Dolby Digital Plus Problem

[Dazkine]

Screenshot

I try to rip a Bluray but DDplus Audio seems to be 4.0 and the core track is 5.1? That sounds weird.
VLC and Kodi will not play that track after making a mkv file, there is no audio, just video.

Am I doing something wrong?

[Dazkine]

Still no DDplus support for Blurays`?

[kevmitch]

I'm pretty sure that this is not makemkv's job to "support" any particular codec. It just dumps the contents of the blu-rays audio/video/subtitle tracks into an mkv file. It's up to whatever program you use to decode it.

That said, both VLC and Kodi (and pretty much any thing else you would voluntarily want to use) use ffmpeg to decode. A quick look suggests that Dolby Digital Plus (aka eac3) should be supported there. It might be worth while to try running the ffprobe tool included with ffmpeg to determine what ffmpeg thinks the contents really are. You could also try running ffplay tool to try and play it.

There are basically two possibilities:
1) The disc in question uses eac3 extensions not supported by ffmpeg. In this case, you could submit an ffmpeg bug report with a sample and the output of the above commands.
2) The programs you're using don't use ffmpeg correctly. In which case you could file a bug with those programs.

[Woodstock]

The problem is that Mike decided to support converting some audio CODECs for player compatibility, so it soon becomes expected that it will work for all weird CODECs.

[Dazkine]

But why does makemkv show the Coretrack as 5.1. And the core+hd as 4.0 only?

[Romansh]

Who knows. Not sure the spec. disallows that.

Which Blu-ray is this? Can you post a short sample of MakeMKV's output (just the audio track, without video or subtitles)?

[Dazkine]

It's the American Sniper Bluray

[Romansh]

Can you post a short sample of MakeMKV's output (just the audio track, without video or subtitles)?

[Dazkine]

There is no way to deselect the videostream in makemkv. But i can create a MKV(MKA) with mkvtoolnix or just the Audiostream itself.

[Romansh]

Yes, that's what I meant, though is was maybe a bit too implicit…

[billbillw]

I seem to be having problems with the American Sniper disc as well. When you first scan the disc, it shows the main English track as Dolby True HD 7.1 with a 5.1 DD core. It shows another DD5.1 English track and a 4.0 French track. When I rip with the True HD and Core selected, it only seem to show a DD 5.1 EX track in Handbrake. The True HD 7.1 is not there.

I've ripped it twice already. Same result. I am ripping a 3rd time with every soundtrack checked to see what shows up.

[billbillw]

OK, I think I've figured out that its a Handbrake issue, not MakeMKV. The 7.1 track shows up in VLC. I guess this is the first TrueHD that I've tried to shrink with Handbrake. Looks like this one is staying full size at least until I watch it a couple times.

EDIT: Looks like MKVToolNix is my savior. Muxed the video from handbrake with the audio from the original. Took 15 minutes and I have a shrunk file of 7GB instead of 30.

[Romansh]

Yes, HandBrake doesn't support Dolby Atmos yet. But that's quite unrelated to the original poster's issue.

[Dazkine]

yeah but also PowerDVD doesnt like what MakeMKV is producing...

Dolby Digital Plus on Bluray contains a Dolby Digital 5.1 Stream + 4ch encoded in Dolby Digital Plus.

A non DD+ capable device uses the Dolby Digital Stream
A DD+ capable device uses the Dolby Digital 5.1 Stream, but replaces the 2 rear channels with the four channels encoded in Dolby Digital Plus. That makes a 7.1 Signal (3.1 from the DD Stream, and 4.0 from the DD+ Stream)

Dolby Digital+ can also exist alone (Television, Streaming, HD-DVD), but on Bluray its like I said.

I guess MakeMKV is just producing 2 independent Audiostreams, but that doesnt work for Blurays. The Bluray Player always needs the DD Signal + the DD+ "extension".

So it's a mix of 2 audiocodecs.

It more like DTS-HD cause there the HD extension also needs the "core"

When you play back the original disc PowerDVD is reporting "Dolby Digital Plus 7.1"

[Romansh]

FFmpeg (and libav) only support E-AC-3 "independent" substreams, and the 4.0 E-AC-3 stream in this case only contains a "dependent" substream (kind of like a DTS "extension" I guess).

It's a bit weird that MakeMKV produces a track with only the dependent substream, since this cannot be independently decoded, but TBH I have no clue as to whether you could realistically combine both tracks or not…