What are people using to deal with HD audio these days?

[mpalm887]

Some time ago, when I started ripping my BD collection, the only tool that could truly demux DTS-HD and True-HD audio tracks was eac3to. But it's command line and I couldn't find a dummy guide to make the process intuitive so I ended up decrypting them as ISO's and storing them on a few TB's of NAS. Furthermore the only container I knew of that you could remux these audio tracks in was .m2ts which couldn't support chapters.

Now that MKV is up to speed I've come wandering back looking for a better storage alternative.

I'd like to convert these BD ISO's to single video files (MKV seems most appropriate) allowing me to get rid of extra unneeded audio and sub tracks, and retain both chapters and most importantly the exact original audio track. Video compression is not needed necessarily.

I'm wondering what the best tools to use today are. Free tools preferred but I'm not at all opposed to spending money on some high quality software.

For the record, I've read a few threads in this section that seem related to this topic but most people seem to be recommending MakeMKV which in the past always gave the illusion of leaving all tracks untouched but in fact just pulled the core from DTS-HD audio tracks.

[yoda313]

But it's command line and I couldn't find a dummy guide to make the process intuitive

There is a gui for eac3to. It's not straightforward but it does have a gui. Have you tried again recently? The best approach for saving space and keeping fidelity seems to be making an ac3 640kpbs file. Yes it won't match the dts file for shear output but if you want to save space but keep good 5.1 audio this is the best compromise.

[mpalm887]

But it's command line and I couldn't find a dummy guide to make the process intuitive

There is a gui for eac3to. It's not straightforward but it does have a gui. Have you tried again recently? The best approach for saving space and keeping fidelity seems to be making an ac3 640kpbs file. Yes it won't match the dts file for shear output but if you want to save space but keep good 5.1 audio this is the best compromise.

Thanks for the reply. I actually have most of my Blu's ripped and encoded as mkv's or .ts files with ac3 audio and significant compression (each file is between 7 and 12GB). But I rarely use them for playback because my ears discriminate more than my eyes, and insist on hearing the raw HD audio when viewing from home. The mkv's usually just do vacation duty via WD + a 2.5 inch portable.

I made the BD ISO's because I started lending my discs to my brother and he almost lost one. Furthermore my daughter turned 2 years old and she is like the opposite of Houdini; into everything. So I felt it prudent to make 1:1 copies in case of loss or damage. But given the direction of the media playback market I think I'd rather just have MKV's that are 1:1 or close to 1:1. I find that I can still really enjoy an HD rip with some light video compression but I really notice the lossy audio.

I noticed that Handbrake says it can extract True-HD and DTS-HD. Are they saying that it can literally pull the exact track out as is or are they saying they can pull the core like everyone else?

[mpalm887]

OK, did a little research and was hoping I could get some input on this.

I used the BD ISO of Twilight as an experiment (I'm married BTW.

Firstly, when RipBot analyzes a BD input it recognizes the DTS-HD input and then demultiplexes out an audio file titled as follows:

audio_English.dtsma.w64

I understand this to be a wav file that specifically is for use with Sonic Foundry. I've read of other people demuxing these tracks with eac3to though, and they seem to commonly have .dtsma files. Firstly, are these files the exact same just employing a different file extension? Or has it been converted?

I've read that MKVMerge can now recognize and mux dtsma files but you have to rename the extension on the file. The audio is the exact same though. So I'm going to play with that but wanted to get a quick 411 on this .w64 issue.

[poisondeathray]

I used the BD ISO of Twilight as an experiment (I'm married BTW.

hahaha... yeah ok... just kidding

Firstly, when RipBot analyzes a BD input it recognizes the DTS-HD input and then demultiplexes out an audio file titled as follows:

audio_English.dtsma.w64

I understand this to be a wav file that specifically is for use with Sonic Foundry. I've read of other people demuxing these tracks with eac3to though, and they seem to commonly have .dtsma files. Firstly, are these files the exact same just employing a different file extension? Or has it been converted?

It's been converted to wave64 intermediate. It's not the same thing as DTS-MA, but still lossless. You can use eac3to to demux the original stream

I've read that MKVMerge can now recognize and mux dtsma files but you have to rename the extension on the file. The audio is the exact same though. So I'm going to play with that but wanted to get a quick 411 on this .w64 issue.

Yes, it supports DTS-MA now

[mpalm887]

Thanks for the detailed response. I'm gonna give the eac3to GUI a go.

[mpalm887]

OK so question...I tried just throwing the decrypted .m2ts of Twilight (remember I have a female counterpart) into TSMuxer.

It came up with several tracks of course, but the main audio track is DTS-HD codec and under track info I have this exactly:

Bitrate: 1536Kbps core + MLP data.Sample Rate: 48KHz Channels: 5.1 (DTS Master Audio)

Is this a core audio track or the full-blown MA track? The file extension is .dts after demuxing it out, .dtsma.

This is from media info:
General
Complete name : C:\Users\Edward Cullen\Desktop\00001.track_4352.dts
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile : MA
File size : 3.39 GiB

Audio
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile : MA
Bit rate mode : Variable
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel positions : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 24 bits

Also I'm reading that MakeMKV is doing HD audio integration now.

[yoda313]

If its the first track in the list it should be the absolute original file that contains the original dts.

[mpalm887]

So why isn't TSMuxer a more commonly recommended tool for demuxing Blu-ray?