Feature Request: High Definition Audio for AC3 and DTS

[scorpion90]

I would like a future version of video converter to support high definition audio in both AC3 and DTS formats for blu-ray creation. The present DVD selection allows for this by choosing the automatic selection for audio which then copies the audio track as raw from the originating file. Many mkv files are in DTS audio format as well as DTS HD and AC3 HD. I would like to be able to keep the original audio track when creating blu-ray (1080p, 720p, 576p, 480p). Presently, video converter converts the originating audio to AC3 5.1 channel during blu-ray creation. I would like to see an automatic option for audio like as presently available for DVD creation. This would just copy the originating audio as raw preserving the higher quality of the audio. Video converter is a great piece of software that would be greatly enhanced by the addition of this audio option!

[cedric]

Hello scorpion90,

I added this feature for next Video converter version (will be published soon)...
To use it, just create a custom profile by selecting "Blu-ray video" as container, "H264" as video codec and "remux" as audio codec.
With this newly created profile:
If audio source stream is compatible with Blu-ray video, it will be "copied/remuxed" without any reencoding.
If not, the audio will be reencoded using default codec (AC3).

You will be able to do the same with MKV container too...

Regards,

[scorpion90]

Thank you for such a fast reply! That's great news.

Will there be container options for blu-ray in 1080p, 720p, 576p, and 420p? I assume there will be an option in the container to specify video resolution.

I am really looking forward to the next release with the enhancements. It's really great to have such support for the software enhancements.

Wishing you great success with the software.

A great piece of software!

Many thanks,

[cedric]

Video converter 1.2.0.9 is out...

I'm waiting for your feedback.

Regards,

PS: Yes, 1080p, 720p, 576p, and 420p resolutions are available for Blu-ray video custom profile.

[scorpion90]

I've downloaded the new version and am doing my first conversion with dts audio at 1080p.

A question;
When setting up the new profile, the framerate defaults to 25. Most of the videos I have are at 23.98 which I assume is the 24 value in the selection box. What is 24000/1001 (25000/1001 or 30000/1001) ? Is that what I should be using for 23.98 frame rates (same for 25 and 30)??

Thanks for making the new version available so quickly.

I've created profiles for each of the blu-ray video resolutions along with audio remux.

I'll let you know the results as soon as the conversion and burn are done and I play on my theater system.

By the way, support for hardware acceleration is working great on my pc with Nvidia Geoforce GT645 video card. Getting upwards of 95 fps.

Thanks, it's looking good!

[scorpion90]

Well I did my first conversion with a high quality mkv with dts 5.1.

The good news is that the dts 5.1 was kept in the output stream, so great.

The bad news is that the video was resized to a 4:3 aspect ratio when the original was 1920x1080. I had specified 16:9 in the output profile with 1920x1080 video resolution. On the edit screen I chose a resize of letterbox since that is what I used in ConvertXtoDVD with good results in keeping the original film aspect ratio. The general settings for video resize were also set to letterbox. This apparently doesn't work the same as ConvertXtoDVD. I will try to reconvert with both general settings and editor settings to automatic. The preview of the output looks correct.

I did notice that each successive time I went into the editor that it allowed me to increase the video bitrate to a higher level than the max value from the previous edit. This happened three times until I maxed out at 14,500.

I also encountered the situation where the optical drive burn speed is not being carried over from the general settings value. This seems to occurred on my second optical drive which is my blu-ray drive. When the burn requester comes up, I have to catch it to reduce the speed to what I set in general settings.When burning dvd's in my first optical drive which is just a dvd burner, it seems to honor the value set in general settings. Is this a bug?

[scorpion90]

I converted an mkv container that had DTS HD MA 7.1 audio tracks using my remux profile that was set;
Audio codec: Copied if possible, otherwise encoded
Audio channels: Same as source
Audio bitrate: 160 Kbit/s
Audio sample rate: Same as source

The audio track on the editor page was identified as "dts main audio 5.1 ch., 48000 Hz, 1536 Kps"
When mousing over the track it indicated;
Selected for conversion: Yes
Selected for preview: Yes

When playing the converted blu-ray disk it was in fact converted from 7.1 ch to 5.1 ch at 48000 Hz. It sounded good.

Out of interest, I loaded the file into tsMuxeR to see what it reported about the audio track;
Bitrate: 1536Kps core + MLP data. Sample rate 48KHz Channels: 7.1 (DTS Master Audio 24 bit)

The software is not yet capable of doing channels above 5.1 or master audio.

Hope this helps for further development of the program.

[cedric]

I updated the bluray remux profile in custom profile to fix your aspect ratio issue:
I splitted codec into separate sections (anamorphic like 480p and 576p and without aspect ratio like 720p and 1080p)

I will check your 7.1 issue on next week...


Have a nice week end!

Regards,

[scorpion90]

Thank you for the quick followup. I will update to v1.2.0.10b and start using it and report back. The dts is sounding great and I really appreciate looking into expanding the channel capability to 7.1. My home theater set up is 7.1 so this is an important upgrade to me.

The program just keeps getting better and better. Keep up the excellent work!

Have a good weekend.

[scorpion90]

So I've done a couple of conversions and the video settings that I used with ConvertXtoDVD (letterbox to preserve video content) seem to be working now in video converter. I can set my preferred conversion video resize fit method to letterbox on the general settings panel and it carries through to the edit screen for the video. Good improvement.
I am still able to get dts 5.1 in the audio stream. Hoping for 7.1 capability.

Something has changed on the main screen "Estimated converted size (maximum): xxxxx.xMB". It is not updating the compilation size when more than one video is in the compilation. I was able to assemble and convert a 10 video compilation that was 54Gb in size when a BD-25 disk (23Gb) size was defined. I didn't realize it was that large since the compilation size was not correct on the main screen. The individual video file size is being updated on the edit screen but doesn't carry over to the compilation size on the main screen. The main screen compilation size is apparently showing the file size of first video in the compilation and does not change when the other video files in the compilation are clicked on, even though they have a different size. The main screen compilation size isn't adding up all of the video file sizes in the compilation. I hope I've described this accurately enough for you to understand and take a look at. If not, let me know and I will try to add more detail.

[JJ]

I am still able to get dts 5.1 in the audio stream. Hoping for 7.1 capability.

This is not so simple on DVD, these are accepted formats:

PCM: 48 kHz or 96 kHz sampling rate, 16 bit or 24 bit Linear PCM, 2 to 6 channels, up to 6,144 kbit/s. N.B. 16-bit 48 kHz 8 channel PCM is allowed by the DVD-Video specification but is not well-supported by authoring applications or players.
AC-3: 48 kHz sampling rate, 1 to 5.1 (6) channels, up to 448 kbit/s
DTS: 48 kHz or 96 kHz sampling rate, 2 to 6.1 channels, up to 768 kbit/s for Half Rate, up to 1,536 kbit/s for Full Rate
MP2: 48 kHz sampling rate, 1 to 7.1 channels, up to 912 kbit/s

As you can see, there is no DTS 7.1 allowed, only with MP2.

[Copnm]

Hello JJ,

I'm pretty sure he meant his MKV file is from a Blu-ray source, as DTS-MA is only supported on Blu-ray. It supports up to 7.1 channels. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTS-HD_Master_Audio

Thanks for reading,
Neil M

[scorpion90]

Just for clarification, this thread is for improving blu-ray creation (or MKV creation) with high definition audio (AC3 and DTS) in multi channel environments.
DTS HD Master Audio in 5.1, 6.1, and 7.1 channels
Dolby True HD Audio in 5.1, and 7.1 channels

This will allow high definition audio along with excellent high definition video.

Cedric has been kind enough to address this improvement in the VSO Video Converter software for blu-ray authoring. A great program constantly getting better.

Tony S

[scorpion90]

Just downloaded and installed v1.2.0.11b. Lots of interesting changes in the options for custom container creation. I see a "remux" option has been added along with unique h.264 codec video resolution settings and frame rate. Looking forward to creating some blu-ray (and mkv) creations with the new options and will report back on results. Looks like a nice upgrade.

[cedric]

Hello scorpion90,

Please take a look there:

http://forums.vso-software.fr/post89095.html#p89095

Regards,

[scorpion90]

Thanks Cedric, I printed out your post and read it several times and then edited my custom HD profiles.

I attempted two conversions with all options set to remux. The process began and stalled each time at 74.2% conversion. Any idea why?
The original mvk file was a little over 30Gb. I thought maybe remuxing the video stream might have been to large for the target BD-25 disk. But I checked the output folder size when it stalled at 74.2% and it was unexpectedly very small so I don't think it was a size problem. I did a third attempt with a smaller file of 16Gb and the conversion went to 100% and stopped. I let the application sit for over 5 minutes with no activity. I checked the output file and it was very small. I couldn't kill the application so I had to use task manager to end it.

I then unchecked the video remux option and kept the remux for audio and subtitles. The conversion process completed with no problem. Here is a snapshot of the conversion log.
[attachment=0]Clip.jpg[/attachment]
The video bitrate was set to 14,500Kb/s on the edit panel and saved, but I noticed in the log that it indicates 12,500Kb/s for the conversion. Why the difference?

It appears to me that the DTS HD MA 7.1 audio stream is being encoded to DTS core 5.1 (original at Bitrate: 1536Kbps core + MLP data. Sample Rate: 48KHz Channels: 7.1 (DTS Master Audio 24bit))
I am hoping that eventually the DTS HD MA audio extension will be supported in 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 channels. I suppose I shouldn't leave out a request for AC3 HD in 5.1 and 6.1 channels also.

I accidentally started one conversion without my NVidia hardware option checked. The conversion process was slow at about 23 frames per second and taking over 2hrs 30min. I stopped the process and checked the options for hardware utilization. The conversion process took only 50mins at 76 frames per second. Here is a clip showing the gpu utilization. Big difference.
[attachment=1]Clip2.jpg[/attachment]

Thanks for all the support and consideration for increasing the audio capabilities. If you need additional info, just let me know.

[scorpion90]

I've had a mixed bag of success with v1.2.0.12b update.
I was successful in creating mkv files from blu-ray structure with remux for all options. It converted DTS HD 7.1 to DTS core 5.1 and remux the video as is. It created a very nice container. I had to "learn" that when the processing indicated 100% completion that it was just the completion of stage 1, and that stage 2 was the "building" of the output file. I could monitor the process by viewing the output file along with the large remuxcache file.

I had difficulty going the other direction in creating blu-ray structure from an mkv file. I thought at first it was a problem remuxing DTS HD 7.1, but I had difficulty with a DTS 5.1 file also. The remuxing goes extremely fast, sometimes 750-1000 frames per second. Once processing is 100% complete, the conversion makes very little progress unlike mkv creation. One file conversion resulted in a 0 byte remuxcache file, while another conversion had a large remuxcache file but very little conversion progress in an hour.

[cedric]

Hello scorpion90,

Do you selected a Blu-ray menu template for your test?
If yes, can you try by selecting "no menu"?

Can you post your log file of your Blu-ray remux test?

Thanks,

[scorpion90]

Hi Cedric,

I am going to retry today and will post my logs to this message when done.

I attempted to create three blu-ray remux disk structures with v1.2.0.12b software using three different mkv files. Here are my results;

The first file was a 21.3Gb file with DTS HD 7.1 audio. It first refused to use hardware acceleration, then when told to convert without hardware acceleration failed to start conversion putting up a requester saying there was a problem. I repeated this operation twice with the same result.
Attached is log file 1 for that attempt.
[attachment=3]Log 1.VSO Video Converter 1_mainlog_.20140415.144947.494.log[/attachment]

The second mkv file was a 16.2Gb file with DTS HD 5.1 audio. This file completed remuxing (no menu) to 100% fairly fast, but the second stage to create the blu-ray disk structure took nearly four hours and produced an output folder size of only 1.11Gb for the movie (video converter estimated the output size to be 14.44Gb!).
Attached for that attempt is log file 2.
[attachment=3]Log 1.VSO Video Converter 1_mainlog_.20140415.144947.494.log[/attachment]

The third mkv file was 30.6Gb in size and contained DTS HD 7.1 audio. The file completed remuxing (no menu) to 100% fairly fast (about 10 minutes or so). That conversion created a muxcache file of 24.9Gb, close to what the program had estimated of 26.12Gb. (What does the program do when the remux size is larger than the chosen disk size of 23Gb ?). When I attempted to view the log file while the second stage of the conversion was underway, a panel poped up saying there was insufficient memory. I couldn't cancel out of that panel and had to use task manager to end the application. The second attempt once again produced a muxcache file of 24.9Gb. After 2hrs35mins it had created an m2ts file of 288Mb of the 24.9Gb muxcache, really slow. After 4hrs15mins I stopped the conversion with an output file size of 576Mb of the 24.9Gb muxcache.
Log file 3 is attached for the details.
[attachment=1]Log 3.VSO Video Converter 1_crashlog_.20140415.192201.593.log[/attachment]

I should mention that my preferences are set to use all 8 CPU cores for encoding/decoding, 1,000Mb minimum free memory (max), 20Mb Muxer buffer size (max), and Process Priority of Higher. All hardware optimizations checked. Looking at my performance monitor, the program is only using 11%-13% CPU usage. This is a great program and I am excited to work with you to make it even better. I still use ConvertXtoDVD and realize the effort required to bring that program to maturity and to keep it evergreen. If I can add any additional information, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Please continue to think about adding support for HD and 6.1, 7.1 channel audio (although the present DTS core 5.1, 48 Hz, 1536 Kbps sounds really good). Preference would be to add more channels since HD lossless might consume more disk space than is currently feasible while keeping high quality video on a single layer bd.

Thanks for all the support,

Yesterday I tried to create a blu-ray disk using my custom profile with remux on all three tabs. The source mkv file was a high quality one with AC3 5.1 audio. The processing was somewhat slower than my previous attempts but that was due to the encoding from 25 fps to 23.98 fps. The output was of the correct size but when I went to play it there was no audio. The log indicated that the audio was encoded from AC3 5.1 to DTS 5.1 even though the remux audio option was checked. I expected the audio to just be copied and not encoded to DTS.
Log file 4 for the conversion is attached.
[attachment=0]Log 4.VSO Video Converter 1_mainlog_.20140416.224258.502.log[/attachment]

Thanks,

[scorpion90]

It turns out that listening to all of the above conversions using remux profiles, all of the audio has problems...from completely missing to crackling sounds.

Something has changed....

I will install v14 and retry.

Regards,