Remux EVO to MKV with DD audio

[stanger89]

This was asked a bit earlier, and I've only done it once but it worked so far. The question was how to remux an EVO into an HD100 friendly format, that format is MKV with native video an DD audio. It's kind of a pain (quite a few steps).

First you'll need a few things:

• EVO file(s)
• EVODemux
• VC12AVI
• ffmpeg with EAC-3 support
• MKVToolnix
• a good bit of temporary HDD space

First thing you'll need to do is open your EVO file with EVODemux (make sure the "Continue with the next EVO" option is selected). Next Select the Audio/Video substream you want (make a note of the audio substream, but you don't need to , output folder, and adjust the extensions as you see fit. Then select Rebuild and wait. You need to do this so there's just one file.

Now you have to reopen the rebuilt EVO in EVODemux and select just the video stream and select demux.

The video stream will most likely be VC1, in which case you'll need to convert it to a format MKVToolnix will understand, to do that open the VC1 video stream in VC12AVI, and allow it to mux it into an AVI stream.

Perhaps while it's doing that go to a command line and browse to your EVO file. Next step is to run ffmpeg on the EVO file to create the DD audio track. Use the following command:
[CODE]ffmpeg.exe -i input.evo -vn -acodec ac3 -ab 640k -ac 6 -y audio.ac3[/QUOTE]
If you've got more than one audio track for some reason, insert "-map 0:x" (where x is the track number) as the first parameter.

Now you should have an AVI file with the video and an AC3 file with the audio. You need one more thing before you mux them, create a "timecode file" (I called mine timecode24.txt) with the following text:

# timecode format v1
Assume 23.9760

So with those three files (avi, ac3, timecode), open up MKVMergeGUI and add the Video then Audio file. After that select the video file and then enter the timecodes file you created in the Timecodes: box, and then hit Start Muxing.

When that finishes, whala! You should now have an MKV file complete with untouched video and extender friendly DD audio.

[bialio]

The HD100 supports FLAC - assuming the EVO has some kind of lossless audio track (TrueHD for instance), would that work in an MKV file?

Extender friendly untouched video is awesome - - Extender friendly untouched video and audio would be uber-awesome.

btl.

[stanger89]

I can't remember if I asked about FLAC in MKV or not, but it doesn't hurt to try.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by bialio

The HD100 supports FLAC - assuming the EVO has some kind of lossless audio track (TrueHD for instance), would that work in an MKV file?

Extender friendly untouched video is awesome - - Extender friendly untouched video and audio would be uber-awesome.

btl.

I don't think the HD extender can output HD LPCM out it's HDMI port. I don't think it's hardware supports it, though without 100% confirmation of the chipset used, I can't be completely positive. Only the special BR enabled Sigma chipset has that capability as far as I know.

[korben_dallas]

Originally Posted by stanger89

I can't remember if I asked about FLAC in MKV or not, but it doesn't hurt to try.

So does the VC1 get transcoded, or is it full bitrate?

[Deacon Crusher]

anyone got a similar step by step for mt2s files?

thanks

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by mikesm

I don't think the HD extender can output HD LPCM out it's HDMI port. I don't think it's hardware supports it, though without 100% confirmation of the chipset used, I can't be completely positive. Only the special BR enabled Sigma chipset has that capability as far as I know.

LPCM over HDMI is nothing special, that's been in the spec since at least 1.1. Whether the extender can do it or not, I don't know (nor do I have a way to test) but I'd be surprised if the hardware can't handle it.

Originally Posted by korben_dallas

So does the VC1 get transcoded, or is it full bitrate?

Nope no transcoding (transcoding 1080p VC1 would crush the server).

Originally Posted by Deacon Crusher

anyone got a similar step by step for mt2s files?

thanks

Someone (on AVS Forum I think) said it supports m2ts as is. And I guess since the cat was let out of the bag in that same AVSForum post, EVO support is planned as well, but I don't know when, nor do I know if/how they plan on handling DD+ audio or DTHD.

[bialio]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Someone (on AVS Forum I think) said it supports m2ts as is. And I guess since the cat was let out of the bag in that same AVSForum post, EVO support is planned as well, but I don't know when, nor do I know if/how they plan on handling DD+ audio or DTHD.

I tried a m2ts file last night and didn't have very good results. The image was super pixelated and choppy. The video was encoded in H.264AVC, and the audio in DD. I don't know if the extender actually supports AVC. I see H264 in the list of supported formats, but I can't keep up with all the variants of 264.......

btl.

[stanger89]

It does, but if it's an 862x, it only supports AVC up to 25Mbps and I think many BDs are above that.

[bialio]

So my next try was a mpeg2 BD - video worked fine, but the extender crapped out on the audio (which is theoretically 5.1 AC3 at 640Kbps) - anytime the soundtrack was more than just ambiance noise, it cut in and out real bad.

Also not that sage doesn't recognize files with .m2ts extension. I had to remux .m2ts files into .ts files. That could be some of the issue.....

btl.

edit : maybe the bitrate on the audio is too high?

edit 2 : that can't be it - the steps above for MKV have a 640K bitrate on the audio track.......

[bialio]

Originally Posted by stanger89

It does, but if it's an 862x, it only supports AVC up to 25Mbps and I think many BDs are above that.

Assuming it's an 862x, those chips seem to support VC-1 in both MP@HL and HP@L4 - which if wikipedia is to be trusted means any VC-1 out there the HD100 can handle, since those are the highest levels of their respective profiles......

Am I reading that right?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by bialio

So my next try was a mpeg2 BD - video worked fine, but the extender crapped out on the audio (which is theoretically 5.1 AC3 at 640Kbps) - anytime the soundtrack was more than just ambiance noise, it cut in and out real bad.

Also not that sage doesn't recognize files with .m2ts extension. I had to remux .m2ts files into .ts files. That could be some of the issue.....

Did you add m2ts to the import extensions list?

Originally Posted by bialio

Assuming it's an 862x, those chips seem to support VC-1 in both MP@HL and HP@L4 - which if wikipedia is to be trusted means any VC-1 out there the HD100 can handle, since those are the highest levels of their respective profiles......

The 863x added support for L4.1, which is AVC up to 50Mbps, 'for HD DVD and Blu-ray applications'. But SageTV has a 30+Mbps AVC file so we'll see...

[bialio]

Originally Posted by stanger89

The video stream will most likely be VC1, in which case you'll need to convert it to a format MKVToolnix will understand, to do that open the VC1 video stream in VC12AVI, and allow it to mux it into an AVI stream.

After doing this step, I end up with a handful of .avi files (about 2 GB each) instead of just one. Is that normal?

[stanger89]

I actually haven't tried it on anything that big, but I wouldn't think it was normal.

[bialio]

So to follow up, I have a pair of EVO files that contain a single movie - VC1 video and EAC3 audio. I've been playing around with the various tools mentioned on this thread and on others, trying to get a file with the original video and AC3 audio working on the HD extender in a MKV package. So far no luck.

The main issues I'm seeing is jerky audio playback. The version of ffmpeg I'm using just doesn't seem to do a good job converting from EAC3 to AC3.

While I'm at work today I have my machine at home just pulling the VC1 video into an MKV. If the playback on that is smooth, it will point to an audio codec issue. If that's the case then I will try some other tools to transcode from EAC3 to AC3......

With HD-DVD seeming to be on the verge of keeling over, I think it'd be nice to have backups of the few HD-DVD discs that I own, so that I can just have BD players where necessary. If this can work in Sage that sure would be sweet..... But no candy yet.

btl.

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by bialio

So my next try was a mpeg2 BD - video worked fine, but the extender crapped out on the audio (which is theoretically 5.1 AC3 at 640Kbps) - anytime the soundtrack was more than just ambiance noise, it cut in and out real bad.

Also not that sage doesn't recognize files with .m2ts extension. I had to remux .m2ts files into .ts files. That could be some of the issue.....

btl.

edit : maybe the bitrate on the audio is too high?

edit 2 : that can't be it - the steps above for MKV have a 640K bitrate on the audio track.......

I think you're right on with your edits. AFAIK AC3 can't go any higher than 448Kb/s.

[stanger89]

AC3 can be 640k.

[bialio]

But can the HD extender handle AC3@640k?

[Taddeusz]

Originally Posted by stanger89

AC3 can be 640k.

IC, reading the wikipedia page Blu-ray supports AC3 up to 640K, HD-DVD 504K.

Standard DVD however is 448K max.

I would surmise that the HD Extender adheres to the DVD standard and only supports up to 448K max.

[stanger89]

Suppose its worth a try, but I really don't see why the Extender would be unable to pass 640k DD when it can pass 1.5Mbps DTS perfectly.