DTS-HD 7.1 - FLAC 2ch

[Laciie]

Hello, new user here

Simple question but apparently the answer wasn't simple, to me at least..

How do I capture front L/R, C, and LFE from the DTS-HD track, downmix them and turn them into FLAC 2.0?
I just want the best possible 2ch audio and I figured it would be best to derive it off the DTS-HD track, no?

I don't care if I somehow have to take multiple steps in order to achieve it.

I mainly use OSX Lion but also have acces to a Win7 machine...

[Laciie]

From an MKV container, that is

[El Heggunte]

eac3to

[C:\]
=>eac3to
eac3to v3.27, freeware by madshi.net

- can show information about audio, video, VOB/EVO/(M2)TS and MKV files
- can decode and encode various audio formats
- can remove dialog normalization from AC3, E-AC3, DTS and TrueHD tracks
- can extract AC3 stream from Blu-Ray TrueHD/AC3 tracks
- can extract TrueHD stream from Blu-Ray TrueHD/AC3 tracks
- can extract DTS core from DTS-HD tracks
- can remove DTS zero padding and repair outdated DTS-ES headers
- can apply positive or negative audio delays
- can reduce bitdepth of decoded audio data by using TPDF dithering
- can resample decoded audio data (using SSRC or r8brain)
- can apply/reverse PAL speedup on decoded audio data (SSRC/r8brain)
- can demux video / audio tracks of EVO/VOB/(M2)TS and MKV sources
- can list available titles of Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs
- can extract Blu-Ray and HD DVD chapter information and subtitles
- can mux MPEG2, VC-1 and h264 video tracks to Matroska
- can remove pulldown flags from MPEG2, VC-1 and h264 video tracks

eac3to sourcefile[+sourcefile2] [trackno:] [destfile|stdout] [-options]

Examples:
eac3to source.pcm destination.flac
eac3to source.thd destination.flac destination.ac3
eac3to source.evo 1: chapters.txt 2: video.mkv 3: audio.flac 5: subtitle.sup
eac3to feature_1.evo+feature_2.evo movie.mkv
eac3to blurayMovieFolder movie.mkv

Options:
-448               use e.g. "192", "448" or "640" kbps for AC3 encoding
-768               use "768" or "1536" kbps for DTS encoding
-core              extract the DTS core of a DTS-HD track
+/-100ms           apply a positive or negative audio delay
+/-3dB             apply a positive or negative audio gain (volume change)
-0,1,2,3,4,5       remap the channels to the specified order
-edit=0:00:00,0ms  loops or removes audio data at the specified runtime
-silence/-loop     forces usage of silence (or looping) for audio edits
-down6             downmix 7 or 8 channels to 6 channels
-downDpl           downmix multi channel audio to Dolby Pro Logic II
-downStereo        downmix multi channel audio to simple Stereo
-phaseShift        shift phase (when doing stereo downmixing, see "downDpl")
-mixlfe            mix LFE in (when doing stereo downmixing, see "downDpl")
-down16            downconvert decoded audio data to 14..23 bit
-slowdown          convert 25.000 and 24.000 content to 23.976 fps
-speedup           convert 23.976 and 24.000 content to 25.000 fps
-23.976/...        define source fps to be "23.976", "24.000", "25.000", ...
-changeTo24.000    change source fps to "23.976", "24.000", "25.000", ...
-resampleTo48000   resample audio to "44100", "48000" or "96000" Hz
-quality=0.50      Nero AAC encoding quality (0.00 = lowest; 1.00 = highest)
-8                 define PCM file to be "1".."8" channels
-16                define PCM file to be "16" or "24" bit
-little            define PCM file to be "little" or "big" endian
-96000             define PCM file to be 44100, 48000, 96000 or 192000 Hz
-override          forcefully overrides PCM auto detection with manual values
-sonic/nero/...    force the use of a specific decoder (not recommended)
-keepDialnorm      disables dialog normalization removal (not recommended)
-decodeHdcd        decodes HDCD source track (usually 16 -> 20 bit)
-demux             demuxes 1st video track and all audio and subtitle tracks
-stripPulldown     strips the pulldown from MPEG2 video tracks
-keepPulldown      disable removal of pulldown for MPEG2, h264 and VC-1 tracks
-seekToIFrames     make all h264/AVC "I" frames seekable
-check             checks if the source EVO/(M2)TS file is clean.
-test              checks if the external filters are installed & working
-lowPriority       moves processing to background/idle priority
-shutdown          automatically shutdown the PC after processing is done

Supported source formats:
(1) RAW, (L)PCM
(2) WAV (PCM, DTS and AC3), W64, RF64
(3) AC3, E-AC3
(4) DTS, DTS-ES, DTS-96/24, DTS-HD Hi-Res, DTS-HD Master Audio
(5) MP1, MP2, MP3 audio
(6) AAC audio
(7) MLP, TrueHD, TrueHD/AC3
(8) FLAC
(9) EVO/VOB/(M2)TS and MKV

Decoded audio data can be stored as / encoded to:
(1) RAW, (L)PCM
(2) WAV (PCM only), W64, RF64, AGM
(3) WAVs (multiple mono WAV files, PCM only)
(4) AC3
(5) DTS
(6) AAC
(7) FLAC

For best AAC decoding you need:
(1) Nero 7 (Nero 8 won't work!)
(2) Nero HD DVD / Blu-Ray plugin

For best DTS decoding you need:
(1) ArcSoft DTS Decoder - version 1.1.0.0

For DTS encoding you need:
(1) SurCode DVD DTS - version 1.0.21 or newer

For AAC encoding you need:
(1) Nero AAC Encoder

For video muxing you need:
(1) Haali Matroska Muxer

[C:\]
=>

But wait, maybe you'll find the post below is somewhat truthful

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=168267

[Selur]

How do I capture front L/R, C, and LFE from the DTS-HD track, downmix them and turn them into FLAC 2.0?

personally I would decoder with ffmpeg, pipe the output to sox, downmix with sox the way I want the downmix to happen, pipe to flaccl and rencode to flac. (can be done without using Windows either via command line or Hybrid )

I just want the best possible 2ch audio and I figured it would be best to derive it off the DTS-HD track, no?

If your source already has a professional downmixed stereo stream I would probably prefer that as source.

[Laciie]

Unfortunately, theres no 2ch track in my source.
I'm probably going to try a few different methods to see what works best for me.

I've haven't really used eac3to, how do I run these commands?
How do I pipeline between different software?

Sorry for asking such noobie questions, I appreciate the answers so far

[Laciie]

I've already downloaded the ffmeppg-something and the .dts dll for eac3to.

[Selur]

with a pipe symbol '|' here's an example, which:
1. decodes with ffmpeg
2. does a downmix to stereo (there are a few other threads throughout the forum which show different stereo downmixes with sox)
3. rencode the audio to flac using flaccl (configured for an NVIDIA card)

ffmpeg -y -analyzeduration 100M -probesize 100M -threads 2 -v -10 -i "Input file" -f sox - | sox --multi-threaded --buffer 524288 -S -t sox - -b 16 -t wavpcm - remix -m 1v0.2646,3v0.1870,4v0.1870,5v0.2291,6v0.1323 2v0.2646,3v0.1870,4v0.1870,5v-0.1323,6v-0.2291 gain -n | CUETools.FLACCL.cmd.exe -5 --cpu-threads 4 --opencl-type GPU --opencl-platform "NVIDIA CUDA" --slow-gpu -o "Output.flac" -

Cu Selur

Ps.: no clue about eac3to, since I never use it since there's no native version for Linux and it only offers some interesting stuff on Windows with some non-free dlls.

[Laciie]

I assume this code goes in ffmpeg?

Do you follow this example yourself? With it, would I be able to do what I asked in my first post? On OS X aswell? I assume I need ffmpeg, sox and flaccl first of all..
Is there any way to raise the center channel ~3dB? Perhaps even mix the front-wide channels into the downmix?

God I feel lost at this..

[Selur]

I assume this code goes in ffmpeg?

this example calls ffmpeg, sox and CUETools.FLACCL.cmd.exe

With it, would I be able to do what I asked in my first post?

If one would modify the downmix, which is done through the "remix -m ....."-part in the sox call: yes.
In you first post you wanted to use 'front L/R, C, and LFE' which is something like a 3.1 track, no clue how to downmix such a stream properly.
The example I posted uses the 5.1 base of the sound, mainly because all free open source decoders only decode the dts-core of a dts-hd stream. (I posted some downmix examples here, but the 4toStereo downmix there assumes a quad audio stream FL,FR,RL,RR.)

On OS X aswell?

on OS X you would need to replace flaccl with the normal flac (and loose gpu encoding support, but other than that the encoding works fine)

I assume I need ffmpeg, sox and flaccl first of all..

yes

Is there any way to raise the center channel ~3dB?

sure, you would need to read up on sox (http://sox.sourceforge.net/sox.html), but it can be done and sox offers multiple ways to boost the volume of channels.

Perhaps even mix the front-wide channels into the downmix?

If your decoder supports this: yes; eac3to is capable to decode the whole dts-hd stream using some external (commercial) dll as far as I know.
Since I don't know of any free dts-hd decoder (and not a decoder that only decodes the dts-core of the dts-hd) for either windows/linux/mac, I never bothered much with dts-hd explicitly (I ).

God I feel lost at this..

Normally one would leave this to a gui unless one has time and motivation to read up a lot.

Cu Selur

[Laciie]

Thank you, you have been very helpful. I do have some basic coding skills but if I want this done within reasonable time it appears I should get a GUI - any recommendations? There seem to be so many, haven't got a clue as of what to choose.

[Selur]

TAudioConverteror any other gui for eac3to should probably do the job.