Does the DTS-HD MA audio track include the "Core" ?

[Bluelude1]

I know DTS-HD MA is a 2-part format that includes a regular DTS core. In a situation where there is a DTS-HD MA track and a DTS track do I need to include the DTS track to make the DTS-HD MA track work or is the core already in the DTS-HD MA track ?



Like in the above...I want the DTS-HD MA track, but I am also trying to maintain capability with players that don't support lossless.

[El Heggunte]

As you yourself already said , DTS Master Audio already includes a backward-compatible "inner stream" (the so-called core). Legacy hardware and software should be able to detect the "Coherent Acoustics" core, and ignore the "unknown DTS-HD extensions" (which constitute the "mathematical difference" between the lossy core-audio and the original lossless source).

Unless you are pretty sure that your "legacy hardware" is not entirely-compliant to the DTS specs (which were designed to be "future-proof" since their beginning), there is no need to include a standalone lossy track in your remuxes.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Edit

[Cornucopia]

And to further clarify: a player plays only one audio stream at a time, so if it were attempting to play a dts-hd ma track, it would stand to reason that all the data necessary to play it existed in that track alone.

Scott

[Bluelude1]

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't sure if the Handbrake was breaking down the DTS-HD MA stream to show the core as a separate track or if there was actually a separate track.

[JetrellFo69]

http://multimedia.cx/mirror/dts2.pdf

Here is a link to a .pdf that might help explain a few things.

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/home-theater-gear/7152-dts-hd-core-only.html

DTS Core Only. is the exact same as DTS on standard DVDs. The DVD spec allows up to a 1.5mbit rate on DTS tracks. In practice, most DVDs are recorded at half rate DTS at around 748kbits and Dolby Digital is encoded at 448kbits (but is capable of 640kbits).

DTS-Core is hidden in DTS-HD tracks, and allow old DTS decoders to decode the sound at the full 1.5mbit rate. Its a cool backwards compatibly factory built into the new codec. So all DTS-HD (and DTS-HD Master Audio) have the Core DTS encoded in there, without taking up extra space on the disc (ie: you don't need 2 audio tracks).

Dolby True and Dolby plus have the same kind of built in functionality. Inside the Dolby True/Plus track is an encoded Dolby Digital 5.1 track. They just call it Dolby Digital (but to compare it to DTS, you can say it is Dolby Core). That way the player doesn't need to do any guess work on Downgrading the track from 18Mbits to 640kbits. That is a huge downgrade and if left to the chips would result in missing frequencies and sounds. Thus the content provider encodes a core audio into the HD bitstream so the player does no guess work. The audio is as intended by the Director and not your decoder.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=168314

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/t/269909/dts-core-hd-ma-huh

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1322787/dts-core-vs-dts-hd-ma

I hope these help you out.

Cheers

[jeproject]

That's all very well however it does seem that Handbrake shows up the Core as a separate audio channel allowing you to extract it separately. I find that quite confusing and a "Core only" option like Ripbot would be much better.

I have a bluray disc that shows it as having 7 audio tracks yet Handbrake says it has 8. The extra one is DTS5.1 in English which the movies doesn't have. It only has DTS-HD-MA in English. I assume that extra track is the Core of the MA track.