DTS Multi to FLAC does not work

[ctbarker32]

Hi,

I have tried this and searched here on the forums and MakeMKV does not output FLAC from a DTS multi (not HD) stream? I get two channel output from LPCM to FLAC to work but not DTS.

Please explain?

I am excited about this feature because I use Roon with an HDMI connection from my Roon Core NUC so I am eager to rip my Steve Wilson multi-channel 5.1 mixes to my Roon Server.

[Woodstock]

Did you select the FLAC profile for ripping? The conversions are not available with the standard, default profile.

[morbius]

I've previously reported that the standard FLAC profile does not have an entry for regular DTS. Not seen an acknowledgement of that however.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22449&p=91600#p91600

I got around this by creating my own profile file, adding in this missing entry

Code: Select all

 <trackSettings input="DTS-multi">
        <output outputSettingsName="flac-fast"
                defaultSelection="$app_DefaultSelectionString,+sel:true">
        </output>
    </trackSettings>

[ctbarker32]

I am not familiar with how to implement profiles? Is there a link to documentation? Why do I have to do this to get this to work?

Thanks.

[Woodstock]

Profiles are part of "Expert mode", enabled in Preferences->General, by checking "Expert mode". That will activate a new Preferences tab that lets you change the default profile, and the main screen will have a number of pull-downs added to it.

More information can be found in Changing names with Expert mode enabled.

Creating/editing your own profiles, as mentioned by morbius above, is a bit more esoteric that just selecting an existing one. You first have to have access to a good text editor that understands UTF-8 character sets, and having an XML checker included is helpful, too.

Perhaps a better idea is to use a tool like handbrake to convert the audio after ripping, as part of compressing the video. There is also ffmpeg that can convert a lot more audio sources to more compatible codecs, without touching the video.

[ctbarker32]

Profiles are part of "Expert mode", enabled in Preferences->General, by checking "Expert mode". That will activate a new Preferences tab that lets you change the default profile, and the main screen will have a number of pull-downs added to it.

More information can be found in Changing names with Expert mode enabled.

Creating/editing your own profiles, as mentioned by morbius above, is a bit more esoteric that just selecting an existing one. You first have to have access to a good text editor that understands UTF-8 character sets, and having an XML checker included is helpful, too.

Perhaps a better idea is to use a tool like handbrake to convert the audio after ripping, as part of compressing the video. There is also ffmpeg that can convert a lot more audio sources to more compatible codecs, without touching the video.

Oklay thanks. I think I will look into this at a later time.

For DTS multi channel audio, I currently have to do the following.

1. Rip DTS audio stream to MKV with MakeMKV.
2. MakeMKV doesn't split this DTS stream by chapter but puts audio in one continuous stream in the last chapter.
3. So I have to open the MKV into Audacity and find the exact time position of each track and edit/create a CUE sheet for the MKV file for all the tracks.
4. I then load the CUE/MKV files into Foobar2000 which now has the correct track markers.
5. I then export/convert the MKV file using Foobar200 to individual FLAC files.
6. I then tag the FLAC files with MP3Tag.

This takes considerable time.

I am still unclear why MakeMKV cannot by default export DTS audio to FLAC?

[morbius]

you are providing more information now about what you are tryng to do. It sounds like you might be more comfortable with GUI-based tools rather than using an ffmpeg script on the command line. So here's one way to go about what I think you are trying to achieve.

Rip your source to an mkv file, with the preferred audio track. Open your mkv in mkvtoolnix, de-select the video, and keep the audio and chapters. On the output tab, select "before chapters" on split mode, and type in "all" in the chapter numbers field. Click on "start multiplexing" and you will get separate .mka files for each chapter. You could then bulk load these into gMKVExtractGUI and it's very easy to figure out how to convert the whole batch into multi-channel WAV files. Possibly you can batch process in Audacity as well, I know it can open DTS .mka files if the ffmpeg plug-in is also installed, but I've never used it for batch processing. I have used the MKVToolNix/gMKVExtract combination for a number of concert blu-rays or films with additional isolated score tracks. The post-processing after the MakeMKV stage is very quick once you get the hang of it. Once you've got your individual multi-channel WAV's, you can convert to FLAC using a tool of your choice (mine is dBpoweramp), and then tag.