I have a few questions regarding multi-channel audio

[tgc225]

In about a week, I'm putting together a new computer and in addition I'm buying 5.1 speakers for the first time. I also have the Beatles Anthology DVD and Yellow Submarine DVD coming in from DeepDiscountDVD.com in about a week.

Now, these two DVDs are special because they are the only places where you can find Beatles tracks remixed to 5.1 audio. Both DVDs have AC3 and DTS tracks. I've heard the DTS is really killer on both DVDs. Now, I essentially have two goals:

1) I would like to extract bits of audio from the DVD and keep it multichannel. Both DVDs have sections where a complete Beatles tune is played in 5.1, and I'd like to capture all of those parts. However, I don't want to convert to MP3 or anything like that, because that would defeat the purpose of having the unique multi-channel audio. I want to keep it in the DTS format and just play back DTS files. Is this possible? If so, how do I go about doing this? I noticed some websites carrying .WAV files that are DTS encoded, is that what I ultimately want, a DTS encoded WAV file that I can play back in VideoLan or MediaPlayerClassic?

2) I would also like to take the extracted multichannel audio file and split it up into a mono file for each of the channels. The reason I want this is so that I could stick all of the WAVs into Adobe Audition and then create my own unique stereo mixes from the 5.1 mixes. How would I go about doing this?

[KpeX]

Hi,

First, I took the liberty of deleting your edited thread in the audio forum.

Regarding your first question: several rippers are capable of extracting dts streams from a dvd. See the DTS FAQ linked in my sig for this information. I'd recommend using DVD decrypter for this task. For editing these tracks, BeSplit can be used to losslessly split .dts streams.

You do not have to convert these .dts streams to any other format, although they will be very large. VideoLan and MPC should be able to play these 'out of the box'. DTS-Wavs, or .dts streams with wav headers, are common for burning to CD, although wav headers are definitely not necessary for playback (although videolan's VLC will play such files).

For decoding .dts streams to mono wavs, your choices are azidts (uses payware winDVD filters) or dtsdec (freeware, but still alpha). Links are available in the DTS FAQ, which should answer many of your questions. Good luck,

[tgc225]

Thanks :) I'll get to reading.

[tgc225]

Ok, just need a little help now :)

Just to test things out, I downloaded a DTS encoded WAV from a Swedish radio website. I used DTSParser to convert it to a .dts file (both the .dts and the .wav worked in VideoLan)

In the FAQ, it said HyperCube Transcoder could transcode DTS files, and I noticed that it had a 6 mono option, so I decided to use that. However, when I tried to load the DTS file into Hypercube, it said "Unable to render file" and "Perhaps, some filters missing".

I also tried just dtsdec, but the instructions were a little unclear as to what to do. Sorry, I'm learning :D

[KpeX]

Originally posted by tgc225
Ok, just need a little help now :)

Just to test things out, I downloaded a DTS encoded WAV from a Swedish radio website. I used DTSParser to convert it to a .dts file (both the .dts and the .wav worked in VideoLan)

In the FAQ, it said HyperCube Transcoder could transcode DTS files, and I noticed that it had a 6 mono option, so I decided to use that. However, when I tried to load the DTS file into Hypercube, it said "Unable to render file" and "Perhaps, some filters missing".

I also tried just dtsdec, but the instructions were a little unclear as to what to do. Sorry, I'm learning :D Sounds like the HyperCube transcoder requires WinDVD filters as well - I'm not familiar with this software unfortunately. For dtsdec, you'll need to use something like the following commandline:

dtsdec -o wavall filename.dts > decoded.wav

This will create a six-channel wav. To obtain six mono wavs from this, use besplit:

besplit -core ( -input "decoded.wav" -prefix "output" -type wav -demux )

[tgc225]

Thanks :D Still one more little problem:

I was a little unclear about the DOS syntax with the ">", so I tried typing the line exactly as written, or typing the first part, then pressing enter, then typing in the output filename.

However, in both cases, as soon as I pressed enter, dtsdec started spitting out "skip" line by line in the Dosbox ifinitely. I tried to Google and this forum and no luck :(

Here's a similar topic:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73801

The syntax there was slightly different, so I tried those as well. If I typed the whole line, I'd get the skip message, or if I typed the first part and pressed enter, it would display a short message and nothing would happen.

Perhaps I'm just confused about the ">" syntax :p


EDIT: Never mind, I figured it out. Check this topic:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70657

Other people also could not get 6 channel wav output, but stereo worked. Stereo worked fine for me as well. So I guess there's just a problem with the program.

Alright, I'll move on to the other method. I guess that's using aziDTS with BeSweet?



EDIT #2: Alright, I got it! I used this method:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74017

I think everything went smoothly. Now I just have to wait for my new comp, and then I'll test it on my Beatles files :)

[tgc225]

Ok, one more question. I found this guide for doing the same thing with AC3 instead of DTS:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63119

However, it requires an .AC3 file, but I have a WAV encoded AC3. How do I go from AC3-WAV to AC3?

I think this is the last thing I would like to know for now ;)

[KpeX]

How do I go from AC3-WAV to AC3

besplit -core ( -input "ac3wav.wav" -output "filename.ac3" -type ddwav -fix )

(This commandline for 0.9x versions of besplit)

[tgc225]

Excellent, thanks! I think I get the hang of it now!

One more question with BeSplit when demuxing to 6 mono WAV files: BeSplit demuxes from channel01.wav to channel06.wav. Is there a way to find out which file corresponds with which channel (like channel1 = front left, channel 2 = front right, just as an example)

[tgc225]

Sorry to bump this, but I tried to search around the forum and I didn't find the answer to my question :)