Video Conversio Keeping Surround Sound Audio........

[themediaman]

I hope someone has the expertise to help me.

As usual when I get an mkv file containing an HD movie with accompanying multi channel audio I convert it for playback on my Playstation 3 console. I do this with PS3Video 9 or if the file is less then 4GB, I will convert, or, repackage the file as M2TS.

The problem is I now have surround sound capabilities, and only recently discovered that PS3Video 9 changes the audio to 2 channel.

So excluding the files smaller than 4GB, I cant maintain the 5.1 surround sound when using PS3Video 9.........can this be confirmed please.....?

The beauty of converting to MP4 with PS3Video 9 is the file size is dramatically reduced enabling me to bypass the restrictions of the FAT file system used by the PS3 and my external HDD, meaning I can plug and play directly.

I have an idea of trying to keep the surround sound audio and smaller file size and that is to;

Convert mkv with PS3Video 9

Open both the mkv and the newly converted mp4 with mkv merge.

Uncheck the mkv video file and mp4 audio, leaving the smaller converted video file and the existing dts/aac audio.

Merge said files into an mkv , hopefully now with a much smaller file size.

Then repackage the new smaller mkv to M2TS.


I really feel as if I am babbling a bit.

Could someone confirm if this could essentially work? And any other advice on acheiving my goals would be greatly appreciated....

Thanks in advance......

[Baldrick]

Use something else to shrink your mkv to a mp4 or m2ts and that kan keep the original 5.1 surround. Like handbrake, xmedia recode, hdconverttox. Use a ps3 profile and under audio choose copy or similar.

[themediaman]

Thanks Baldrick, I had a look at handbrake and it looks quite good, still to test it though......

Have you had experience with this program? How long would say, and 8GB mkv take to convert and what would the resultant mp4 size be.....

Many thanks.....

[TimA-C]

How long is a piece of string? Depends on your system specs, how much cr@p you've got running in the background, and the quality of your source. Have fun!

[themediaman]

The quality of my sources will be the best you can get......lol............

I am hoping it will take slightly less time than PS3Video 9 did, but ultimately all I am looking for is to keep the surround sound...........