Dolby True HD Sound in Combination with WD Live TV

[t1mex]

Hello everyone,
my Name is Tim. i am from Germany and i found allready some Informations in this Forum. My Problem, my english is not very good and my appreciation for technical details also.
Is it possible to create a Blue-Ray MKV with Dolby True HD Sound and can i if it's possible can i hear this True HD Sound with my WD LiveTV ?

Thank you and best regards,
Tim

[NodNarb012]

MakeMKV will allow you to create a MKV file with Dolby TrueHD audio if the original Blu-ray had Dolby TrueHD audio, just make sure to check the checkbox for the TrueHD track.

The WDTV Live players do not decode Dolby TrueHD, they can only pass-thru the track to an audio receiver capable of decoding Dolby TrueHD. If you're connecting you're WDTV Live player directly to your television, it probably won't work since very few (if any) televisions can decide Dolby TrueHD. If that's the case, you'll have to enable expert mode in MakeMKV (it's a setting in MakeMKV's preferences) and choose the FLAC profile when you create the MKV. That will encode the Dolby TrueHD audio track as FLAC, which the WDTV Live player can decode; it's lossless so it should sound identical to the original TrueHD track.

I hope that all makes sense.

[Chetwood]

Actually, the WDTV downmixes TrueHD so you can watch on any TV without an audio receiver.

[NodNarb012]

Hmm, maybe it depends on which WDTV model you have. I'm pretty confident that some of the older units did not decode TrueHD; it was the reason why I started ripping my collection using a combination of the FLAC and WDTV profiles.

I did confirm that my latest gen model does indeed decode and down mix TrueHD.

[Chetwood]

All Live models do and I'm almost sure the original WDTV (gen 2) did too. Have sold mine though so I cannot verify this.

[Romansh]

All Live models do and I'm almost sure the original WDTV (gen 2) did too. Have sold mine though so I cannot verify this.

Nope, only the new/black Live can decode TrueHD (downmixed to Stereo, however). Older units cannot decode it at all.

[Chetwood]

Yeah, I confused between AAC and TrueHD. AAC works on older models, TrueHD only on the current SMP.

[eserim]

OK - similar question, so I thought posting hear as it is related.

I have a WDTV Live and a old Sony DVD player that seems to cope when I rip in MakeMKV + Handbrake, using the tueHD stream then using autopassthrough in Handbrake (so the audio should be as the original) I think the DVD player switches to DTS mode (I thought this was different to trueHD)

Anyway, my question is - Is there any actual benefit in doing so? Or would I get the same perceived sound (on a old, player and never cranking volume up) as the DTS 3/2+1 compressed stream?

Cheers

Eserim

[Romansh]

HandBrake cannot pass TrueHD through - if your source track is TrueHD and you use Auto Passthru, the fallback audio encoder will be used.

[eserim]

Cheers - so there isn't much point in taking the trueHD stream in MakeMKV then I guess - which is sort of the default.

Cheers

Eserim

[Romansh]

It depends on what your preferred fallback encoder is. That is, is your fallback format is AC-3, you might as well use that in MakeMKV and use AC-3 Passthru in HandBrake. If you prefer re-encoding to AAC instead, then you should start with the best possible source - the TrueHD track.