Which Title / Unchecked Audio?

[WCVanHorne]

Not quite sure why we need "Joe". I guess I should say that I'm not really confused now but I think the check boxes should be linked as I suggest. That is to say if DTS HD is selected DTS should not be able to be unselected since it's "free". IMHO the hierarchy should change as I suggested but that's just me.

On a realated note, DTS HD is often extremely large, particularly when the, arguably, imperceptible quality difference between the full 1.5 MB/s lossy DTS stream on BluRay is compared to lossless. For example on Sin City, an ~2h movie, the video stream is 12.5GB and 1.5 MB/s DTS lossy is only another 1.3 GB. However lossless DTS HD is almost a whopping 5 GB more. That's about 30% of the entire file. I have pretty high end home theater setup including a 28 driver audio section with 4 subs and I can't really tell the difference. Personally I'd only go DTS HD for concert material. I'm able to store a lot more movies on my 10TB of NAS with the extra space.

[setarip_old]

My own cynical opinion is that this is one of the ways the studios are trying to convinc us of the "extra value of the Blu Ray Experience" vis-a-vis standard DVDs. Thusfar, other than improved resolution (for which the studios also pad filesizes), I've neither seen nor heard anything generated by a BluRay disc that has actually made me feel it was something "really special"...

[xclmr]

Thanks for the information so far guys. This has been a very informative thread in helping me figure out what all the different audio tracks mean.

One thing I have not been able to find a clear answer on is how to keep the HD lossless audio track after compressing the video through Handbrake. It seems to me that Handbrake cannot keep the HD audio no matter what settings you choose.

Is there another program out there that can take out the original HD audio from the uncompressed .mkv made by MakeMKV? I assume after that you could use MKVmerge to put the uncompressed HD audio and the handbrake compressed video back together?

Another issue I'm having is with subtitles. I always check all of the boxes for English subtitles but get rid of the rest when using MakeMKV. When I play the resulting .mkv file for Blu-ray rips my media players don't recognize the file as having any subtitles. I have tried this with Media Player Classic and Windows Media Player (VLC won't even play the files at all without having multiple errors and eventually crashing). When I do the same for DVD rips the subtitles are always on the screen and cannot be disabled. Once I run a DVD ripped file through Handbrake the subtitles go away but are now non-existent and cannot be enabled. Handbrake doesn't have anything show up under the subtitle tab for either type of rip so I assume this is why the compressed files never have any subtitles.

Am I doing something wrong when I rip uncompressed through MakeMKV or is this a common issue?

[setarip_old]

@xclmr

Hi! [/Quote]When I play the resulting .mkv file for Blu-ray rips my media players don't recognize the file as having any subtitles.[/Quote]

For a better understanding of the current status of BluRay (PGS) subtitles, click on the following link and read the entire thread:

http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic ... +pgs#p2319

[mike admin]

Not quite sure why we need "Joe". I guess I should say that I'm not really confused now but I think the check boxes should be linked as I suggest. That is to say if DTS HD is selected DTS should not be able to be unselected since it's "free".

When you select "DTS HD" you will get entire DTS-HD stream , core+extension. If you select both DTS-HD and its core substream, you'll get two separate tracks, DTS-HD (core+extension) AND DTS-core only. There are many reasons why you would want to do that, one being some players capable of DTS playback choking on DTS-HD bitrate or extensions.

[twa000]

I cheat - if not sure, I use a competitive product (trial version) that also shows all the files (e.g. mt2s for Blu Ray) and lets you play (and hear) them in a window so you can decide what to include or NOT!

Now if MakeMKV could also do this it would be a real help

[mike admin]

Now if MakeMKV could also do this it would be a real help

You can do that with MakeMKV, albeit inconveniently. Open the disc, select streaming, examine all titles in a player, then exit streaming menu and select only what you need.

[twa000]

Well, I figured out why there are three titles with the same length/size/number of chapters...



So yeah, I guess the three have most of the same movie, but the opening chapter is different to match the different languages... So now I know why there are three, but there doesn't seem to be any way to see how to determine this before I rip the movie. ?

Well a way of doing this is to select the playlist in a hex editor (Notepad is too hard), note down the mt2s sequence and then play the first couple of mt2s files to check language! Should only take about 5 mins and then you know which mpls to select.

[twa000]

Now if MakeMKV could also do this it would be a real help

You can do that with MakeMKV, albeit inconveniently. Open the disc, select streaming, examine all titles in a player, then exit streaming menu and select only what you need.

True - but it would nicer to do it in the program, although my hex editor approach is probably quicker

[WCVanHorne]

Not quite sure why we need "Joe". I guess I should say that I'm not really confused now but I think the check boxes should be linked as I suggest. That is to say if DTS HD is selected DTS should not be able to be unselected since it's "free".

When you select "DTS HD" you will get entire DTS-HD stream , core+extension. If you select both DTS-HD and its core substream, you'll get two separate tracks, DTS-HD (core+extension) AND DTS-core only. There are many reasons why you would want to do that, one being some players capable of DTS playback choking on DTS-HD bitrate or extensions.

First I completely understand why you want the DTS (core) stream only. I just don't understand why you would want (or could even have short of masking) the DTS-HD (core+extension) stream only, without the DTS (core). That's what I was trying to get across. It doesn't seem to make sense to have the DTS-HD (core+extension) selectable by itself, perhaps masking the DTS (core) stream, since core should be "free".

***HOWEVER***

I just decided to test makemkv with only DTS-HD selected and I discovered something *very* strange. The file is smaller, almost exactly by the size of the DTS (core) stream, as compared to having both DTS-HD and DTS selected! What gives? It seems that MakeMKV is duplicating the DTS (core) stream. Is this a bug? Some limitation in mkv streams? Some misunderstanding by me?

[Wasabi]

First I completely understand why you want the DTS (core) stream only. I just don't understand why you would want (or could even have short of masking) the DTS-HD (core+extension) stream only, without the DTS (core). That's what I was trying to get across. It doesn't seem to make sense to have the DTS-HD (core+extension) selectable by itself, perhaps masking the DTS (core) stream, since core should be "free".

***HOWEVER***

I just decided to test makemkv with only DTS-HD selected and I discovered something *very* strange. The file is smaller, almost exactly by the size of the DTS (core) stream, as compared to having both DTS-HD and DTS selected! What gives? It seems that MakeMKV is duplicating the DTS (core) stream. Is this a bug? Some limitation in mkv streams? Some misunderstanding by me?

Let's say you have a disc which has a DTS-HD track that is 5 gig, with 1 gig being the DTS core and the remaining 4 gig being the residual portion that allows the HD track to be constructed. The movie itself is 20 gig.

Option 1: You select DTS-HD only. This will be 5 gig added to the 20 gig movie = 25 gig.
Option 2: You select DTS core only. This will be 1 gig added to the 20 gig movie = 21 gig.
Option 3: You select DTS-HD and DTS core. This will be 5 gig plus 1 gig added to the 20 gig movie = 26 gig.

In Option 3, the core is duplicated out of necessity within the DTS-HD track. There's no way (right now) to separate the core and residual streams inside an MKV container, so the DTS-HD track needs to be properly "built" for it to play.

As Mike mentioned, there are plenty of reasons why you might want the duplication. The main reason is if you have a player that can't play DTS-HD *right now*, but you expect it will be able to in the future.

[WCVanHorne]

I just decided to test makemkv with only DTS-HD selected and I discovered something *very* strange. The file is smaller, almost exactly by the size of the DTS (core) stream, as compared to having both DTS-HD and DTS selected! What gives? It seems that MakeMKV is duplicating the DTS (core) stream. Is this a bug? Some limitation in mkv streams? Some misunderstanding by me?

Let's say you have a disc which has a DTS-HD track that is 5 gig, with 1 gig being the DTS core and the remaining 4 gig being the residual portion that allows the HD track to be constructed. The movie itself is 20 gig.

Option 1: You select DTS-HD only. This will be 5 gig added to the 20 gig movie = 25 gig.
Option 2: You select DTS core only. This will be 1 gig added to the 20 gig movie = 21 gig.
Option 3: You select DTS-HD and DTS core. This will be 5 gig plus 1 gig added to the 20 gig movie = 26 gig.

I completely grock the math and this bears out my test results.

In Option 3, the core is duplicated out of necessity within the DTS-HD track. There's no way (right now) to separate the core and residual streams inside an MKV container, so the DTS-HD track needs to be properly "built" for it to play.

Of course all this completely negates the point of DTS-HD being core+residual, at least from the standpoint of mkv streams. I guess you are confirming my postulate "Some limitation in mkv streams?". I.E. every hardware player can split the DTS-HD stream but mkv cannot; because if that ability is not part of the spec for decoding the BluRay data stream on the disc player the disc is also repeating the core twice, which sort of misses the point of the core+residual structure.

Now what this means if that from the POV of the GUI there is no meaningful, hierarchical difference between the DTS-HD and DTS core check-boxes, thus they should be on the same level.

As Mike mentioned, there are plenty of reasons why you might want the duplication. The main reason is if you have a player that can't play DTS-HD *right now*, but you expect it will be able to in the future.

Like I said in the last post I completely understand why you would want to do this. If there is no way for mkv stream splitters to properly de-mux the core+residual it's a requirement, however wasteful.

[flowjoe]

Now if MakeMKV could also do this it would be a real help

You can do that with MakeMKV, albeit inconveniently. Open the disc, select streaming, examine all titles in a player, then exit streaming menu and select only what you need.

Yes - this would be a possible solution.

This could be easier, if there were a possibility to start playing the m2ts directly out of makemkv
Could be made with starting streaming server and send the url directly to vlc

In my opinion the best solution would be, if makemkv can determine which is the correct playlist file
like a standalone bluray player does.

[backdoor]

Make this thread a STICKY.
Title it "Newbie's Guide to Title & Audio Selection"
Maybe delete some of the off-topic posts (optional).

As a newbie, I had to read 7 pages of posts before I found the basic how-to-use information in this thread.
Please save other newbies the time by making this a top-loaded sticky thread.

[Romansh]

Alright, so it sounds like I should be ripping the lossless, then. Since you say the DTS Core is a part of the lossless track, do I need to select both to rip lossless, or if I just select the lossless option (and uncheck the default of 3/2+1), will that suffice?

Yes, that will suffice. The lossless track includes the core.

Picking DTS Passthru in my audio options in my encoder (Handbrake) will keep that lossless audio, right?

No. If you want DTS-HD passthrough, you'll have to use a nightly build of HandBrake.

I have found some problems with disks that have LPCM playback in that not all have a subtree option.

LPCM is a fairly basic format. It can't contain a core, and AFAIK can't contain an interleaved lossy track either.

I can select any of the streams in Handbrake, but if I have both, then both just say "DTS 5.1 English" or something like that, and I have no way to tell them apart.

HandBrake 0.9.5 has no way of telling apart DTS-HD from regular DTS when the container is MKV. If you attempt to re-encode or pass through DTS-HD audio, you'll get corrupt output. This is fixed in the nightly builds.

My understanding is that DTS HD is made up of two streams. The first is the old fashioned, lossy, DTS stream, aka core stream and the second is the difference or residual stream that can be added to to the former for a lossless output.

I think the confusion is in how MakeMKV presents the options. You should not be able to select the 'DTS HD Lossless' stream by itself since that is not really possible (although I suppose the lossy DTS core stream might be masked, haven't tried it yet). Since the lossless is a superset of lossy selecting the HD Lossless should not allow the DTS lossy to be unchecked and perhaps the display hierarchy should be reversed. I.E. first level is the core DTS stream and the nested one is the additional residual track to get DTS HD.

But what if you want to include both in a selectable manner? If the options were set up the way you describe, you'd have two choices:

1) include the DTS core in one track
OR
2) include DTS-HD with the embedded DTS core in one track

The following:

3) a) include the DTS core in one track
AND
3) b) include DTS-HD with the embedded DTS core in another track

wouldn't be possible.