HD-DVD to .mkv

[Skirge01]

I may own the HD-DVDs, but I worry about whether I'll be able to play them back in the long term. Most PC software has already dropped support for that format. A pristine original doesn't mean much if nothing supports playing it back.

[Skirge01]

I've been doing a lot of muxing during the past week and have found out several things:

1. Extracting the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) or HR (High Resolution) track and muxing it into an MKV gets me Dolby Digital during playback.
2. Extracting both the DTS-HD MA/HR and the core track and muxing both of them into an MKV gets me DTS during playback. However, I also noticed #3...
3. If I set the default/preferred flag of the DTS-HD MA/HR track to YES, I get DD. If I set it to NO or DEFAULT, I get DTS.
4. After the MKV is muxed, I haven't been able to find a program that will tell me what those flags are set at, so I've had to include the flag settings in the filenames. I'm currently using MediaInfo to see what's in my MKVs. Any other suggestions?

If anyone can explain why the above is happening, I'd love to hear it. Let's steer clear of a debate over DD vs DTS vs DTS-HD. I'm just trying to get educated on why things are happening like I've described, so I understand what's really going on behind the scenes.

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I've been doing a lot of muxing during the past week and have found out several things:

1. Extracting the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) or HR (High Resolution) track and muxing it into an MKV gets me Dolby Digital during playback.
2. Extracting both the DTS-HD MA/HR and the core track and muxing both of them into an MKV gets me DTS during playback. However, I also noticed #3...
3. If I set the default/preferred flag of the DTS-HD MA/HR track to YES, I get DD. If I set it to NO or DEFAULT, I get DTS.

what is your playback sw? this sounds like you have a filter like AC3Filter (configured in a less than ideal way) inserting itself in the graph to do real time ac3 encoding.

I use graphstudio these sorts of tests to ensure that I know what joining the graph.

Describing your environment and the filters you have installed would help too (assuming from your sig that your trying to output LPCM over HDMI).

Originally Posted by Skirge01

4. After the MKV is muxed, I haven't been able to find a program that will tell me what those flags are set at, so I've had to include the flag settings in the filenames. I'm currently using MediaInfo to see what's in my MKVs. Any other suggestions?

have you tried mkvinfo?

Originally Posted by Skirge01

If anyone can explain why the above is happening, I'd love to hear it. Let's steer clear of a debate over DD vs DTS vs DTS-HD.

can I make another plug for using FLAC

[Skirge01]

Originally Posted by babgvant

what is your playback sw? this sounds like you have a filter like AC3Filter (configured in a less than ideal way) inserting itself in the graph to do real time ac3 encoding.

You are correct. I do have AC3filter in the middle of this. I set that up a long time ago to get DD working with the HD-PVR recordings. Based on your response, I'm guessing that I should disable AC3 for DTS?

Originally Posted by babgvant

I use graphstudio these sorts of tests to ensure that I know what joining the graph.

I've been using graphedit for a while now, but wasn't aware of the studio version. I tried running the file and I'm getting a message that xmllite.dll is missing. I'll have to do some checking to figure out what's causing this and where to get that dll.

Originally Posted by babgvant

Describing your environment and the filters you have installed would help too (assuming from your sig that your trying to output LPCM over HDMI).

Sad to say that I'm still using SPDIF. My receiver only has a single HDMI output and zero HDMI inputs. I have AC3filter, Haali, DirectVobsub, and ffdshow. I think that's about it, but there's probably a few remnants from previous install/uninstalls.

Originally Posted by babgvant

have you tried mkvinfo?

Interesting. I've had that all this time and never tried it. Not exactly a pretty GUI, but it does give the info I'm looking for. Thanks!

Originally Posted by babgvant

can I make another plug for using FLAC

LOL! I believe you just did. I don't see me going to it, but out of pure curiosity, if I encode to FLAC, would I be able to put it back into DTS-HD if I ever wanted to burn the movie?

[babgvant]

Originally Posted by Skirge01

You are correct. I do have AC3filter in the middle of this. I set that up a long time ago to get DD working with the HD-PVR recordings. Based on your response, I'm guessing that I should disable AC3 for DTS?

ac3filter works great for dts you just need to make sure that it's not configured to accept PCM and that DTS and AC3 passthrough (SPDIF tab).

Originally Posted by Skirge01

I've been using graphedit for a while now, but wasn't aware of the studio version. I tried running the file and I'm getting a message that xmllite.dll is missing. I'll have to do some checking to figure out what's causing this and where to get that dll.

graphedt works too, just not as full featured

Originally Posted by Skirge01

Sad to say that I'm still using SPDIF. My receiver only has a single HDMI output and zero HDMI inputs. I have AC3filter, Haali, DirectVobsub, and ffdshow. I think that's about it, but there's probably a few remnants from previous install/uninstalls.

if it's not installed/configured properly ffdshow is another filter that can cause trouble, since your not using HDMI ffdshow may be redundant w/ ac3filter installed. ffdshow can decode FLAC and accept dolby/dts lossless formats (not sure it the decoding is actually lossless or if just the core is handled) so if you need that then it's the way to go.

Originally Posted by Skirge01

LOL! I believe you just did. I don't see me going to it, but out of pure curiosity, if I encode to FLAC, would I be able to put it back into DTS-HD if I ever wanted to burn the movie?

dts-hd will be hard, i don't think the OSS dts libs are currently bit perfect; you might be able to do a lossless dolby variant though.

that said, since you're not using HDMI FLAC isn't really the right choice for your environment. you could do it using ac3filter by configuring it to accept PCM and encode to ac3, but the merit would have to be pretty high to force itself into the graph and it would also effect other media types that output to PCM (like mp3).