HandBrake

Posted: **Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:14 am**

Hello,
first of all, Handbrake is a great Software, thanks for all your work.
I'am new at using this Software and got some good results, but there is one confusing thing for me.
I can't find a clear answer in the FAQ or google.
I have a Blu-ray with these audio codec's:

Code: Select all

Codec                           Language        Bitrate         Description     
-----                           --------        -------         -----------     
DTS-HD Master Audio             English         0 kbps          5.1 / 48 kHz / 16-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit)
DTS-HD Master Audio             German          0 kbps          7.1 / 48 kHz / 16-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit)
Dolby Digital Audio             Hindi           448 kbps        5.1 / 48 kHz / 448 kbps / DN -4dB
Dolby Digital Audio             Tamil           448 kbps        5.1 / 48 kHz / 448 kbps / DN -4dB
Dolby Digital Audio             Telugu          448 kbps        5.1 / 48 kHz / 448 kbps / DN -4dB
* Dolby Digital Audio           Japanese        640 kbps        5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps / DN -4dB
Dolby Digital Audio             English         192 kbps        2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -4dB / Dolby Surround

Basically I am interested in the German Audio Stream.
And this is what i did, but I think thats wrong:

Code: Select all

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Format profile                           : MA / Core
Mode                                     : 16
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 2h 11mn
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : Unknown / 1 509 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 8 channels / 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, Back: L R, LFE / Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless / Lossy
Language                                 : German
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Mode                                     : 16
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 2h 11mn
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 509 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 1.38 GiB (9%)
Language                                 : German
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

Audio #3
ID                                       : 4
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension                           : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 2h 11mn
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 640 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L C R, Side: L R, LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 601 MiB (4%)
Language                                 : German
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No

There are two questions:
Is the second Audio Stream useless and how does a player deal with the 7.1 DTS-HDMaster Audio stream if he is only supporting DTS 5.1 (backward compatible or fail?)
and
what is the best way to convert the DTS-HD Master Audio to AC3 (for old/cheap devices who can't deal with dts) -> dts to ac3 passthrough (make it sense?) or dts to ac3 ffmpeg.

Thank you in advance for your help

Posted: **Sun Mar 02, 2014 2:56 pm**

The (lossless) DTS-HD MA stream contains a (lossy) DTS core stream, to offer backwards compatibility for older players.

"Passing through" audio doesn't encode it (it literally just passes the audio without processing it), you need to encode the stream to AC3 with ffmpeg.

Posted: **Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:10 pm**

Ok, thanks for your answer, now its clear to me.

Edit: Ok, one question is left, just to be sure, is there any difference between choosing DTS-HD Master and DTS 5.1 (only the core DTS) as source for the ac 3 ffmpeg (cuz Handbrake show both as possible source) ?

Posted: **Mon Mar 03, 2014 3:03 pm**

Capter wrote:Ok, thanks for your answer, now its clear to me.

Edit: Ok, one question is left, just to be sure, is there any difference between choosing DTS-HD Master and DTS 5.1 (only the core DTS) as source for the ac 3 ffmpeg (cuz Handbrake show both as possible source) ?

Nope, HandBrake will decode only the core so the results will be the same.

Posted: **Sat Aug 15, 2015 10:19 am**

Rodeo wrote:Nope, HandBrake will decode only the core so the results will be the same.

Is this still true?

As far as I understand ffmpeg now supports libdcadec which is open source and can decode not only the core but the DTS HD extension as well? So, i.e. transcoding to FLAC would be lossless. Does/will Handbrake support this or is it still too experimental? Or am I getting something wrong here?

Posted: **Sat Aug 15, 2015 6:03 pm**

Still true. HandBrake can pass through DTS-HD MA or decode the DTS core, but not decode the lossless stream. No ETA on this yet.

HandBrake uses Libav internally, not ffmpeg.

Posted: **Sun Aug 16, 2015 7:38 pm**

IIRC libav has the dcadec wrapper, and we could always implement our own wrapper if necessary. But I haven't looked into it yet.

Posted: **Wed Jul 20, 2016 6:57 am**

Sorry for ressurecting an old thread, but this is my exact question, and I remember your nick, @Rodeo, from a Google search on the status of Handbrake and libdcadec, where I believe you wrote that you were currently working on implementing support for it in Handbrake, so here's my continuing this thread based on that fact

Has there been any progress on this? I am anxiously awaiting this feature, as getting a good AAC stream based on a lossless BD stream is still quite a hassle on my Mac (before MakeMKV added support for decoding losslessly to FLAC, I had to use MeGUI under WINE just to get the stream decoded). Having this built in to Handbrake would be absolutely awesome!

TIA

Posted: **Wed Jul 20, 2016 1:31 pm**

Still some way off, I'm afraid. Been busy with real life, and other issues have a higher priority than this, sorry.

Posted: **Wed Jul 20, 2016 2:13 pm**

Well, beggars can't be choosers

I'm grateful for Handbrake either way. I hope you do get some time to work on it, though

Thanks for the response, and have a great summer!

HandBrake

How to deal with DTS-HD Master Audio

How to deal with DTS-HD Master Audio

Re: How to deal with DTS-HD Master Audio

Re: How to deal with DTS-HD Master Audio

Re: How to deal with DTS-HD Master Audio

Re: How to deal with DTS-HD Master Audio

Re: How to deal with DTS-HD Master Audio

Re: How to deal with DTS-HD Master Audio

Re: How to deal with DTS-HD Master Audio

Re: How to deal with DTS-HD Master Audio

Re: How to deal with DTS-HD Master Audio