upload/datasheets/DDPlusPro_SDK_DATASHEET.pdf

[neil wilkes]

The only way to do it, is to use Dolby's Media Producer Suite. It costs about $3000 grand and available for Windows and OSX.

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/professional/content-creation/products/dolby-media-producer-suite.html

Sorry to correct you, but this is Mac only.
Just like the new DTS-X encoder.
From the quoted Dolby web page:
Dolby Media Producer Suite v.2 Hardware Requirements
Mac® Pro 5,1 or later (6,1 preferred)
Intel Xeon, Intel Core i7 or Intel Core i5 with full support of the SSE4.2 instruction set (Nehalem/Westemere and later microarchitectures)
Mac OS X® version 10.10, 10.11 or 10.12
8 GB RAM (16 GB recommended for Dolby TrueHD encoding jobs with Dolby Atmos)
PACE iLok USB smart key
For more information about iLok USB smart keys, please visit www.iLok.com.

This of course is nothing less than bloody perverse given there are NO full spec mac OS Blu-ray authoring tools in existence that can be used to create factory replicas, and far too many consoles in common use will not play or even load BD-R.
All you have these days is Scenarist BD, and that is strictly Windows 64-bit only. Sony bought up NetBlender, and promptly killed it off and it appears that their Blu-Print has gone the same way. Scenarist is the best (indeed the only) player in town still actively developing and supporting their software.

Question - why on earth would you want to even bother with 7.1 AC3? Much better to use DTS-HD Master Audio.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Question - why on earth would you want to even bother with 7.1 AC3? Much better to use DTS-HD Master Audio.What's so bad about having a lossy audio format that's able to support 7.1 channels (not to mention Atmos)?

By-the-way.... MainConcept's Dolby Digital Plus Pro encoder runs with Windows, Mac and Linux ;)

[SquallMX]

Adobe Audition 2018 and below includes support for EAC3 encoding up to 7.1 1024 Kbps, but is not Blu-ray compatible.

[SeeMoreDigital]

As most of us have quite a bit of time on our hands at the moment, a couple of days ago I decided to find out what a 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus audio encode of Blade Runner 2049 would sound like.

Audio source: 7.1 [8-channel] Dolby TrueHD with Atmos stream
Encoding software: UsEac3To 'A/V Recode' option using ffmpeg manually set to 'E1536' (Kbps)
Muxer: MKVToolNixGUI
Playback device: OPPO UDP-203

My audio surround system is essentially for listening to music (I don't have an Atmos). All my speakers offer full frequency range, so they're all able to produce bass!

Anyway... I can confirm that the 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus encodes sounds extremely good, there's plenty of bass and dynamic range. Indeed, there's very little difference between the 7.1 TrueHD source.

Now I'm wondering what a 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus encode from the same source would sound like!

[NiN3]

Adobe Audition 2018 and below includes support for EAC3 encoding up to 7.1 1024 Kbps, but is not Blu-ray compatible.

What's the difference between Bluray compatible or not? Both have legacy 5.1 stream inside as far as I am concerned.

[nevcairiel]

What's the difference between Bluray compatible or not? Both have legacy 5.1 stream inside as far as I am concerned.

Blu-ray EAC3 7.1 is literally 5.1 AC3 + 4 channel EAC3 which replaces the side channel and adds rear channel.

Streaming EAC3 7.1 from eg. Netflix is pure 7.1 EAC3, no weird composition, no AC3 legacy stream on the inside.

[NiN3]

Blu-ray EAC3 7.1 is literally 5.1 AC3 + 4 channel EAC3 which replaces the side channel and adds rear channel.

Streaming EAC3 7.1 from eg. Netflix is pure 7.1 EAC3, no weird composition, no AC3 legacy stream on the inside.

I see, thanks.

What happens when you play a EAC3 track on a system that only supports AC3? According to wikipedia and some explanations on Dolby's website, EAC3 is backwards compatible so it supposedly converts it bit perfectly to AC3.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I see, thanks.

What happens when you play a EAC3 track on a system that only supports AC3?Well... If the EAC3 audio stream contains an AC3 core, the playback device should, in theory, be able to play the AC3 core...

[NiN3]

Well... If the EAC3 audio stream contains an AC3 core, the playback device should, in theory, be able to play the AC3 core...

nevcairiel said the EAC3 track does not include a AC3 core inside it unless you use the Blu-ray Disc profile, in which case it's mandatory.

[nevcairiel]

If a player cannot handle EAC3, it wont be able to play a pure EAC3 stream. That lossless conversion to AC3 is just theoretical marketing fluff. EAC3 supports higher bitrates then AC3, how could you make that a lossless conversion.
Or they simply refer to the Blu-ray profile, pushing all the features in marketing at the same time, eventhough you can't actually combine everything.

[SeeMoreDigital]

nevcairiel said the EAC3 track does not include a AC3 core inside it unless you use the Blu-ray Disc profile, in which case it's mandatory.This is true...

An AC3 core is mandatory for the Blu-ray specification. But back in the day, it wasn't mandatory for the DVD HD specification.

Dolby had to fiddle about with EAC3 again when DVB-T2, DVB-S2 and DVB-C2 decoder support was added to European TV's...

[NiN3]

If a player cannot handle EAC3, it wont be able to play a pure EAC3 stream. That lossless conversion to AC3 is just theoretical marketing fluff. EAC3 supports higher bitrates then AC3, how could you make that a lossless conversion.
Or they simply refer to the Blu-ray profile, pushing all the features in marketing at the same time, eventhough you can't actually combine everything.

I didn't literally mean a lossless conversion but more like if you have a 640k AC3 track and a 1024k EAC3 track that gets converted down to AC3 because your receiver doesn't support EAC3, would those both end results sound identical or would the native AC3 track sound slightly better because the other one had to be converted from a "lossy" source. If that makes any sense.

This is what it says on wikipedia: "Dolby Digital Plus bitstreams are not directly backward compatible with legacy Dolby Digital decoders. However, Dolby Digital Plus is a functional superset of Dolby Digital, and decoders include a mandatory component that directly converts (without decoding and re-encoding) the Dolby Digital Plus bitstream to a Dolby Digital bitstream (operating at 640 kbit/s) for carriage via legacy S/PDIF connections (including S/PDIF over HDMI) to external decoders (e.g. AVRs, etc.). All Dolby Digital Plus decoders can decode Dolby Digital bitstreams."

This paper actually has a very interesting explanation for the EAC3 to AC3 transcoding process starting from page 22: https://professional.dolby.com/globalassets/dolby-digital-plus/aes-convention-paper-intro-to-dolby-digital-plus.pdf

[NiN3]

This is true...

An AC3 core is mandatory for the Blu-ray specification. But back in the day, it wasn't mandatory for the DVD HD specification.

Dolby had to fiddle about with EAC3 again when DVB-T2, DVB-S2 and DVB-C2 decoder support was added to European TV's...

Any idea when this new standard came to be?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Any idea when this new standard came to be?
Like all standards, the Dolby Digital (AC-3 and E-AC-3) standard has been revised over the years.

The (25 January) 2018 ATSC standards can be downloaded here: https://www.atsc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/A52-2018-1.pdf. Which includes a revisions page...

[NiN3]

If a player cannot handle EAC3, it wont be able to play a pure EAC3 stream. That lossless conversion to AC3 is just theoretical marketing fluff. EAC3 supports higher bitrates then AC3, how could you make that a lossless conversion.
Or they simply refer to the Blu-ray profile, pushing all the features in marketing at the same time, eventhough you can't actually combine everything.

I don't want to bother you with too many questions but you seem very knowledgeable and it's always nice to learn from experts.

What's your opinion on efficiency between AC3, EAC3 and DTS if encoded at 640, 1024, and 1509 respectively. Is there any point in having EAC3 at all or is the improvement compared to AC3 minimal at best. Common consensus seems to be that AC3 and DTS are usually transparent to each other even with the large difference in file size, would EAC3 at 1024 compete better against DTS at 1509?

[tebasuna51]

A old multichannel test (https:\\tech.ebu.ch\docs\tech\tech3324.pdf) show EAC3 (DD+) 448 Kb/s near DTS 1500 Kb/s.

[filler56789]

A old multichannel test (https:\\tech.ebu.ch\docs\tech\tech3324.pdf) show EAC3 (DD+) 448 Kb/s near DTS 1500 Kb/s.

Sadly it seems nobody cared about doing new comparison tests after the release of the Master Audio Suite :( My educated guess says 1509 kbps has always been overkill for six-channel (5.1) lossy DTS and 1344 kbps (or even 1280 kbps) would be sufficient for being qualified as «perceptually-lossless», but it would be nice to have an "official confirmation" so to speak.

[tebasuna51]

Yes, a new test can be nice. Maybe EAC3, AAC can be better than in 2007, and include also Opus.

But seems than EAC3, AAC and Opus have the same quality than old DTS with 1/3 of bitrate more or less.

[SeeMoreDigital]

A old multichannel test (https:\\tech.ebu.ch\docs\tech\tech3324.pdf) show EAC3 (DD+) 448 Kb/s near DTS 1500 Kb/s.I'm inclined to agree that multi-channel DTS was 'over bit-rated' at 1509.75 kbps or 1536kbps. Indeed, it sounds perfectly fine when encoded at 754.875kbps or 768kbps... Which is pretty good for an audio format that was developed in the early 1990's ;)

[NiN3]

I hate to beat a dead horse but I do find it an interesting subject so I did some extra reading of that Dolby paper I posted a few comments above in hopes of trying to learn a bit more about EAC3 in general.

It seems that regardless of the bitrate of the EAC3 stream, your TV's built-in "EAC3->AC3 converter" converts it to AC3 640kbps by default which seems kinda smart since TV broadcasters can now send an EAC3 stream at a much lower bitrate than 640 to save bandwidth and then lets your TV do the conversion to AC3 and since EAC3 is much more efficient at low bitrates technically the conversion will be almost "lossless" as the low bitrate EAC3 gets converted to a high bitrate AC3. (high relative to the even lower EAC3 bitrate obviously, not like 640 is considered high).

And for bitrates higher than 640kbps it'll just throw away the extra information and it ends up being a waste of bandwidth.

This is what I've been wondering, how much loss is there exactly during that conversion? According to the paper it's not a conventional transcode (EAC3 decode -> PCM -> AC3 encode), but majority of the code stays untouched since both codecs were originally built on the same principles, so there shouldn't be much loss in there compared to just doing a lossy to lossy transcode using ffmpeg/eac3to. If one were to encode an AC3 and EAC3 from the same source and play on a TV with S/PDIF connection, the EAC3 would get converted to AC3 while the main AC3 would stay untouched, would both of these end products sound identical? Or would the untouched AC3 sound slightly better than the downconverted one as a result of the "transcoding" process? Would it be worth future-proofing by encoding everything in EAC3 5.1 instead of AC3 5.1?

Anyway, sorry for my long ass questions. There aren't many places to learn this stuff.

[SeeMoreDigital]

It seems that regardless of the bitrate of the EAC3 stream, your TV's built-in "EAC3->AC3 converter" converts it to AC3 640kbps by default which seems kinda smart Eh?

My LG TV does not convert EAC3 to AC3... It's able to decode native EAC3 up-to 5.1 channels just fine. It's also able to pass EAC3 as a bit-stream via HDMI ARC just fine too!

An SPDIF transport is too old to support EAC3. Hence it's conversion to AC3...

[NiN3]

Eh?

My LG TV does not convert EAC3 to AC3... It's able to decode native EAC3 up-to 5.1 channels just fine. It's also able to pass EAC3 as a bit-stream via HDMI ARC just fine too!

You can't pass EAC3 using S/PDIF so TV's convert it to AC3 640k. That's the whole point and why I mentioned the document..

[nevcairiel]

You can't pass EAC3 using S/PDIF so TV's convert it to AC3 640k. That's the whole point and why I mentioned the document..

But thats why someone invented HDMI and (e)ARC.

[NiN3]

But thats why someone invented HDMI and (e)ARC.

Right, but I am specifically talking about the backwards compatibility of EAC3, as mentioned in the document... That's what I was asking.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Right, but I am specifically talking about the backwards compatibility of EAC3, as mentioned in the document... That's what I was asking.
Hmmm...

Given that HDMI is currently the de-facto transport system for both video and audio, it's a bit of a pointless discussion....

[NiN3]

Hmmm...

Given that HDMI is currently the de-facto transport system for both video and audio, it's a bit of a pointless discussion....

Which is why I wasn't talking about HDMI but about the backwards compatibility of EAC3 with legacy AC3 devices that dominate the average living room.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I think it's time to put this topic, back on topic!

[Ripmann]

I think it's time to put this topic, back on topic!

Putting it back on topic, I'm kind of stumped that there seem to be no available 7.1 E-AC3 solutions in 2021, especially considering that uncompressed TrueHD 7.1 streams for movies routinely take is 3-4GB in [mostly wasted] space.

Were there any developments in 7.1 E-AC3 encoding since 2020? I just started looking for it (finally got a cheap 7.1 speaker set) and was genuinely surprised to learn that neither eac3to nor ffmpeg support this rather essential feature. Anyone?

[tebasuna51]

I want a Atmos surround 3D (at least 5.2.1) EAC3 encoder better than a 2D 7.1

[Ripmann]

I want a Atmos surround 3D (at least 5.2.1) EAC3 encoder better than a 2D 7.1

I didn't realize that these are two separate things. That's what I'm after as well. The main problem here is that any 5.1-converted backups I'll make will have noticeably inferior audio quality compared to the originals, so my only choice is to copy TrueHD and waste a crapload of space in the process.

Is there any tangible progress going in that area? As in, is there any reason to expect that any of the existing tools will start supporting 7.1/5.2.1 by the end of this year? Hope an expert will chime in to give a quick status update.

[junh1024]

DDP 71 is inefficient due to 4ch surround replacement as others have said.

qAAC & FDK AAC should support 71 AAC, which might be suitable for your purposes.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Dolby Encoding Engine is a great option for this. Yes it's a paid pro tool, but if you're a pro it's reasonably (imo) priced.

[tebasuna51]

...The main problem here is that any 5.1-converted backups I'll make will have noticeably inferior audio quality compared to the originals...

For what?

To emulate a 2D surround over a point is enough 3 speakers, like humans have 2 ears it is better 4 speakers in the 4 corners. For what do you need 7 speakers?

If you need more quality 2D use better bitrate, if you need more power buy a new AVR/speakers 5.1 with more power. It is enough a 4.1 but we can respect the standards.

[EDIT] If you have already a AVR 7.1 you can use qaac AAC like junh1024 say. I tested it with my AVR 5.2.1, configured like 7.1, and work fine.
Of course you need a player (PC or standalone) than send PCM 7.1 to the AVR by HDMI.

[junh1024]

For what?

To emulate a 2D surround over a point is enough 3 speakers, like humans have 2 ears it is better 4 speakers in the 4 corners. For what do you need 7 speakers?

If you need more quality 2D use better bitrate, if you need more power buy a new AVR/speakers 5.1 with more power. It is enough a 4.1 but we can respect the standards.


40 is a bit unstable & has a tiny sweet spot, and there are compromises depending on speaker placement for 51, so 71 is a HQ option for 2D. SOundtrack/mixing is also a factor.

[tebasuna51]

40 is a bit unstable & has a tiny sweet spot
Sorry, I don't understand you.

there are compromises depending on speaker placement for 51
I think there are much more compromises for 7.1

[FranceBB]

Dolby Encoding Engine is a great option for this. Yes it's a paid pro tool, but if you're a pro it's reasonably (imo) priced.

+1.
That's what everyone uses professionally and it can take a DAMF as input and encode it to like E-AC3 5.1.4 Atmos etc.
For people it's gonna be good 'cause it encodes directly to what the end-user should receive. Of course it's less good for broadcasters 'cause we're better off with Dolby ED2 as mezzanine and then encode in consumer-tier codecs, but still, for your scenario it's what you're looking for, but of course it's not free, just like literally everything Dolby has ever made eheheheheh

[ymgenesis]

Putting it back on topic, I'm kind of stumped that there seem to be no available 7.1 E-AC3 solutions in 2021, especially considering that uncompressed TrueHD 7.1 streams for movies routinely take is 3-4GB in [mostly wasted] space.

Were there any developments in 7.1 E-AC3 encoding since 2020? I just started looking for it (finally got a cheap 7.1 speaker set) and was genuinely surprised to learn that neither eac3to nor ffmpeg support this rather essential feature. Anyone?

Has anyone looked into how Plex handles TrueHD 7.1 streams? It uses something called EasyAudioEncoder to decode TrueHD 7.1 and encode to eac3 7.1, all on the fly during transcoding. Therefore, that means their transcoder (which is basically just FFmpeg) is able to utilize a custom or proprietary decoder/encoder (EasyAudioEncoder) to convert TrueHD 7.1 (and probably DTS MA 7.1) to eac3 7.1.

Looking more into this... I looked at the transcoder console as it started transcoding TrueHD to eac3 7.1 and found the FFmpeg commands it used to do this. It uses a decoder for TrueHD called "truehd_eae", and an encoder for EAC3 7.1 called "eac3_eae", "eae" being EasyAudioEncoder. I couldn't find reference to this *coder anywhere, but Plex is using it on the fly to convert TrueHD to EAC3 7.1 (streaming Atmos with full 7.1 channels, not Blu-ray 5.1 with some others). The command output is packaged into a TS stream (for streaming to the Plex player), but it wouldn't be hard to alter the FFmpeg command to output to a file instead of a TS stream.

Next step for anyone interested would be to figure out how to use those tools locally on command line outside of Plex. The tools are installed when installing Plex, and are there, it's just a matter of mimicking the manner in which Plex calls EasyAudioEncoder, and passing the Plex Transcoder (FFmpeg) the right options. Plex itself recommends using its transcoder from time to time on the command line. Link (https://support.plex.tv/articles/201035968-generating-sample-files-from-media/), see "Use the Plex Transcoder".

[ymgenesis]

Seeing as the title of this thread is "Looking for a eac3 7.1 encoder", I figure this is on-topic:

Building on my idea above, I wrote a UNIX/macOS only bash script that manages various audio conversions in MKVs using FFmpeg/FFprobe and EasyAudioEncoder (TrueHD 7.1/DTS MA 7.1 to EAC3 7.1 encoding included). It requires some resource gathering from your Plex installation on your machine to the script’s folder, but once setup its fairly powerful and straight forward. Script and instructions are macOS only, though with some tweaking of the script, and a little exploration of your Plex installation, you could probably configure it on Linux.

Requires up-to-date Plex Media Server, FFmpeg, and FFprobe (as of writing).

https://github.com/ymgenesis/AudioTool

[Blue_MiSfit]

+1.
That's what everyone uses professionally and it can take a DAMF as input and encode it to like E-AC3 5.1.4 Atmos etc.
For people it's gonna be good 'cause it encodes directly to what the end-user should receive. Of course it's less good for broadcasters 'cause we're better off with Dolby ED2 as mezzanine and then encode in consumer-tier codecs, but still, for your scenario it's what you're looking for, but of course it's not free, just like literally everything Dolby has ever made eheheheheh

Current releases of DEE can take DAMF or ADM-BWF as input which is emerging in popularity since it's just a single Broadcast WAV file with all the fancy baked in metadata.

I'd actually never even heard of ED2! So what, it's backwards compatible with good old Dolby E so you can route it over SDI / AES (8 channels per pair)? How does that work if you're carrying immersive audio that might have dozens of overlapping objects? Wouldn't you need a variable number of SDI/AES pairs?

Also, yuck compressed audio! :)