Converting DTS-HD MA or ripping the same as LPCM

[Naiera]

Hello there.

I know there are posts about this elsewhere, but it all goes right over my head. What I would highly appreciate is if someone could explain to me like I'm five exactly how to set up MakeMKV v1.17.2 on a Mac with Ventura how to either convert DTS-HD MA to LPCM and/or rip as LPCM when there is a DTS-HD MA track on the BD or UHD BD.

The reason I need this is that I have a (hopefully temporary) problem with my Zidoo Z1000 Pro where it refuses to see DTS-HD MA and just sees normal DTS. As far as I know it's not just saying it's DTS while playing the DTS-HD MA track. Converting to LPCM, which I know works, along with TrueHD, is the best I can do right now, it would seem. I believe it's 14 movies I have on the Zidoo hard drive right now and I think it's only two of them that don't come with DTS-HD MA

Again, I need this to be fairly step-by-step. Open which file and put what strings where? Etc. I know how to open the MakeMKV program package on the Mac

Please assist. I would be forever grateful

[dcoke22]

Does it have to be LPCM or would FLAC work? I ask because the FLAC conversion profile is built in by default, making it easy to do on-the-fly audio conversions.

In any case, you need to Export Mode enabled in MakeMKV. (MakeMKV Preferences -> General Tab -> Expert Mode checkbox)

Then, when you've got a disc or a backup loaded in MakeMKV, on the right, there's a dropdown box labeled Profile.

profile.jpg (32.38 KiB) Viewed 16254 times

Select FLAC.

If you click the little '>' next to the movie in the box on the left, you should then see the audio track show it is going to be converted to FLAC.

flac.jpg (27.65 KiB) Viewed 16254 times

If it really has to be LPCM, then a custom conversion profile has to be added before it can be selected in the profile dropdown box.

[Naiera]

Thank you very much for your reply. I very much appreciate it, although this much detail was not necessary for this particular operation

I don't know if FLAC would work. I can try tonight. I'm using a projector, so just testing something like that isn't really possible.

[Naiera]

The FLAC conversion seems to have split the audio tracks into two, so I don't think FLAC is the solution here.

[dcoke22]

The lossless audio formats DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD both have this notion of a 'lossy core' that's used as a fallback mechanism for playback systems that can't process their respective lossless audio stream. MakeMKV splits the lossy core out into its own track. It does this by default regardless of conversion profile used. By default, the FLAC conversion profile only converts the lossless audio into FLAC.

If you only wanted the FLAC converted audio track you could uncheck the 'lossy core' when you rip. That will probably make the resulting .mkv file less portable, since it would only work on systems that can play FLAC. The resulting file would be a bit smaller, however.

Since most playback systems have a way to let the user pick which audio track is used during playback, I don't think leaving the lossy core in the resulting .mkv is much of a concern.

[Naiera]

I have no idea if the Zidoo supports FLAC for movies.

Are we sure that the 1384 Kbps file I'm left with after unchecking the lossy core isn't just the lossless part? That's some hella lossless compression on an already losslessly compressed file! It was 2820 Kbps when they were still combined.

I'd love to know how to make it LPCM instead of FLAC, but I guess it's useless if it's going to split it up into core and high def or whatever

[dcoke22]

Even if you don't convert the audio into FLAC or LPCM, you'll get two audio tracks, a DTS-HD MA track and a regular DTS track or a TrueHD track and a AC-3 track.

https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo is handy tool for looking at that stuff. (Also available to install via Homebrew on macOS.)

For example, here's a UHD I recently ripped. It has a Dolby TrueHD with Atmos audio track. The default rip from MakeMKV produces a .mkv file with two audio tracks, the TrueHD track and the lossy core of regular Dolby Digital (AC-3).

Code: Select all

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : MLP FBA 16-ch
Format/Info                              : Meridian Lossless Packing FBA with 16-channel presentation
Commercial name                          : Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos
Codec ID                                 : A_TRUEHD
Duration                                 : 1 h 58 min
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 4 691 kb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 8 409 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 8 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs Lb Rb
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 1 200.000 FPS (40 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Stream size                              : 3.89 GiB (8%)
Title                                    : Surround 7.1
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray
Number of dynamic objects                : 13
Bed channel count                        : 1 channel
Bed channel configuration                : LFE

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name                          : Dolby Digital
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 1 h 58 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 640 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 544 MiB (1%)
Title                                    : Surround 5.1
Language                                 : English
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Here's the same movie with the TrueHD track converted to FLAC (via on-the-fly conversion in MakeMKV):

Code: Select all

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : FLAC
Format/Info                              : Free Lossless Audio Codec
Codec ID                                 : A_FLAC
Duration                                 : 1 h 58 min
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 2 243 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 8 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Lb Rb Ls Rs
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 10.417 FPS (4608 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Stream size                              : 1.86 GiB (4%)
Title                                    : Surround 7.1
Writing library                          : MakeMKV v1.17.2 darwin(x64-release)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Commercial name                          : Dolby Digital
Codec ID                                 : A_AC3
Duration                                 : 1 h 58 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 640 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : L R C LFE Ls Rs
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 544 MiB (1%)
Title                                    : Surround 5.1
Language                                 : English
Service kind                             : Complete Main
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

[dcoke22]

Here's a random blu-ray backup I happened to have handy.

The DTS-HD MA audio:

Code: Select all

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : DTS XLL
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Commercial name                          : DTS-HD Master Audio
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 1 h 39 min
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 4 686 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 8 channels
Channel layout                           : C L R LFE Lb Rb Lss Rss
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossless
Stream size                              : 3.26 GiB (14%)
Title                                    : Surround 7.1
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 1 h 39 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 509 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 1.05 GiB (4%)
Title                                    : Surround 5.1
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

The same thing converted to LCPM using my custom conversion profile I was playing around with many moons ago.

Code: Select all

Audio #1
ID                                       : 2
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : DTS
Format/Info                              : Digital Theater Systems
Codec ID                                 : A_DTS
Duration                                 : 1 h 39 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 509 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 6 channels
Channel layout                           : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 1.05 GiB (4%)
Title                                    : Surround 5.1
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

Audio #2
ID                                       : 3
ID in the original source medium         : 4352 (0x1100)
Format                                   : PCM
Format settings                          : Little / Signed
Codec ID                                 : A_PCM/INT/LIT
Duration                                 : 1 h 39 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 9 216 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 8 channels
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 30.000 FPS (1600 SPF)
Bit depth                                : 24 bits
Stream size                              : 6.42 GiB (24%)
Title                                    : Surround 7.1
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : Blu-ray

The order of the tracks is flipped and the lossy core DTS track is marked as default, which is interesting. I'm not sure why. The LPCM track is bigger since it isn't compressed, but that doesn't make it better.


My conversion profile:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<profile>
    <!-- profile name - Default -->
    <name lang="eng">LCPMTest</name>

    <!-- Common MKV flags -->
    <mkvSettings
        ignoreForcedSubtitlesFlag="true"
        useISO639Type2T="false"
        setFirstAudioTrackAsDefault="true"
        setFirstSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true"
        setFirstForcedSubtitleTrackAsDefault="true"
        insertFirstChapter00IfMissing="true"
    />
    
    <outputSettings name="lpcm" outputFormat="LPCM-raw">
        <description lang="eng">Save as raw LPCM</description>
    </outputSettings>

    <trackSettings input="DTSHDMA-multi">
        <output outputSettingsName="lpcm"
                defaultSelection="$app_DefaultSelectionString,+sel:true">
        </output>
    </trackSettings>
</profile>

As the link to conversion profiles above says, the custom conversion profiles have to be named appropriately and put into the MakeMKV data directory, which is defined in MakeMKV's preferences.

[Naiera]

OK so you seem to have done it properly, or is my lossless FLAC file just that small because there's no more data?! I'm not sure what's going on. I need at least one of the files to contain all of the audio, of course. That a lossy file is created is fine.

[Naiera]

FLAC seems to have done the trick! I ripped The Killer (2022) last night and the track was over 3200 Kbps. I tested FLAC support on the Zidoo using that The Man from Nowhere (Ajeossi) with the wonky, low-bitrate track. It's a remux of the Russian release I have because my Well Go USA disc died of disc rot. Not surprising it's a bit of a shit release.

[Naiera]

It would seem that some titles don't play back properly in or do not encode properly to FLAC. The music is almost exclusively in the right channel, but just the music. I've seen this on a different retail Blu-ray (Scandinavian release of Werewolves Within), but it doesn't happen when I play the disc (The Killer, 2022, in this instance) on a proper player.

So, I humbly ask for your help in converting to LPCM instead of FLAC, oh great one

[dcoke22]

My post prior to this one has the conversion profile I have used to convert to LPCM.

You have to create the .xml file, name it correctly and put it in the right spot on your filesystem.

[Naiera]

A thousand thanks, kind stranger. I got it to work. The music is where it's supposed to be on the computer.

And so it is when I try to convert to FLAC again, so it must've been the Zidoo being dumb. Not surprising; it's an extremely random device.

[Naiera]

Although, dialogue now seems to be almost exclusively on the left channel On the computer, that is. This goes for both The Killer (2022) and The Phone

This is so random

[mudstuff]

My post prior to this one has the conversion profile I have used to convert to LPCM.

You have to create the .xml file, name it correctly and put it in the right spot on your filesystem.

Hi, I'd love some help on this if possible. I copied the code you kindly provided, saved as xml and named it LPCM.xml in the make mkv data folder. No new profile appears though, could you help? I have the same use case, I have a few films that are DTS HD MA and my soundbar only supports Dolby or LPCM. Doing this through Makemkv whilst ripping would be more convenient than using another program to convert the audio.