DTS to Stereo WAV

[Cwluc]

I've seen a couple of posts, know it's possible, and I want to explain what happened. Clearly the end result was supposed to be a Stereo WAV but I got a 6 channel WAV even after following the steps already outlined in the forums. I couldn't figure out what was going on with foobar but if someone can break down the plugin installation and what DSP and convert settings are needed (preferably with screenshots) I would be glad to try that method. I opted for the alternative.

I first took the MKV into MKVExtractGUI-2 (w/ mkvtoolnix installed) and extracted the second channel audio only. Got my DTS file.

Then I opened eac3to324 in the command line and did the "eac3to input.dts output.wav". Oh, I didn't get any errors in output only this text.

C:\Users\User\Desktop\eac3to324>eac3to C:\Downloads\Downloads\pitch.perfect.201
2.720p.bluray.x264-sparks_track2_eng.dts output.wav
DTS, 5.1 channels, 1:52:07, 24 bits, 1509kbps, 48kHz
 The ArcSoft and Sonic decoders don't seem to work, will use libav instead.
Decoding with libav/ffmpeg...
Reducing depth from 64 to 24 bits...
Writing WAV...
Creating file "output.wav"...
Caution: The WAV file is bigger than 4GB.
Some WAV readers might not be able to handle this file correctly.
eac3to processing took 4 minutes, 6 seconds.
Done.

Other than the switching to libav I didn't think there is any issue with the resulting file. If I was wrong do tell me.

So I open my final WAV in Audacity to edit I still have a WAV with 6 mono channels when I tried to get the 2 channel stereo one. What did I do wrong?

Also, I'm now noticing this bad boy is only ~30 min in length. Is that what the "Some WAV readers might not be able to handle this file correctly." was referring to? How would I go about editing a WAV file over 4 GB properly?

If I missed anything in my explanation I will reply ASAP but I think I got everything. Thank you for your time.

[hello_hello]

I've seen a couple of posts, know it's possible, and I want to explain what happened. Clearly the end result was supposed to be a Stereo WAV but I got a 6 channel WAV even after following the steps already outlined in the forums. I couldn't figure out what was going on with foobar but if someone can break down the plugin installation and what DSP and convert settings are needed (preferably with screenshots) I would be glad to try that method. I opted for the alternative.

For Foobar2000 I use the following settings (from the converter setup window which you open by selecting "..." from the right click convert menu). Click on the title of each to open a new window.

Output Format:
Wave (of course you can convert to any format you like).
Under the output format section, after selecting "Wave" you can select the desired bit depth using the drop down box at the bottom of the window. If you leave it on "auto" I think it'll default to 16 bit for lossy sources. I select "lossy sources only" using the Dither drop down box. Once that's done use the Back button.

Destination:
You can set it up however you like but I use:
Output Path = "Ask me later"
Convert each track to an individual file.
Name format = %filename%
Once that's set up, use the Back button again.

Processing:
Click on the "Convert 5.1ch to stereo" DSP in the Available DSPs list on the right and use the arrow to add it to the Active DSPs list on the left.
Click on the box next to the ReplayGain section. Choose Source mode = Track, Processing = Apply Gain. Under Pre-amp move the "Without RGain Info" slider to -6db.
(The above won't apply ReplayGain as dts files won't have ReplayGain info, but it'll get Foober2000 to drop the volume by 6db while converting. That should ensure mixing the 5.1ch audio to stereo won't cause clipping)

Once you've set up the above use the Back button again and save the conversion as a preset, then next time you convert you can just select the preset from the right click convert menu. The converter setup window should end up looking something like this (minus my saved presets).



If the resulting file size is over 4GB try using wave64 as the output format instead of wave. I'm pretty sure eac3to will also output to wave64 (I think you need to use W64 as the output format) but I can't vouch for programs being able to open wave64 files.

You can find the command line syntax for eac3to here, along with an explanation of what each does: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Eac3to/How_to_Use#Command_Line_Syntax
The ones you probably want to add are -down2, -mixlfe (optional) and -normalize.

In theory the eac3to method is better than using Foobar2000 as it'll normalize the peaks to 0db and it detects and prevents clipping, but I use Foobar2000 for converting regularly, especially for straight 5.1ch to 5.1ch, or stereo to stereo conversions, as I prefer not to "normalise" the volume.

[Cwluc]

How did you get the plug in to be recognized in Foobar? Mine doesn't even show up when I copy the dll manually or try to install it in the program. The DTS Plug in, foo_input_dts.

Holy crap, I think the one listed in the forums was old. I googled it and now it's recognized and working. Give me a few to see if this is it.

That was it. Thanks for the tip about the clipping, definitely going to be needed.

Question, why wouldn't I just select "apply gain and prevent clipping according to peak" or "
prevent clipping according to peak" option?

[Cwluc]

In theory the eac3to method is better than using Foobar2000 as it'll normalize the peaks to 0db and it detects and prevents clipping, but I use Foobar2000 for converting regularly, especially for straight 5.1ch to 5.1ch, or stereo to stereo conversions, as I prefer not to "normalise" the volume.

Maybe but currently when I fished all the mucking around with eac3to I still ended up with 6 channels so I am missing something somewhere... I'm trying right now to get foobar to adjust the gain to a more acceptable decibel. No sense in lowering it to low to be forced to normalize.

[hello_hello]

I made a few edits to my above post and added a pic to help you, but anyway......

The ReplayGain options are designed to use ReplayGain info saved to files, so you can use foobar2000's ReplayGain scanner first but I don't know if it can save the ReplayGain info to DTS files. I've never tried it.

The problem is the ReplayGain "prevent clipping" options rely on using ReplayGain tags saved to the files to prevent clipping but I think it's applied before downmixing, so the downmixing could still cause clipping. After lots of testing I've decided applying a -6db gain when downmixing will prevent clipping and generally the peaks will end up somewhere between -6db and 0db. That only applies to downmixing original DTS or AC3 audio etc though. If you downmix 5.1ch audio which was normalized when it was originally converted from DTS or AC3 (ie some of the AAC audio in downloaded files) then it might require a couple more db of gain reduction to prevent clipping.

The reason for choosing "track gain" and "apply gain" as ReplayGain options when downmixing is not to use ReplayGain, as the DTS audio won't contain ReplayGain info, but simply because without it the setting to adjust the volume won't work. You need to tell Foobar2000 to look for the ReplayGain info first by setting the ReplayGain options, and then tell it how to adjust the volume when it doesn't find any.
Hopefully that makes sense.

[hello_hello]

Maybe but currently when I fished all the mucking around with eac3to I still ended up with 6 channels so I am missing something somewhere... I'm trying right now to get foobar to adjust the gain to a more acceptable decibel. No sense in lowering it to low to be forced to normalize.

Try using this GUI for eac3to. It might make it easier. http://www.afterdawn.com/software/audio_video/convert_audio/eac3to_conversion_utility.cfm

If you're good at reading ReplayGain results, try converting/downmixing to a lossy format such as MP3 using foobar2000. Unlike wave files, lossy formats can store values above 0db. Once you've converted to a lossy format you can run a ReplayGain scan on it and look at the result, which will tell you how much to adjust the volume before converting to wave. If in doubt I sometimes convert to MP3 and then use MP3Gain to run a "max no clip" analysis from the right click menu (the "no clip analysis" option needs to be enabled in MP3Gains settings first). It'll tell you how much the level needs to be adjusted up or down to achieve 0db peaks, which you can then use when converting to wave with foobar2000. It's kind of the long way to go about it rather than using eac3to though.

[hello_hello]

I'm trying right now to get foobar to adjust the gain to a more acceptable decibel. No sense in lowering it to low to be forced to normalize.

Each to their own but I thought I'd add..... I gave up on "normalising" a long time ago. For example if you convert a bunch of episodes from a single DVD while normalizing the audio peaks to 0db, then chances are they won't have the same relative volumes any more because the levels will be adjusted by different amounts. So generally if I'm converting stereo audio, or 5.1ch to 5.1ch, I just convert it "as-is", and if I convert 5.1ch audio to stereo I simply apply a -6db gain reduction to prevent clipping and it also keeps the relative volumes the same. I'm not that hung up on "maximum volume" but as I said, each to their own.....

[hello_hello]

One other option if eac3to doesn't do it for you......

You could simply use the audio conversion section in MeGUI. It'll let you select downmixing and normalising options etc without the need to worry about command lines and it uses eac3to to do the work much of the time. Only problem is, it won't convert to wave, but it'd be easy enough to convert to flac as it's lossless, then convert the flac file to wave using foobar2000.

[Cwluc]

The reason for choosing "track gain" and "apply gain" as ReplayGain options when downmixing is not to use ReplayGain, as the DTS audio won't contain ReplayGain info, but simply because without it the setting to adjust the volume won't work. You need to tell Foobar2000 to look for the ReplayGain info first by setting the ReplayGain options, and then tell it how to adjust the volume when it doesn't find any.
Hopefully that makes sense.

It makes sense and I saw what you were talking about as I tried to tinker away to get it closer to but not clip -0.1

Try using this GUI for eac3to. It might make it easier. http://www.afterdawn.com/software/audio_video/convert_audio/eac3to_conversion_utility.cfm

Umm, neither of the 4 exe I have in the bundle linked to do what I was looking for looked like that. I (1) have the cmd line tool, (2) clown something and was apparently and older version that needed and update, ask me to on startup, (3) HdBrStreamExtractor and (4) yr_eac3to_more_gui. I know it wasn't you but how was I to know my applications were old/outdated. Grr. Arg.

If you're good at reading ReplayGain results, try converting/downmixing to a lossy format such as MP3 using foobar2000. Unlike wave files, lossy formats can store values above 0db. Once you've converted to a lossy format you can run a ReplayGain scan on it and look at the result, which will tell you how much to adjust the volume before converting to wave. If in doubt I sometimes convert to MP3 and then use MP3Gain to run a "max no clip" analysis from the right click menu (the "no clip analysis" option needs to be enabled in MP3Gains settings first). It'll tell you how much the level needs to be adjusted up or down to achieve 0db peaks, which you can then use when converting to wave with foobar2000. It's kind of the long way to go about it rather than using eac3to though.

Yeah I'm still messing around. I will try this to get a better result. I may find I don't need to keep checking and go with your -6 for everything. We shall see.

As far as normalizing and MeGUI I'll have to work those out later. I'm ok with getting a FLAC and putting that in Audacity to edit. But I don't wan to keep installing stuff if I can achieve the desired result with less extra apps install. Foobar is already on my box for a myriad of reasons, least of which is it's dithering capabilities. Ok. Seriously. Thank you for your time. You were awesome. I now have the exact file I was looking for and it loads up the entire movie and is in stereo.

[hello_hello]

Umm, neither of the 4 exe I have in the bundle linked to do what I was looking for looked like that. I (1) have the cmd line tool, (2) clown something and was apparently and older version that needed and update, ask me to on startup, (3) HdBrStreamExtractor and (4) yr_eac3to_more_gui. I know it wasn't you but how was I to know my applications were old/outdated. Grr. Arg.

It's probably not so much that the applications are outdated, but more the GUI's are designed with different purposes in mind. Eac3to can be used for extracting audio and video streams as well as converting etc, and I assume some eac3to GUIs are designed for specific tasks.
The only eac3to GUI you mentioned that I've used regularly is HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Stream Extractor, as it's built into MeGUI (you can open it via MeGUI's tools menu). If you're extracting/converting audio from an MKV file, for example, you can still use the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Stream Extractor to downmix it to stereo. There's a column labelled "+Options", which is where you add any extra eac3to command line options. If you type "-down2" into the +Options section next to the audio stream, eac3to should downmix to stereo for you as it extracts/converts. You should be able to add as many command line options as you like.

Yeah I'm still messing around. I will try this to get a better result. I may find I don't need to keep checking and go with your -6 for everything. We shall see.

I'll be interested to find out if that's what you end up deciding.

As far as normalizing and MeGUI I'll have to work those out later. I'm ok with getting a FLAC and putting that in Audacity to edit. But I don't wan to keep installing stuff if I can achieve the desired result with less extra apps install. Foobar is already on my box for a myriad of reasons, least of which is it's dithering capabilities. Ok. Seriously. Thank you for your time. You were awesome. I now have the exact file I was looking for and it loads up the entire movie and is in stereo.

Fair enough.... I only suggested MeGUI as it's audio encoding section will make doing what you want easier, plus eac3to and the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Stream Extractor come bundled with MeGUI so you don't need them installed separately, but I must admit, I use foobar2000 for converting audio more than any other program myself simply because once you've set up conversion presets, it's fast and it'll convert multiple files simultaneously. Anyway.... I'm glad to have been of help. Have fun!