Clarification on Audio settings

[Keith Jenner]

Hi,

I'm busy ripping DVD's to play on a new Apple TV, and can't test them until I receive it.

I'm happy with most things, but just have a question regarding Surround Sound audio.

With 5.1 Surround, I understand that the Apple TV preset correctly sorts the audio so that it is played in surround automatically from the Apple TV.

However, what about if the source has 2.0 surround. In this case, the preset still has two audio tracks. Is this necessary, and does it work the same as the 5.1? I assume so, but just wanted to check in case I was ripping an unnecessary second audio track.

Thanks for any help. These forums are very useful for a newby like me.

[TedJ]

If the AC3 track is only 2.0 surround then it's a little redundant... but it's also likely to be 192 kbps and thus only a minor overhead.

[Scott R]

I have a related question. If I'm ripping a Blu-ray first with MakeMKV and the movie has both a DTS-HD and Dolby Digital soundtrack, should I choose the DTS core of the DTS-HD soundtrack, or will any added audio quality be lost once it's eventually downconverted by Handbrake to an aTV-compatible format? Along those lines, will Handbrake require more processing time to handle that DTS soundtrack vs DD?

[mduell]

I have a related question. If I'm ripping a Blu-ray first with MakeMKV and the movie has both a DTS-HD and Dolby Digital soundtrack, should I choose the DTS core of the DTS-HD soundtrack, or will any added audio quality be lost once it's eventually downconverted by Handbrake to an aTV-compatible format? Along those lines, will Handbrake require more processing time to handle that DTS soundtrack vs DD?

tv doesn't support DTS, so HandBrake would have to convert it to AAC 6ch if your receiver supports that (few do) or 2ch with DPL2 otherwise.
tv does support AC3 passthrough to your receiver, so there would be no quality loss.
Audio doesn't substantially impact encoding time.

[Scott R]

Thanks. So I'm thinking the easiest approach will be to just choose the Dolby Digital / AC3 5.1 track in MakeMKV (and then keep that track as well as transcode it down to a 2nd stereo track during the Handbrake encoding process to have compatibility with an aTV connected to a 5.1 receiver as well as an aTV connected to a stereo TV as well as for iPhone 4 compatibility).

Do you know if it's part of the Blu-ray standard for all discs to have a 5.1 Dolby Digital track, or can they have *just* a DTS track? If the latter, do you know if it's possible to convert the DTS to AC3 (e.g., using eac3to or something else) after I've already ripped the movie (with DTS track) to an mkv container, or would I need to avoid using MakeMKV for those discs, and rip them using AnyDVD instead (in order for eac3to or whatever to do its thing)?

[mduell]

Thanks. So I'm thinking the easiest approach will be to just choose the Dolby Digital / AC3 5.1 track in MakeMKV (and then keep that track as well as transcode it down to a 2nd stereo track during the Handbrake encoding process to have compatibility with an aTV connected to a 5.1 receiver as well as an aTV connected to a stereo TV as well as for iPhone 4 compatibility).

That would be a very reasonable thing to do. If you're a quality weenie you may want to use the DTS track as the source for the 2ch AAC conversion.

Do you know if it's part of the Blu-ray standard for all discs to have a 5.1 Dolby Digital track, or can they have *just* a DTS track? If the latter, do you know if it's possible to convert the DTS to AC3 (e.g., using eac3to or something else) after I've already ripped the movie (with DTS track) to an mkv container, or would I need to avoid using MakeMKV for those discs, and rip them using AnyDVD instead (in order for eac3to or whatever to do its thing)?

Blu-ray video disks are required to include one of LPCM, AC3, or DTS. With an MKV rip that includes DTS you could demux it (with mkvtoolnix) and pass the DTS to eac3to.

[Deleted User 11865]

Thanks. So I'm thinking the easiest approach will be to just choose the Dolby Digital / AC3 5.1 track in MakeMKV (and then keep that track as well as transcode it down to a 2nd stereo track during the Handbrake encoding process to have compatibility with an aTV connected to a 5.1 receiver as well as an aTV connected to a stereo TV as well as for iPhone 4 compatibility).

That would be a very reasonable thing to do. If you're a quality weenie you may want to use the DTS track as the source for the 2ch AAC conversion.

Note that in my testing, the DRC setting has no effect on DTS tracks.

[Scott R]

Thanks again. I don't see much use in trying to eek out any added sound quality for my 2-channel track, since my main viewing room is 5.1, and the 2-channel rooms will usually be playing the audio via a TV's built-in speakers (or perhaps a soundbar), so I doubt I'd be able to discern the added quality there. I suppose it might be discernable when played via headphones on my iPhone 4, but while I want to maintain compatibility with that, I don't expect to ever watch movies that way.

So for my most recent Blu-ray rip which had both a DTS-HD and DD 5.1 English soundtrack (among other foreign language tracks), I was a bit worried that them giving me both options was too good to be true, and it looks like it was. Finished ripping the movie only to find that the DD 5.1 track was for the visually impaired. Guess I'll have to re-rip it with the DTS core.

Is the process of using MakeMKV/mkvtoolnix/eac3to appreciably more/less complicated and/or time-consuming than starting with AnyDVD? I haven't purchased a license for either AnyDVD or MakeMKV yet, but at $50, MakeMKV is obviously more attractive, plus it allows you to rip just the tracks you want, whereas I believe I'd have to use another tool after AnyDVD to just grab the tracks I care about.

I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row now that the aTV is shipping (not mine - I didn't pre-order, but I'm hoping I'll be able to score one at the local Apple store within a week).

[mduell]

I love AnyDVD for DVD, but the MakeMKV path is probably a little better because it merges movies that span multiple m2ts files and selectively rips streams.

[SideShowBob]

mduell, you can do the same thing with programs like ClownBD (essentially a free GUI for eac3to). It easily handles branched disks to create one file. My process is (all on windows):

1) ClownBD to select only the main movie with only the audio/subtitle tracks I want (plus chapters and video, of course)
2) BDSup2Sub to create sub/idx for the subtitles
3) Mux it all to MKV (mkvmerge GUI)
4) Run the MKV through Handbrake, getting subtitles, chapters etc.

as a bonus, through ClownBD if you want to have both the untouched original audio (DTS, TrueHD, whatever) AND and AC3 track, you can tick the checkbox for "media tank audio options" and it allows you to create two versions of the same audio track. I don't personally do that, I just have it convert to AC3 ( I have the original disk if I need the fancy new audio), but a nice feature all the same.

[Scott R]

mduell, you can do the same thing with programs like ClownBD (essentially a free GUI for eac3to). It easily handles branched disks to create one file. My process is (all on windows):

1) ClownBD to select only the main movie with only the audio/subtitle tracks I want (plus chapters and video, of course)
2) BDSup2Sub to create sub/idx for the subtitles
3) Mux it all to MKV (mkvmerge GUI)
4) Run the MKV through Handbrake, getting subtitles, chapters etc.

as a bonus, through ClownBD if you want to have both the untouched original audio (DTS, TrueHD, whatever) AND and AC3 track, you can tick the checkbox for "media tank audio options" and it allows you to create two versions of the same audio track. I don't personally do that, I just have it convert to AC3 ( I have the original disk if I need the fancy new audio), but a nice feature all the same.

But you have to first rip the disk with AnyDVD, right? Unless maybe you're just running AnyDVD in background mode?

[mduell]

Yea, you need AnyDVD HD for ClownBD on commercial disks.

[SideShowBob]

Right, AnyDVD HD does on-the-fly decryption, so I just pop the disk into the drive, let AnyDVD do its thing, and then run ClownBD to extract. I don't know if it takes more or less time than MakeMKV, but I know I had problems with some files created by MakeMKV when it was in beta. They just wouldn't come out well in some cases. I've not had that issue with my current workflow.

I forgot to mention using SupRip if I want SRT files to add if I'm creating them for iphone viewing. (Lots of correction by hand with that )