DTS Music on your PC and Home Theater.

[MaestroJ]

Hello everybody

I started this thread to help you to enjoy High Definition Music on your PC and Home Theater.
So if you have questions please ask, I will answer them to the best of my knowledge.
All the Best.

 

[MaestroJ]

Just to let you know from the begging that it will be an educational thread no product links or promotions will be posted here, but it will be download samples to DTS-HD music that you can play with your PC media center or Blu-ray player.

 

[panteragstk]

I'll bite.

How would one convert a DVD-Audio MLP file to something more easily managed like a DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD track that could be converted to an MKV and read by a multitude of players?

I've tried multichannel FLAC and my Android Players don't like that at all.

 

[MaestroJ]

Thank you for getting technical right from the first post.
So fare DTS-HD and TrueHD encoding are still in the professional domain you have to obtain the professional encoding tools to produce these streams.
Yes, your comment about FLAC is absolutely correct, however it is a wide spread audiophile format, besides Android systems Blu-ray players would not read high resolution multichannel FLAC as audio files but can read them only with stereo so you will actually get no sound if you convert DTS-HD to FLAC and will try to listen on your Blu-ray player.

 

[MaestroJ]

One of most popular surround recordings originally released by Naxos depicturing finest performance of Vivaldi Four Seasons and Concertos for Double Orchestra by David Juritz

and London Mozart Players:

originally recorded for 5.1 and now presented for 7.1 surround sound reproduction in DTS-HD
at 24bit/96k audio resolution.

Here is Concerto in D Major 2_Grave m2ts file contains 7.1 DTS-HD stream.
Written for two independent string orchestras, these were recorded with the soloist, David Juritz, standing in the middle of these two groups. This seemed an ideal opportunity to position the orchestras accordingly in surround sound, orchestra one is positioned in the front channels and orchestra two in the rear. Listening to this in post-production, Juritz commented that hearing it played back this way was as close to the sensation of playing the work in situ as he could imagine.

 

[lovinthehd]

One of most popular surround recordings originally released by Naxos depicturing finest performance of Vivaldi Four Seasons and Concertos for Double Orchestra by David Juritz

and London Mozart Players:

originally recorded for 5.1 and now presented for 7.1 surround sound reproduction in DTS-HD
at 24bit/96k audio resolution.

Here is Concerto in D Major 2_Grave m2ts file contains 7.1 DTS-HD stream.
Written for two independent string orchestras, these were recorded with the soloist, David Juritz, standing in the middle of these two groups. This seemed an ideal opportunity to position the orchestras accordingly in surround sound, orchestra one is positioned in the front channels and orchestra two in the rear. Listening to this in post-production, Juritz commented that hearing it played back this way was as close to the sensation of playing the work in situ as he could imagine.

I kept looking at your avatar and thinking that looks familiar

I won't need to try your download for this one, I have this disc (which came in a very nice wooden "jewel box"). I also have the DTS-HD discs of Alexander Jero's virtual surround versions of Mozart's Requiem and Beethoven's 5th&6th Symphonies, and the 2L The Nordic Sound 2disc set. I also have a DTS HDS disc of The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East.

 

[MaestroJ]

Yes, that's me, I also have threads on AVS, HighDefForum, and QuadrophonicQuadro. Thank you so, match for mentioning my older Blu-ray Audio recordings and of course crown of the jewels 2L Nordic Sound and Allan Brothers releases. More great samples are coming. Stay tuned!

 

[panteragstk]

Thank you for getting technical right from the first post.
So fare DTS-HD and TrueHD encoding are still in the professional domain you have to obtain the professional encoding tools to produce these streams.
Yes, your comment about FLAC is absolutely correct, however it is a wide spread audiophile format, besides Android systems Blu-ray players would not read high resolution multichannel FLAC as audio files but can read them only with stereo so you will actually get no sound if you convert DTS-HD to FLAC and will try to listen on your Blu-ray player.

So how would you propose I solve my issue?

 

[MaestroJ]

If you really serious about that you can obtain Professional encoder from Dolby or DTS(Xperi) website and after extracting your audio using, for instance, DVD Audio Extractor or meGUI convert it to DTS and Dolby stream, but even this is not it, you need to embed it into M2TS container for the compatibility you talking about. You can purchase one of my High Definition Music Cards and sturdy the files to see how it was done but it is not, in any case, an easy process. Actually, there is a Public folder on High Definition Music Card with stereo and a few multichannel samples in FLAC format for audiophiles to play with and convert it to any type of audio but again this is more for experiments only as an optional feature.

 

[Blue Dude]

I'll bite.

How would one convert a DVD-Audio MLP file to something more easily managed like a DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD track that could be converted to an MKV and read by a multitude of players?

I've tried multichannel FLAC and my Android Players don't like that at all.

Have you tried multichannel PCM (WAV) tracks? That's a basic format and just about any player capable of multichannel output should be able to handle it. Yes, it's uncompressed and very large, but it *is* compatible.

BTW, what are the Android players you've tried that choke on FLAC?

 

[MaestroJ]

He probably did not but I did, it will have a problem with channel mapping.

 

[panteragstk]

Have you tried multichannel PCM (WAV) tracks? That's a basic format and just about any player capable of multichannel output should be able to handle it. Yes, it's uncompressed and very large, but it *is* compatible.

BTW, what are the Android players you've tried that choke on FLAC?

The android players will play FLAC, but not in multichannel.

I've tried multichannel PCM, but they don't seem to work properly. I'll have to try again. Any tools that will easily convert MLP to PCM? I know I've probably got some, but old versions. New stuff comes out all the time and I haven't done any sound encoding/manipulation in some time.

 

[MaestroJ]

The android players will play FLAC, but not in multichannel.

'

This is absolutely correct, same in relation to Blu-ray players.

 

[Blue Dude]

The android players will play FLAC, but not in multichannel.

I've tried multichannel PCM, but they don't seem to work properly. I'll have to try again. Any tools that will easily convert MLP to PCM? I know I've probably got some, but old versions. New stuff comes out all the time and I haven't done any sound encoding/manipulation in some time.

It has been quite a while since I've had to mess around with MLP conversion so I'm not much help there. I used DVDA Ripper at least 7-8 years ago to archive a handful of discs. I stored them as individual tracks in FLAC format and use Kodi on a Windows HTPC for playback. My Oppo Blu-ray player will also play back multi-channel FLAC if I remember correctly, but not gaplessly.

When you say that they don't work properly, what do you mean? One problem I found with multichannel WAV files is that the streams sometimes aren't mapped to the correct channels. You would think that the default 5.1 format would be L/R, C/LFE, LS/RS, right? Wrong. Microsoft thinks it should be L/R, C/LFE, BL/BR instead. For compatibility reasons, I found that it was easier to stick with the Microsoft map rather than the "correct" method, but players are less buggy now than they were and this may not be an issue anymore. WAV channels are assigned in a bit field in the header, and it's easy to fix with a hex editor if you know what to do. There's probably an app for editing WAV headers out there too.

 

[panteragstk]

When I say they don't play properly I'm saying I only get stereo. Kodi on android is only playing back 2 channels. I tried multichannel FLAC and just to see what would happen an MKV with a wav audio file. Same results.

I tried simple .wav, but something odd was happening with my sound at the time so I'll have to re-test.

 

[MaestroJ]

When I say they don't play properly I'm saying I only get stereo. Kodi on Android is only playing back 2 channels. I tried multichannel FLAC and just to see what would happen an MKV with a wave audio file. Same results.

I tried simple .wav, but something odd was happening with my sound at the time so I'll have to re-test.

Channel mapping like I mention. Of course, you can remap your channels with the hex editor as it been suggested but do you really want to do that for every operating system you use in your house? Not very convenient.

 

[Blue Dude]

When I say they don't play properly I'm saying I only get stereo. Kodi on android is only playing back 2 channels. I tried multichannel FLAC and just to see what would happen an MKV with a wav audio file. Same results.

I tried simple .wav, but something odd was happening with my sound at the time so I'll have to re-test.

I was just fooling around with different configurations of multi-channel FLAC files and trying them out on the latest version of Kodi Krypton, and they all played correctly, modified header or no. It sounds to me as though your Kodi on Android installation isn't configured correctly since the software should be able to handle it. Mine runs on Windows with its built-in WASAPI driver, which takes exclusive control of the HDMI audio output without interference from the Windows mixer. It had to be set up separately for PCM output and bitstream output. Perhaps you're having similar issues? What hardware are you using?

Channel mapping like I mention. Of course, you can remap your channels with the hex editor as it been suggested but do you really want to do that for every operating system you use in your house? Not very convenient.

I was referring to hex editing the WAV header on the actual file, not making some kind of system mod. It's just something I once had to deal with but it appears software is tolerating non-standard files better now.

 

[panteragstk]

I was just fooling around with different configurations of multi-channel FLAC files and trying them out on the latest version of Kodi Krypton, and they all played correctly, modified header or no. It sounds to me as though your Kodi on Android installation isn't configured correctly since the software should be able to handle it. Mine runs on Windows with its built-in WASAPI driver, which takes exclusive control of the HDMI audio output without interference from the Windows mixer. It had to be set up separately for PCM output and bitstream output. Perhaps you're having similar issues? What hardware are you using?



I was referring to hex editing the WAV header on the actual file, not making some kind of system mod. It's just something I once had to deal with but it appears software is tolerating non-standard files better now.

Did you use Kodi on an Android TV ?

 

[Blue Dude]

Did you use Kodi on an Android TV ?

No, I run it on a Windows-based HTPC.

 

[panteragstk]

No, I run it on a Windows-based HTPC.

Yeah, getting it to work on a windows PC is easy. I don't use HTPC any longer, and Android TV doesn't seem to support the file types I want it to.

I'm thinking I'll have to convert some of them to .ac3 or dts files.