Any reason to keep DTS audio for future proofing if mixing to AAC?

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
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Calan
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri Apr 14, 2017 5:23 pm

Any reason to keep DTS audio for future proofing if mixing to AAC?

Post by Calan »

I've historically only ever bought DVDs and never had any issue with audio, but I've recently starting buying BluRays and have been having problems with the dialog being too low compared to the background noises (after using MakeMKV to, um, make an MKV, and Handbrake to make it smaller).

I'm using a Sony AndroidTV with its built-in speakers (shoot me).

I've historically used passthru for the audio; but with the dialog issues, I've tried downmixing the audio in different ways. I thought going to stereo or dolby pro logic ii would let Handbrake balance things out, but it didn't help (the former made no real change in dialog level, while the latter just made *everything* louder at the same volume setting).

In the end, I found just 'down'mixing DTS-ES 6.1 to AAC 6.1 did the trick - dialog is nice and clear without backround noises being too loud. I guess my TV is just much happier with itself downmixing AAC than DTS.

So my question - Is there any reason to keep the DTS track using passthru if I'm also converting it to AAC 6.1?

E.g., I'm guessing at some point in the future I'll actually get a surround set, and wondering if I'd find myself wanting to redo the MKVs if I don't keep the DTS audio?

Bonus question - I'm not too bothered about file size and currently setting bitrate to the highest available (960 for AAC 6.1). Is that overkill?

I'd like the audio to be as close to original as possible, but if I'd find no difference with a lower bitrate (considering I will hopefully move to surround sound setup in the future), I don't want to be too wasteful in file size.

Thanks!
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