[Atmos] Ripping Atmos discs—is it even possible?

[bellboy]

I recently bought a Vizio Elevate speaker system—the one that rotates to simulate a Dolby Atmos soundscape of overhead sounds.

I also have a 2021 Sony TV that supports Dolby Vision/Atmos and I have my main content source as an Apple TV 4K routing through the Vizio into the TV using E-ARC. I have a couple thousand movies on a local Plex server as well that routes through the Apple TV.

Okay…that said I’d like to start ripping my Blu-rays using the highest possible sound quality as I’m pretty pleased with the Elevate. Apple TV+ content usually takes advantage of Atmos and I’d like to keep it going with my Plex content.

How can I rip (using MakeMKV, etc.) my BRs to retrieve the Atmos metadata to be able to rotate my speakers? I’ve searched until my fingers bleed and I can’t seem to find any process, software, or workflow that can make this happen.

I’ve used Handbrake to test with Blade Runner 2049 (an Atmos disc) and I can get the TrueHD track to convert to E-AC3, but the Atmos metadata doesn’t follow it. I’ve ripped the disc and loaded the ripped copy with no compression into Plex and still nothing happens. I’ve also checked the raw uncompressed file through Mediainfo and it does show that the TrueHD track is indeed Atmos enabled.

Does anyone have any suggestions or has anyone been able to rip an Atmos disc successfully for use with Plex?

PS: Plex didn’t used to support Atmos until I noticed only a few days ago that a file of a film a friend shared with me (it’s Hamilton if you must know…I know, I’m a horrible person, but F U Disney for not releasing a disc that I’d gladly buy) and it is somehow Atmos enabled—so someone was able to make it happen.

[von Suppé]

Chances are my answer will not satisfy to the fullest concerning playback problems. Nevertheless, for TrueHD with Atmos,

Atmos (UHD)BDs can perfectly be ripped, leaving all tracks untouched. As for MakeMKV, it does a proper job at decrypting and save videos with Atmos in mkv. Where there is no quality loss. All selected tracks aren't re-encoded. How do you do that? Drop your disc in MakeMKV, select the right video of which you sub-select the desired tracks for the mkv.
Do note that the mkv container can't carry TrueHD (with or without Atmos) as it is authored on (UHD)BD. Specs of these discs mandate an embedded (and independent) legacy AC3 track for TrueHD. So, mkv will be muxed with a track that holds "TrueHD only" (again, this goes for with and without Atmos). If you like, MakeMKV can mux the AC3 track as an additional track.

As for proper playback, I couldn't really recommend or advise in detail. I am not familiar with Plex, your equipment and chain. I can say that a player must of course be able to handle this kind of TrueHD. Also I can imagine certain issues when E-ARC is involved.

Should you encounter issues that would point to "TrueHD only", there is another option. Instead of creating a mkv directly, let MakeMKV do a full disc backup. Be sure to set "Decrypt video files". This will result in a BDMV folder structure of your entire disc. Next, import the proper playlist from the BDMV\PLAYLIST folder into latest tsMuxer. Also here, select the desired tracks and mux into BD iso. Different from MakeMKV, tsMuxer will mux the TrueHD track including the embedded AC3 in the m2ts stream.

Hope this helps to some extend.

[bellboy]

Chances are my answer will not satisfy to the fullest concerning playback problems. Nevertheless, for TrueHD with Atmos,

Atmos (UHD)BDs can perfectly be ripped, leaving all tracks untouched. As for MakeMKV, it does a proper job at decrypting and save videos with Atmos in mkv. Where there is no quality loss. All selected tracks aren't re-encoded. How do you do that? Drop your disc in MakeMKV, select the right video of which you sub-select the desired tracks for the mkv.
Do note that the mkv container can't carry TrueHD (with or without Atmos) as it is authored on (UHD)BD. Specs of these discs mandate an embedded (and independent) legacy AC3 track for TrueHD. So, mkv will be muxed with a track that holds "TrueHD only" (again, this goes for with and without Atmos). If you like, MakeMKV can mux the AC3 track as an additional track.

As for proper playback, I couldn't really recommend or advise in detail. I am not familiar with Plex, your equipment and chain. I can say that a player must of course be able to handle this kind of TrueHD. Also I can imagine certain issues when E-ARC is involved.

Should you encounter issues that would point to "TrueHD only", there is another option. Instead of creating a mkv directly, let MakeMKV do a full disc backup. Be sure to set "Decrypt video files". This will result in a BDMV folder structure of your entire disc. Next, import the proper playlist from the BDMV\PLAYLIST folder into latest tsMuxer. Also here, select the desired tracks and mux into BD iso. Different from MakeMKV, tsMuxer will mux the TrueHD track including the embedded AC3 in the m2ts stream.

Hope this helps to some extend.As far as Plex goes with Atmos, as I mentioned above, it can now play Atmos tracks correctly as my Vizio Elevate does rotate when that title is played.

So I have ripped the BR 2049 disc and I have that title as full quality. But if I understand you correctly, the TrueHD track needs to have the EAC3/Atmos metadata extracted from this track and remuxed to get a full Atmos track? Or are you saying to use MakeMKV to extract the EAC3 track and remux with the TrueHD track? Sorry, but I’m a bit confused as to how to make this happen.

Also, I’m not sure how making a disc backup would differ from just ripping the video/audio from the disc. Could you explain that?

I was hoping that someone could post a workflow with the tools they used to restore the Atmos metadata to ripped titles.

[von Suppé]

TrueHD plus the Atmos metadata make up for the full Atmos track. Where the TrueHD part is independent. MakeMKV just muxes the TrueHD+Atmos as it is.

Extracting EAC3 and remuxing with TrueHD Atmos is crazy; it isn't possible. If there is TrueHD+Atmos on your disc, you can't just take that Atmos part and add it to an EAC3 track.
BTW there are discs that carry EAC3+Atmos (often called EAC3 JOC). Similarly, you can't take the Atmos metadata from EAC3 JOC and simply add it to a TrueHD track.

The thought behind the "TrueHD+Atmos" construct, is that when you'd have an older AVR that has only a TrueHD audio decoder but no Atmos support, you are able to playback the TrueHD part. The Atmos metadata is then simply ignored. Same goes for EAC3 JOC actually.

A full disc backup holds everything that's on the disc without touching the authoring. The menu structures and all extra's and tracks are preserved.
Where a "main-feature" backup just holds the "movie only". Where you can choose to select only the tracks you need in the endresult. Often done to save harddisk space.

There is no workflow on restoring Atmos metadata with MakeMKV because there is nothing to restore. MakeMKV will mux the TrueHD including the Atmos metadata, just as it is on the disc.
Just drop your disc in MakeMKV. It will scan for a while and comes up with a list of videos. Only select the main movie, under which there is a sub selection. Be sure to select the TrueHD Atmos track. Set target folder and hit "Make MKV". Doesn't get more simple than that.

For further questions about MakeMKV and specific usage, I suggest to visit the website and its forums. It's the place to be for MakeMKV users. It offers much how-to's, FAQ and knowledge of forum members.

[bellboy]

Interestingly enough, the Hamilton file that I have that works in Plex that activates my Elevate is E-AC3 JOC.

Is there anyway to create a version of a Blu-ray rip that uses JOC?

[bellboy]

There is no workflow on restoring Atmos metadata with MakeMKV because there is nothing to restore. MakeMKV will mux the TrueHD including the Atmos metadata, just as it is on the disc.

Just drop your disc in MakeMKV. It will scan for a while and comes up with a list of videos. Only select the main movie, under which there is a sub selection. Be sure to select the TrueHD Atmos track. Set target folder and hit "Make MKV". Doesn't get more simple than that.As I mentioned, I was able to rip the Blade Runner 2049 disc and I was able to identify that the Atmos audio track was received with the main feature tracks.

However, when I play the full quality file in Plex, the Vizio Elevate doesn’t respond to the Atmos track to rotate the speakers.

[junh1024]

Interestingly enough, the Hamilton file that I have that works in Plex that activates my Elevate is E-AC3 JOC.

Is there anyway to create a version of a Blu-ray rip that uses JOC?

It is currently very hard for consumers to create DDPA. But you will find many DDPA tracks on streaming services.

[von Suppé]

AFAIK Atmos software requires Dolby licensing.

As for playback, I don't know Plex. But I'd find it weird if TrueHD+Atmos wouldn't be supported while EAC3-JOC is. I may be terribly wrong here of course.

Maybe the hardware/hookup chain is the issue here. If you connect a soundbar to a TV, the EARC HDMI port is required to send lossless audio (which TrueHD is) back. It is known that TV's simply don't do this on all occasions. Or, maybe the soundbar itself has limitations.
HDMI handshake issues also pop up every now and then. Checking for firmware updates is the first thing I'd do before anything else.

[bellboy]

As for playback, I don't know Plex. But I'd find it weird if TrueHD+Atmos wouldn't be supported while EAC3-JOC is. I may be terribly wrong here of course.It’s my understanding that this is a limitation of the Apple TV 4K. It supports E-AC3 JOC because that’s the streaming version of Atmos which a lot of streaming services have adopted—Apple TV+ is one of them.

As far as my set up goes, I can get Atmos through Apple TV+, so I don’t think that’s the problem. My Sony 2020 TV supports Vision/Atmos as of a few firmware updates ago. My Vizio Elevate sound bar supports Atmos/DTS:X through E-ARC. My Apple TV 4K seems to support Atmos (DD+ E-AC3 Atmos). My HDMI cables are all high speed and certified.

[von Suppé]

It’s my understanding that this is a limitation of the Apple TV 4K. It supports E-AC3 JOC...
Ah, I did not know that Apple TV has that limitation. I never had one.

Maybe this sounds dumb as I don't have experience with PLEX: doesn't the internal player of your Sony TV support playback from PLEX server? If PLEX would support TrueHD+Atmos transfer, maybe the Sony can spit it out at the EARC port? Just a thought.

It supports E-AC3 JOC because that’s the streaming version of Atmos...
Not every EAC3 JOC is the streaming version. Auhored for (UHD)BD, its quite different in build-up. But I get your point.

[SeeMoreDigital]

The Apple TV 4K devices do not pass Dolby Digital Plus audio (with or without Atmos) as a conventional bit-stream.

It uses an audio packed transport system known as Dolby MAT (Metadata-Enhanced Audio Transport). Which transcodes "variable bit-rate Dolby bit-streams for transmission over fixed/constant bit-rate HDMI connections within a PCM stream"....

[nevcairiel]

Dolby MAT is what has been used to bitstream TrueHD since .. ever, since a lossless codec like TrueHD is inherently variable bit-rate. But of course that doesn't speak to the Apple TVs capability to handle TrueHD as well, since you won't find it outside of BDs and its not a BD player.
The only complication here is that Dolby MAT does not have an open specification available, so all we know about is had to be pieced together from scattered sources and reverse engineering.

As for ripping, it would be harder to _not_ include the Atmos data in a BD TrueHD rip. Its inherently part of the TrueHD stream, and removing it would be quite a difficult task, compared to just not touching the bitstream. So its reasonable to conclude that any ripper that can handle Blu-ray TrueHD will automatically include Atmos, and any player that can bitstream TrueHD will also bitstream the included Atmos data, as no special treatment is required here.

[von Suppé]

Just want to get this right, the Dolby MAT is a new phrase to me. Please bear with me.

When I put two latest posts together, am I right to conclude that (officially in (UHD)BDplayers) Dolby MAT is used for bitstreaming both TrueHD and E-AC3 (with or without Atmos metadata) because the bit-rate is variable? And therefor MAT wouldn't be used for AC3 because this has a fixed bit-rate?

[bellboy]

Ah, I did not know that Apple TV has that limitation. I never had one.

Maybe this sounds dumb as I don't have experience with PLEX: doesn't the internal player of your Sony TV support playback from PLEX server? If PLEX would support TrueHD+Atmos transfer, maybe the Sony can spit it out at the EARC port? Just a thought.Yeah, the Apple TV 4K is great for my needs—I use it to stream all of my paid services (HBO, Hulu, etc.) and I also use it to watch my OTA TV channels from my HomeRunHD through the Channels app. Using the Plex app here is just easier than having to switch inputs. I could try the native app on the Sony TV to see if it can deliver. Given the track record of the Plex devs…lately they seem more interested in profit (making content deals) than making the application more solid.

At least with Plex, it does kinda support TrueHD as it transcodes using FLAC. It sounds great, but I’m missing the functionality of my sound bar to rotate the speakers up to simulate the Atmos ceiling speakers. In my house, it does make a difference to bounce the sound up.

[bellboy]

Dolby MAT is what has been used to bitstream TrueHD since .. ever, since a lossless codec like TrueHD is inherently variable bit-rate. But of course that doesn't speak to the Apple TVs capability to handle TrueHD as well, since you won't find it outside of BDs and its not a BD player. In my research on this, I’ve not encountered mentions of Dolby MAT. I’m not sure how that lines up with all of the other alphabet soup I’ve encountered while trying to solve this problem.

As for ripping, it would be harder to _not_ include the Atmos data in a BD TrueHD rip. Its inherently part of the TrueHD stream, and removing it would be quite a difficult task, compared to just not touching the bitstream. So its reasonable to conclude that any ripper that can handle Blu-ray TrueHD will automatically include Atmos, and any player that can bitstream TrueHD will also bitstream the included Atmos data, as no special treatment is required here.After ripping the disc, I can certainly see that the audio tracks are Atmos enabled, but trying to get my speaker system to react to the Atmos metadata and rotate the speakers is the main issue. Plex will transcode TrueHD to FLAC, but I can’t figure out how to pass the metadata through to get the altitude tracks for the soundscape.

[Blue_MiSfit]

You can't. Atmos isn't just metadata. It's a bed of audio channels and then separate object channels with metadata describing them. The AVR needs to render this inside for the sound field / speaker setup you have availble.

Your FLAC is almost certainly just the bed channels (probably 5.1 or 7.1)

[von Suppé]

I've read an article explaining the issues surrounding Atmos, the different types & deliveries and devices or apps involved. Phew, they don't make it easy, do they?

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/dolby-atmos-sound/

Just want to get this right, the Dolby MAT is a new phrase to me. Please bear with me.

When I put two latest posts together, am I right to conclude that (officially in (UHD)BDplayers) Dolby MAT is used for bitstreaming both TrueHD and E-AC3 (with or without Atmos metadata) because the bit-rate is variable? And therefor MAT wouldn't be used for AC3 because this has a fixed bit-rate?
I'd still appreciate it if someone could confirm whether I'm right with this or not.

[nevcairiel]

I'd still appreciate it if someone could confirm whether I'm right with this or not.

It is partly right. TrueHD always needs Dolby MAT (and always has), but E-AC3 historically has not used it, since it is typically fixed bitrate. Only with Atmos that can change, and it is used. I'm not entirely sure if its always used with EAC3 Atmos though, or only certain devices make use of it.
I know that Apple TV uses it for EAC3, but with the right configuration even Netflix running in a browser on a Windows PC can bitstream EAC3 Atmos, and I'm not sure in what format they do it exactly. Due to the copy-protections involved we can't easily get in between there to peak at the data.

Plain AC3 definitely does not use it.

[von Suppé]

Nice explanation. I understand.
Thanks, nevcairiel.

[bellboy]

Maybe this sounds dumb as I don't have experience with PLEX: doesn't the internal player of your Sony TV support playback from PLEX server? If PLEX would support TrueHD+Atmos transfer, maybe the Sony can spit it out at the EARC port? Just a thought.I was able to install the Android version of Plex through my Sony TV Google Play Store. I'm not sure if you meant the Plex app or the TV itself playing the files (I'm not sure how to make that happen).

It seems to identify TrueHD and E-AC3 on my titles in the app, but my sound bar didn't trigger the rotation of my Atmos speakers when I played my DD+ E-AC3 Atmos title.

Funny because my Apple TV Plex WILL rotate them for that title. Go figure.

[von Suppé]

Actually, I meant the "TV itself". My thought was that maybe it's internal player could stream the file directly from the PLEX server.

[bellboy]

Actually, I meant the "TV itself". My thought was that maybe it's internal player could stream the file directly from the PLEX server.Yeah, I thought so. I could try to load up a film on a USB stick, but since I'll never use my library like that...I won't bother.

[von Suppé]

Instead of using PLEX, maybe the internal player is able to play directly from SMB or NFS share?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Instead of using PLEX, maybe the internal player is able to play directly from SMB or NFS share?The media player app in Bellboy's 2021 Sony TV will most definitely support UPnP/DLNA file sharing detection...

[bellboy]

The media player app in Bellboy's 2021 Sony TV will most definitely support UPnP/DLNA file sharing detection...I'll give it a look and see if I can get it to work.

The only bummer about using that is the Apple TV is the hub for all of my media viewing. To have to jump to another input to use that is a hassle for my family. Since I have about a dozen films at present that have Vision/Atmos sources, I'll probably wait for Plex and the Apple TV to catch up to what most, if not all, of the users want: lossless Atmos with Vision.

Plex can deliver lossy Atmos for now--and that works for me (for now). I was just hoping to find a way to rip my discs and have them ready for when Apple gets their s**t together with Apple TV to support TrueHD Atmos.

After looking at MakeMKV's forums and seeing a solution for getting Vision/Atmos for the Shield (which I don't have), I should be able to start converting all of my 4K UHD discs. I primarily use a Mac, but months ago I did buy a cheap Apple TV sized PC that I should be able to use eac3to on to get an Atmos-friendly file.

[SeeMoreDigital]

What's the exact model number of your Sony TV?
Have you checked its audio playback and passthrough capabilities?

[bellboy]

What's the exact model number of your Sony TV?
Have you checked its audio playback and passthrough capabilities?I have a Sony 75" X90H (technically it's X90CH--got it at Costco). I haven't checked the capabilities as I probably wouldn't be switching stuff around constantly just to get Atmos. I might try to get the Plex library to load directly into the TV--I'll probably have to mess with it to get it on my network/Plex server.

https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/sony/x900h