UsEac3to 1.3.0 - DTS HD-MA to FLAC

[TK423]

Hey all. Bit of a noob to some of this stuff, so please take it easy on me.

I have a bunch of MKVs with DTS HD-MA tracks that I would like to convert to the best quality FLAC files that I can. I've been using UsEac3to 1.3.0 to do this. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I think it's been working properly and would love if someone could just confirm for me.



I've been dragging and dropping the MKV into UsEac3to, selecting DTS as the input format and FLAC as the output format, clicking Add, then clicking RUN CL. This brings up a command line window which does its thing, and then a working FLAC file is created that I then mux into my MKV. I noticed that it sometimes says a02 libDcaDec reported the warning "XLL output not lossless". in the CL window, is that a problem?

I also found recently that there is another method to converting to FLAC in UsEac3to. This way, I select DTS as the input format and FLAC as the output format, click Add, and then click A/V Recode. This brings up another window, where I click Decode,Lossless,WavDts and select flac. I then click Run and this brings up a CL window, but it shows different stuff than the other method. I think it also takes a bit longer. But eventually exports a working FLAC file, just like the previous method. I don't believe this method shows the a02 libDcaDec reported the warning "XLL output not lossless". message.



Can anyone confirm for me if one of these methods is superior the other, if I'm doing anything incorrect here? I'm just looking to convert DTS HD-MA to the best quality FLAC file possible and want to be sure I'm doing that correctly.

Thanks for your patience and any assistance anyone might be able to provide!

Edit: Apparently the a02 libDcaDec reported the warning "XLL output not lossless". message can be ignored.

[damian101]

If the "libDcaDec reported the warning "XLL output not lossless"" message appears it means that you didn't decode the lossless DTS-HD MA stream, but just the embedded lossy DTS core stream.
eac3to can't decode DTS-HD MA by itself, it needs the Arcsoft decoder for that. I currently can't get it to work, but I remember it being as simple as installing the trial version of TotalMedia Theatre to enable eac3to to use the Arcsoft DTS decoder, that was a few years ago.

[TK423]

If the "libDcaDec reported the warning "XLL output not lossless"" message appears it means that you didn't decode the lossless DTS-HD MA stream, but just the embedded lossy DTS core stream.
eac3to can't decode DTS-HD MA by itself, it needs the Arcsoft decoder for that. I currently can't get it to work, but I remember it being as simple as installing the trial version of TotalMedia Theatre to enable eac3to to use the Arcsoft DTS decoder, that was a few years ago.

Any idea which version of Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre? I found an Arcsoft dtsdecoderdll.dll file that is apparently '1.1.01' but it's just a .dll file, dunno if there's anything I can do with this.

[damian101]

I wasted many precious hours trying to get eac3to + Arcsoft TotalMedia Theatre to work again. But there is a much better solution anyway: Apparently FFmpeg now completely supports decoding DTS-HD MA. It actually supports it since June 2016, thanks to this project, which got integrated into FFmpeg.
A simple

ffmpeg -i input.dts -compression_level 12 output.flac

converts your DTS-HD MA stream to FLAC. Not just the embedded DTS core, in a test I just did all 8 audio channels were preserved, the DTS core only supports 6. You also get the full 24 bit sample size.
GUI media converters that use FFmpeg as a backend might also support it, haven't checked any yet.

[Ennio]

This "XLL output not lossless" message from libDcaDec has been discussed in the past and I learned it can be ignored.

If the "libDcaDec reported the warning "XLL output not lossless"" message appears it means that you didn't decode the lossless DTS-HD MA stream, but just the embedded lossy DTS core stream.

I would doubt that. You can check by importing a 7.1 DTS-MA track into eac3to and convert to wavs, w64 or flac (without the use of ffmpeg). You'll see that the output will have 8 channels too. When only the dts core would be converted, the output would have less channels, often 5.1.

[TK423]

If the "libDcaDec reported the warning "XLL output not lossless"" message appears it means that you didn't decode the lossless DTS-HD MA stream, but just the embedded lossy DTS core stream.

Yeah, I'm not buying this. I read somewhere else, can't find the source, that "XLL output not lossless" message is not actually representative of if you're getting a lossless track or not.

I just threw a test 5.1 DTS HD-MA track that I converted to FLAC into MediaInfo and it showing the new FLAC track as 2754 kb/s, 48.0 kHz, 24 bits. Am I wrong in thinking that this was a successful conversion?

[Ennio]

No, you would not be wrong.

IIRC the cause of the message had to do with merging packets and differences between floating and non-floating number crunching. The audio-data had nothing to do with it.

But as I said, put in a 7.1 DTS-MA track & check the number of channels in the output.

[TK423]

No, you would not be wrong.

IIRC the cause of the message had to do with merging packets and differences between floating and non-floating number crunching. The audio-data had nothing to do with it.

But as I said, put in a 7.1 DTS-MA track & check the number of channels in the output.

Just converted a 7.1 DTS HD-MA track to FLAC, results are 3556 kb/s, 48.0 kHz, 24 bits, 8 channels, FLAC. Looks like we're in business?

[Ennio]

Yup

[TK423]

Yup

Perfect. So looks like DTS HD-MA to FLAC works right out of the box using the first method pictured in my original post.

Thanks for the assistance, much appreciated!

[ron spencer]

it sometimes says a02 libDcaDec reported the warning "XLL output not lossless"

This was fixed in the update to the libdcadec.dll quite some time ago but was never updated in the EAC3to download.

Get the update from:

https://github.com/foo86/dcadec

Specifically:

https://github.com/foo86/dcadec/releases/download/v0.2.0/dcadec-0.2.0-win32.zip

Once you update the dll you won't get the XLL Lossless error thing. You didn't need to worry about it anyway.

In the download there is the dll and dcadec.exe. I put both in my EAC3to folder. Works a treat!