eac3to - audio conversion tool

[Neo Fagin]

E-AC3, 1.0 channels, 2:04:39, 64kbit/s, 48khz
Mono E-AC3 tracks can only be decoded by Nero's filters, switching to Nero.
Muxing eac3 file to raw. Please wait...
The file size of the raw file doesn't seem to fit.

Nero 7.8.5.0 premium

[Rectal Prolapse]

madshi and others: According to this insider (a mixing guy), TrueHD decoders always output 24 bit:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&#post10386940

In TrueHD, it is unnecessary for the codec to know the wordlength, as it delivers exactly what was input to the output. All TrueHD decoders support up to 24 bits. If the source is, say, 16 bits, the output is 16 MSB bits with lossless data, and 8 LSB bits of zeros.

[Thunderbolt8]

Originally Posted by Neo Fagin

E-AC3, 1.0 channels, 2:04:39, 64kbit/s, 48khz
Mono E-AC3 tracks can only be decoded by Nero's filters, switching to Nero.
Muxing eac3 file to raw. Please wait...
The file size of the raw file doesn't seem to fit.

Nero 7.8.5.0 premium

already seeing 7.9.8.2 just normal version though, not premium -.-

[dchard]

Madshi:

1. is there any way to convert the trueHD track to mono wavs?

2. What nero version should I need, if I need trueHD decoding?

Thank you, very impressive work.

Dchard

[madshi]

Originally Posted by Neo Fagin

E-AC3, 1.0 channels, 2:04:39, 64kbit/s, 48khz
Mono E-AC3 tracks can only be decoded by Nero's filters, switching to Nero.
Muxing eac3 file to raw. Please wait...
The file size of the raw file doesn't seem to fit.

Nero 7.8.5.0 premium

That's strange. It works for me! Please make sure you have the "Remix Mode" set to "None" in the "Nero Audio Decoder 2" filter.

Can you please try eac3to on the 5MB chunk you sent me? Maybe it works with the 5MB chunk but not with the full size file?

[madshi]

Originally Posted by Rectal Prolapse

madshi and others: According to this insider (a mixing guy), TrueHD decoders always output 24 bit:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&#post10386940

Thank you for the link! Roger Dressler actually is working at Dolby.

Hmmmm... What he sais is exactly what I was expecting to see. However, the least 8 LSB bits were not zero in my tests with the Nero audio decoder. That's exactly what is confusing me. I was expecting them to be zero, but they aren't.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by dchard

1. is there any way to convert the trueHD track to mono wavs?

What do you need that for? DTS encoding? Anyway, there are multiple ways to get mono wavs. One way would be to ask eac3to to give you a wav file. You can then with appropriate tools convert that to mono wavs. I think there are some freeware tools that can do that. Sorry, don't know which.

Originally Posted by dchard

2. What nero version should I need, if I need trueHD decoding?

I'm using the latest version with the latest version of the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray plugin. I don't know if earlier versions work. Or is your question not about version numbers, but about which edition I'm using? I'm using the Ultra Edition, but I guess that any edition works, as long as you have the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray plugin installed. Not sure which edition you need to have to be able to install that plugin, though. Also please note that I'm just guessing here.

[MacGyver2k]

Originally Posted by Neo Fagin

E-AC3, 1.0 channels, 2:04:39, 64kbit/s, 48khz
Mono E-AC3 tracks can only be decoded by Nero's filters, switching to Nero.
Muxing eac3 file to raw. Please wait...
The file size of the raw file doesn't seem to fit.

Nero 7.8.5.0 premium

got the same problem as mentioned above, here is a complete mono eac3 file for ya to test with:
http://rapidshare.com/files/32135670/falke_eng.rar.html

[pasta03]

Where I can find Nero Audio Decoder 2

[madshi]

Originally Posted by pasta03

Where I can find Nero Audio Decoder 2

http://www.nero.com

[madshi]

Originally Posted by MacGyver2k

got the same problem as mentioned above, here is a complete mono eac3 file for ya to test with:
http://rapidshare.com/files/32135670/falke_eng.rar.html

It works for me !!!

Which size does the raw file have when eac3to complains? Mine is 1026344448 bytes.

[mikeyakame]

to activate the nero truehd/eac3 decoding in nero you need to enter the serial number for the bluray/hddvd plugin as far as i know, this opens the features up on the dshow filters, (dont ask me how as I dont have a clue/dont care since they work perfectly when paid for) as I couldnt decode dts/eac3 with the filters until I activated them with the serial....

so dont bother asking people for these filters, as they are useless to you without a working serial.

madshi,

if you want to decode the truehd in 16bit, add the nero sound processor to the chain in graphedit, and set it to output 16bit lpcm, i always use this method to transcode eac3 to ac3, so im pretty sure it should work for truehd as well, ill give it a go later on this evening when ive got a sample track to test.

edit: ill test out that mono eac3 track too, and see what results i get.

[mikeyakame]

madshi,

i believe their problem with it not working is the filters arent fully activated, thus not outputting a readable eac3 stream, rather outputting garbage as they require activation for eac3 support.

edit:

and for whomever asked, the nero plugin supports m2ts demuxing and all that, it finds all the streams, etc, you can use a chain with nero file source (async) -> nero audio decoder -> directsound (output) and select whichever streams you want to play back, as this method works great for dumping the lpcm / eac3 from bluray to raw output, with all channels in tact.

[mikeyakame]

D:\Temp\Encoding\HDDVD Tools>eac3to falke_eng.eac3 test.ac3 -640
E-AC3, 1.0 channels, 1:58:47, 64kbit/s, 48khz
Mono E-AC3 tracks can only be decoded by Nero's filters, switching to Nero.
Muxing eac3 file to raw. Please wait...
Audio Decoder output was 24 bit this time.
Converting the raw file to wav. Please wait...
Converting the wav file to ac3. Please wait...
Starting "aften" failed. A valid *.wav file was created successfully, though.

19/05/2007 08:35 PM 1,026,344,528 test.wav

works perfectly for me too.

edit:

Macgyver,

I just noticed when you tried to process it the time stamps are wrong, you have 2:04:xx, I have 1:58:xx, seems like you need to activate the filters to be able to use eac3 support.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

if you want to decode the truehd in 16bit, add the nero sound processor to the chain in graphedit, and set it to output 16bit lpcm

But this will not tell the decoder to output 24bit in the first place. Instead it will take the decoder's 24bit and downconvert it to 16bit. Of course that's possible to do. But it shouldn't be any better than using sox to downconvert 24bit to 16bit (which is what eac3to is currently using). The problem we need to solve is to find out why the 24bit output of the Nero filter seems to contain information in the least significant 8 bits when being fed a 16bit TrueHD track. That shouldn't be the case. And downconverting such a 24bit output may result in quality loss...

[madshi]

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

add the nero sound processor to the chain in graphedit, and set it to output 16bit lpcm, i always use this method to transcode eac3 to ac3

Btw, IMO that's a bad idea!! There's no advantage whatsoever in cutting the eac3 decoder output down to 16bit, if you plan to reencode in ac3. The size of the final ac3 file does not depend on which bit depth you feed it. And cutting 24bit down to 16bit can actually hurt sound quality. So you'll get better audio quality with the same file size if you keep the eac3's decoders at 24bit!

[zgx]

Just to confirm your findings about "V for Vendetta" Madshi. The movie is 132 min long and when I demux the TrueHD track I get a file that is "1 368 231 154" bytes. That equals ~1350 Kbps. The source that was losslessly compressed has to be 16bit/48Khz or else TrueHD would have had to compress increadibly much better then all other available lossless codecs.

[mikeyakame]

im pretty sure i had to do that to get sonic dd encoder to accept the input mono waves, im pretty sure it had some kind of problem accepting 24-bit input..its been a while so I dont really remember the reason, but its either that or wave wizard had problems with 24bit wave files.

and for the record, i haven't been able to hear any quality loss, as a matter of fact, the encoded ac3 sounds as good as the eac3 source after i encode it with sonic dd encoder. aften and the few other encoders i tried did produce a slight quality loss on the resulting ac3...the db levels and range seemed to be a little out compared to the original track

[madshi]

Originally Posted by mikeyakame

im pretty sure i had to do that to get sonic dd encoder to accept the input mono waves, im pretty sure it had some kind of problem accepting 24-bit input..its been a while so I dont really remember the reason, but its either that or wave wizard had problems with 24bit wave files.

Ah well, don't know, maybe the Sonic DD encoder doesn't like 24bit input, I don't know. I've no experience with tha encoder.

[madshi]

Originally Posted by zgx

Just to confirm your findings about "V for Vendetta" Madshi. The movie is 132 min long and when I demux the TrueHD track I get a file that is "1 368 231 154" bytes. That equals ~1350 Kbps. The source that was losslessly compressed has to be 16bit/48Khz or else TrueHD would have had to compress increadibly much better then all other available lossless codecs.

Did you have a chance to check out the content of the decoding? Can you confirm that the least significant 8 bits are not zero? It's really too bad cause if true it means that we don't have a 1:1 lossless decoding yet...