LPCM and MKV

[RedBadger]

I have a problem with most of the Blu-Ray Harry Potter movies. My media player is a Dune HD TV101.
I read messages from about a year ago with what sounds like the same problem. But I am not able to play any of the mkv files I created from all of the Harry Potter movies, except for the last movie (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) which works fine.

From what I read before, MakeMKV has problems with movies that use LPCM audio. Also from what I read it hasn't been fixed yet, unless I am wrong? Is there anything I can do to get the movies that I already ripped in lossless mkv format, to work?

I don't want to use something like Handbrake that takes forever to process a movie. ISO files do work fine though, but I prefer MKV.

[paulster]

The easiest solution currently is to use eac3to to extract the LPCM track, converting it to FLAC (still lossless) as it does so. Then you can use MKVtoolnix to mux this FLAC audio file back into the MKV in place of the LPCM track. It's a hassle but it works perfectly and isn't as difficult as it sounds.

It does take a little while but not nearly as long as something that's re-encoding the video for instance.

[RedBadger]

I discovered the videos would start playing if I just ripped the movie and left the LPCM audio track out of it. Its weird why it caused the whole video to not even start playing.

I suppose I could try what you mentioned, but its a lot of work that I shouldn't have to be doing. Plus I had trouble finding a free converter for LPCM to FLAC.

[RedBadger]

Does that eac3to do converting to FLAC? I wish it wasn't a DOS type program, I really hate that. It makes it more of a pain to use.

[paulster]

Yes, eac3to will convert to FLAC. You use it to extract the PCM track and it'll bring it out as a FLAC file. Then mkvmerge will allow you to add the FLAC file back into the MKV.

Both are free and pretty easy to use.

Hopefully this functionality will be built into MakeMKV soon as Mike has already committed to doing it.

[ryanjk333]

Can we get any confirmation from Mike himself about approximately how far off this LPCM to FLAC conversion is from being put right into MakeMKV? I hate to sound like a complainer, but with all the great things that MakeMKV can do, I find it hard to believe that it still can't somehow handle one of the main types of audio found on today's blu ray discs. Sure, it's not as popular as DTS-HD or TrueHD, but it is still found on quite a few blu rays out there. And yes, I understand the channel problems that occur when placing an LPCM audio track in an MKV file. But this lossless LPCM to FLAC conversion is basically the only feature I absolutely need MakeMKV to have before I buy it.

[joe42]

MakeMKV handles LPCM just fine. I have used it on several discs.

What you are asking for is a conversion from LPCM to FLAC, if I understand you correctly.

[paulster]

MakeMKV handles LPCM just fine. I have used it on several discs.

It does. Unfortunately most players can't handle the raw LPCM stream in an MKV container (for reasons unclear), hence the almost universal requirement to transcode to FLAC.

What you are asking for is a conversion from LPCM to FLAC, if I understand you correctly.

Yes, but unfortunately Mike has seemed to tie this in with also offering TrueHD and DTS-HD decoding to FLAC at the same time, making a reasonably simple feature request more of a complex undertaking.

[ryanjk333]

Yes, I was talking about the LPCM to FLAC conversion. MakeMKV handles putting LPCM in the MKV container just fine, but unfortunately very few players can actually play LPCM in an MKV file, hence the need for conversion to a more suitable format.

I guess I didn't realize that the developers were working on DTS-HD and TrueHD to FLAC conversion at the same time and that that was why it was taking so long. That's all really cool...it's just too bad that in the meantime there is nothing we can do about LPCM without other third party software. DTS-HD and TrueHD already work flawlessly in the MKV container.

It just seems like we should've had some solution for creating playable MKVs with LPCM tracks a long time ago...back around the time that DTS-HD and TrueHD were first supported...

I already have quite a few blu ray discs with LPCM that I would like to have MakeMKV convert...

[RedBadger]

Its possible my problem might be partly due to a bug in my Dune media player... I don't know. Dune ignores my questions, so I have no way of knowing. I thought it supported LPCM, at least according to Iboum.com it does.

[robpdotcom]

Does that eac3to do converting to FLAC? I wish it wasn't a DOS type program, I really hate that. It makes it more of a pain to use.

I use this: useac3to

Eac3to is probably the best for converting just about any type of audio, and with this gui you can just drag and drop the mkv.

[dpstjp]

Eac3to is probably the best for converting just about any type of audio, and with this gui you can just drag and drop the mkv.

Does this GUI downsample 24-bit PCM to 16-bit FLAC? I've tried Staxrip (which doesn't downsample) bit it's a bit of a pig to use, I think.

[robpdotcom]

Does this GUI downsample 24-bit PCM to 16-bit FLAC? I've tried Staxrip (which doesn't downsample) bit it's a bit of a pig to use, I think.

No. When possible, eac3to always does lossless conversions. I think it may be an option though.

[Romansh]

eac3to can downsample to 16-bit, but the default is to preserve the source's bit depth.

[paulster]

eac3to can downsample to 16-bit, but the default is to preserve the source's bit depth.

It will also intelligently reduce the bit-depth to 16-bit if the source is 24-bit but doesn't use the least-significant 8 bits. I've found this on quite a few ostensibly 24-bit LPCM tracks.