DTS-HD / MA questions

[Warmongerx]

First time poster. Been reading seemingly hundreds of threads and am no closer to figuring out the issue I'm having, so I thought I'd post and see if someone can steer me in the right direction.

I'm trying to get my HTPC to send DTS-HD or True HD to my Pioneer Elite receiver. I'm using the Avengers as my test platform and have ripped it several times in various configurations with MakeMKV, though I'm not sure if I'm doing it correctly. I deselect all the audio streams except the DTS-HD lossless one.

I had read that in order to get MakeMKV to correctly rip the DTS-HD lossless audio stream, I had to point it to the dtsdecoder.dll file in the preferences section. I'm using the one that comes with the trial version of TMT 6. I have tried ripping with default the FLAC profiles. I'm using VLC as my player and have it set to output through the SPDIF, which is connected via a two wire connection to my GTX 260 Vid card and the digital audio is sent through the DVI to HDMI connection to the receiver.

I'm getting DTS 5.1 audio when I use the default profile, however i'm not getting 7.1 and i'm not sure where the problem lies. If I use the FLAC profile, I get no audio.

I'm not sure where the breakdown is, if it's in my ripping procedure or if it's in VLC. I figured I'd start in the beginning with MakeMKV and make sure I'm doing it correctly.

Help!

[Romansh]

1) you only need a DLL if you want to convert to FLAC; assuming your receiver supports DTS-HD, you'd want to preserve it (use the Default profile) instead

2) S/PDIF does not support any kind of HD audio, only regular AC-3 or DTS, or 2-channel PCM

[Warmongerx]

Thanks for the response. I may have a slightly unusual setup and perhaps I won't be able to get HD audio until I change out my video card to one that is fully HDMI.

With that said, here's what I have and what I have done -

I have an EVGA GTX 260 Video card that has a SPDIF input in the side of it, near the Power connectors. According to the EVGA forums, I can run a cable from the SPDIF out on the motherboard, which resides just behind the external connector on the outside of the board, to the Video card and it should pass the audio through the DVI to HDMI cable and onto the receiver. I did that and now get sound passing through the cable. The same thread that I've read says that I should be able to get DTS-HD and True HD audio through that

I then went into the Nvidia control panel and it shows that the DVI 1 connection is seeing my Pioneer Elite VSX-23TXH reciever, which fully supports DTS-HD Master Audio, etc. There's a button to configure the audio settings of the SPDIF. It shows the supported formats being Dolby Digital and DTS, but not the HD versions of those same formats.

I'm wondering if I'm being limited because the audio is being passed through the SPDIF out on the motherboard to the video card and onto the receiver, but still seeing it as SPDIF and not true HDMI. I do have a GTX 570 card in my main PC that has HDMI on it. Perhaps I'll try swapping out the cards and see if that is the issue.

To clarify though, you're saying as long as I select the DTS-HD lossless audio of the movie that it preserves it and will encapsulate it into the MKV file, correct? Just making sure that I'm not missing something.

Thanks again.

[Romansh]

Yes, MakemKV can pass DTS-HD unmodified through to the output MKV. If your receiver supports it, it's the easiest and/or best solution.