HD to mkv .....the options are endless!!!!

[JiffOrange]

I tend to agree with jong1. If there are delays detected, eac3to asks that you repeat the last command line so that the delays can be applied. At least this seems to be the case when working with Blu-ray rips. Not sure about HD-DVDs.

I have ripped about 30 BD titles so far, and none of them have lipsync issues, and I have never manually applied delays in MKVMerge. I too am using 2.46 and convert the lossless soundtrack to FLAC.

You are correct I just don't tend to repeat ....started working with eac3to long before that was even an idea and I guess I'm just stuck in my ways. Either or should work just fine, I have never had a problem with either blu or HD DVD. But maby I should look into it after all their usually is a reason for these things. Thanks for the heads up guys.
Cheers,
Jiff.

[jong1]

Originally Posted by JiffOrange

eac3to doesn't correct for the delay (unless mashdi added it recently ... I'm using v 2.46), I know that TsMuxer does do this but as far as I'm aware this has not been changed in eac3to, hence the reason for its inclusion in the log file. Encoding to flac preserves the origional stream specs. This can be changed if you instruct eac3to do it but is not often implimented (I don't usually do it and as such don't reflect it in my guides).
Cheers,
Jiff.

Yes it does and it says so in the log.

Take this as an example:

[v03] Extracting video track number 3...
[a10] Extracting audio track number 10...
[v03] Muxing video to Matroska...
[a05] Extracting audio track number 5...
[a05] Removing dialog normalization...
[a05] Remapping channels...
Loading white noise (needed for dithering)...
[a05] Applying RAW/PCM delay...
[a05] Encoding FLAC...
[a10] Removing dialog normalization...
[a10] Applying RAW/PCM delay...
[a10] Encoding AC3...

And here Madshi says it (even if he accepts that at that time there were rare bugs when delays did not seem to work out right):

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.ph...ht=delay+audio

If you still have doubts one of us should ask Madshi direct in the Doom9 thread. Do we need to? Do you want to do it or should I?

Originally Posted by pclausen

I tend to agree with jong1. If there are delays detected, eac3to asks that you repeat the last command line so that the delays can be applied. At least this seems to be the case when working with Blu-ray rips. Not sure about HD-DVDs.

I have ripped about 30 BD titles so far, and none of them have lipsync issues, and I have never manually applied delays in MKVMerge. I too am using 2.46 and convert the lossless soundtrack to FLAC.

Standard audio delays are applied without even the need to re-run the command. You will be asked to rerun the command when audio sync is affected by muxing together seamless branching titles.

[JiffOrange]

And here Madshi says it (even if he accepts that at that time there were rare bugs when delays did not seem to work out right):

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.ph...ht=delay+audio

If you still have doubts one of us should ask Madshi direct in the Doom9 thread. Do we need to? Do you want to do it or should I?

Fair comment, thanks for the link I was just trying to find that out myself. Its been a while since I've done any blu (a few eac3to versions) so that will be very usefull in future...trying to get all my HD DVDs backed up in case my xbox drive dies . It might be good to ask about HD-DVD though. I have done some recently and added delay in mkvmerge to get perfect audio so not so sure about that one. I'll let you do it cos I've got loads of work on at the mo. Will be interesting to hear what he says because his post suggests its all file output not just blu. But who knows.
Cheers,
Jiff.

[jong1]

I'm sure it does it for HD-DVD too. That log I posted was an HD-DVD rip. If you notice the post Madshi was replying to above was specifically a question on HD-DVD (the movie was a .evo) I will check with madshi though.

With the exception of seamless branching errors on Blu-ray (where they can accumulate on each branch and lead to serious problems) the figures are typically very small, so it is quite possible that you wont notice whether you "double apply" the correction or not.

[JiffOrange]

With the exception of seamless branching errors on Blu-ray (where they can accumulate on each branch and lead to serious problems) the figures are typically very small, so it is quite possible that you wont notice whether you "double apply" the correction or not.

Now that you come to mention it I was watching Transformers the other night and I thought that I did detect a small sync problem (think it was +84 ms for the origional track) but couldn't be sure so just dismissed it. I have been at the mercey of the accumulation effect with seemless blu.... was a real pain till mashdi solved it in eac3to. Respect to that man
Think I just saw a guide on slysoft you wrote jong when I was trawling for audio stuff...nice work. I'll give the delay a miss next time a do a rip and I'll update my guides to include the info. Thanks.
Cheers,
Jiff.

[jong1]

Well done on your guide too. The screenshots are a definite plus! Good move.

[Mark Pitchford]

OK,

Just to be clear, I don't input any of the the delays shown by EAC3TO into MKVMerge?

[Mark Pitchford]

@Jong:

I've just checked the thread over at Doom9 and the answer is maybe...

Apply the delay if one hasn't already been applied, otherwise you're OK.

Does my interpretation sound correct?

[jong1]

Other than a possible bug that only affected a small number of titles and may well have been crushed by now (I will post here if I hear more) the answer is you do not need to do anything. Someone pointed out that it is not applied to demuxed TrueHD, because they are still encoded. But you cannot put TrueHD into an mkv anyway, so the point is moot. TrueHD demuxed and re-encoded to FLAC will be corrected like everything else.

Anyway the log should tell you what it has done, apart for the possibly buggy titles, then you will just have to trust your ears!

[JiffOrange]

Other than a possible bug that only affected a small number of titles and may well have been crushed by now (I will post here if I hear more) the answer is you do not need to do anything. Someone pointed out that it is not applied to demuxed TrueHD, because they are still encoded. But you cannot put TrueHD into an mkv anyway, so the point is moot. TrueHD demuxed and re-encoded to FLAC will be corrected like everything else.

Anyway the log should tell you what it has done, apart for the possibly buggy titles, then you will just have to trust your ears!

Agreed, I'd overlooked mashdi's inclusion in my origional guide (will adjust too reflect)!
Cheers,
Jiff.

[penngray]

long read, I will have to re-read 5 times but is this the only way to play BD movie in 1080p with full HD audio??

I have anyDVD HD ripping software and I can go through the steps documented to convert my movies but what is the playback software used again?

[jong1]

No. the easy way is to play the original disk with PDVD, TMT, WinDVD or Nero.

The next easiest is to rip the whole BD to an iso using something like ImgBurn and play with the above.

The above is only needed if you want to be able to a) reduce the size of the rip on disc by eliminating extras and/or redundant soundtracks/subtitles or b) play in a standard Windows media player (not just WMP you understand, but any media player that works on Windows), instead of needing one with all the DRM constraints and limitations of the BD players listed above.

The answer to your last question is above. If you follow the above process you can play back in just about any media player. MPC-HC is a good choice as it can use hardware acceleration for both VC-1 and AVC using its built in codecs - no need for "fancy"/confusing graphs. But other players can do it too with a bit of work, or if you have the horse power for software decoding.

[Russell Burrows]

Originally Posted by JiffOrange

Yes that is the one ...."DxVA" stands for DirectX Video Acceleration and is a Microsoft API specification that allows video decoding to be hardware accelerated. The pipeline allows certain CPU-intensive operations such as iDCT, motion compensation, deinterlacing and color correction to be offloaded to the GPU. Sorry mate I'm at a loss at the mo about this, I use G35 so for AVC I always have to do software decodes (cyberlinks decoder also didn't play nice with some other decoders causing stutters etc, but I know mu CPU had headroom which yours hasn't). I'm not going to give up tho ....I'll see if I can figure out why its not being implimented properly (obviously is in PowerDVD) in directshow apps and their is no reason that it shouldn't. Could be the output mode, powerDVD exclusivly uses overlay but I doubt it. All I can suggest at this point is to re-encode to 720p to reduce hardware requirements or use the origional ISO/m2ts file in powerDVD until we can find a solution. Sorry dude. You do need Haali to split mkv files and DirectVobSub for subtitles if you use them. I'll keep you posted on any progress and you do the same .....time to concentrate on VC-1 Mpeg 2 for the time being.
Cheers,
Jiff.

MKVtoVOB is a freeware and it splits mkv files.

I use it to create PS3 compatible movie files when I just need AC3 5.1 instead of DTS or truehd audio.

[JiffOrange]

long read, I will have to re-read 5 times but is this the only way to play BD movie in 1080p with full HD audio??

Read Jong1's answer he is bang on with the exception of audio, all comercial players currently downres the audio to 16 bit/48 kHz, so the only way to get FULL 24 bits (not that many HD-DVD/Blu rays have this anyway but its increasing) audio is to convert to flac and remux, mkv is generally used because it has support for chapters, multiple audio, vidio, sub streams etc..... its very versitile. The DRM thing is the other major issue for people i.e. some chipsets like G35 only support HDCP in vista so this method also removes that need with comercial players so I can watch my HD movies in XP without any trouble, obviously this stretches further than this and their are a number of other DRM issues ...some people suffer from them other don't. The general idea is to crate a solution where by you can tailor your HD files to your needs and not have to shell out a small fortune for software that is riddled with probelms and doesn't work as advertised.
Hope that clears things up.
Cheers,
Jiff.

[JiffOrange]

MKVtoVOB is a freeware and it splits mkv files.

Think you got the wrong end of the stick mate, what I mean when I say splitt is to seperate the video and audio portions of the file and pipe them to the relavent decoders. Thanks anyway MKVtoVOB is a useful tool especially for the PS3. If you like it then I would suggest you have a look at tsRemuxer. This will let you make m2ts/ts files out of your mkv's (still in alpha for mkv but getting much better) that will allow you to seek when on a PS3, worth keeping an eye on.
Cheers,
Jiff.

[leftheaded]

Originally Posted by JiffOrange

Yes it can be done using a single .bat file but its quite complicated ... I can include it in my advanced guide if you would like?

Originally Posted by JiffOrange

Yes libav can do all Dolby formats with great results and ... I could include some extra options for those that are intrested ....

yeah, these kinds of options would be great (to help noobs like me - explicitly state them as options )

eac3to will do much of this but not all i.e. removing unwanted audio, muxing but its certainly possible to get it to analyse the disc and rip to a directory in a single step...

that would be awesome!

Originally Posted by mkanet

... double click the TS file to play it in any player (or load it into any commercial software that supports HD...

could these TS files be played in vista media center, and more to the point, without having to use keyboard/mouse? I am trying to get a system setup that will run 100% by use of a remote (harmony 880).

Originally Posted by mkanet

I like the idea of .TS file support in pretty much all HD apps. MKV is hit or miss.

this is a big concern for me. so, i take it that the TS files would play in VMC? would the MKV files? do you need a plugin to call a separate app for either format to work (eg - powerdvd plugin like my movies)?

I'm not settled into a frontend & I'm just embarking on ripping my entire DVD collection (~200 discs), so I'd like to do something that won't have to be repeated should I switch from, say, VMC to Media Portal to MythTV to SageTV.... or should someone make something better than both powerdvd and tmt, but that won't play mkv or ts? i have zero inclination of the likelihood of that.

oh, and I only have less than 10 BD & HD-DVDs right now, but I plan to start building the collection and ripping them too. Also, I have tons of miniDV and AVCHD home movies. should I be thinking about converting/encoding (whichever it is technically speaking) these to the same thing (mkv in this case??)


this thread is incredibly helpful.. big thanks to jifforange and to all the contibutors here!

[leftheaded]

Originally Posted by JiffOrange

Making an full quality mkv from a HD disc
STEP 1. CONVERSIONS/PRIMING
STEP 2. MUXING EVERYTHING BACK TOGETHER
STEP 3. RE_ENCODING VIDEO TO 720p MEDIUM & HIGH QUALITY
Re-encoding HD media using meGUI

Is step 3 only necessary if you want to save some hard disk space? Would I skip STEP 3 if all I wanted to do was rip the BD or HD-DVD video with FLAC to my hard disk? I'd trim out extras, previews, subtitles etc too. Ends up with a single mkv, right?

Also, is the meGUI step just an alternative method of Step 3? Should I be following the meGUI step for ripping all my DVDs to hard disk?

[JiffOrange]

Is step 3 only necessary if you want to save some hard disk space? Would I skip STEP 3 if all I wanted to do was rip the BD or HD-DVD video with FLAC to my hard disk? I'd trim out extras, previews, subtitles etc too. Ends up with a single mkv, right?

Also, is the meGUI step just an alternative method of Step 3? Should I be following the meGUI step for ripping all my DVDs to hard disk?

Hi leftheaded,
You are correct that step 3 is only nessecary if you want to save HDD space or if you only have a 720p capable display since offline scaling via a re-encode produces much better quality than a real time scaler. You would end up with a single mkv with the main movie and any sub/audio tracks that would like to include in your project (major reason for mkv over ts is its support for multiple audio, chapters and subs etc).

Be careful with mkanet's posts ....while what he proposes is simpler it suffers from many limitations which is why many of us choose to take the more complicated route ....at the end of the day tho it will depend on what you need . Most of us here do not like PowerDVD/winDVD/TMT etc which are the main supporters of ts files, other directshow players are patchy for these files (actually its more a issue with splitters but will not go into that here).
Both .ts and .mkv can be played in VMC with a few tweaks and I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to use your remote (no pluggins needed but it needs to be set up properly ...I don't use VMC so can't help but I'm sure if you ask somebody here will help you). It is true that not so many COMMERCIAL players support mkv however and you should be aware of that, I think its only TMT and Nero at the mo BUT all Directshow capable players i.e. MPC, Zoom, VLC, WMP 11, VMC etc do and very well (mkv is the opensource container of choice ).
If you are worried about being stuck with mkv remember it is only a container, the streams inside can be easily extracted and placed in any other container type that supports HD or SD media i.e. mp4, m2ts, ts, avi etc this is actually easier to do with mkv than other file types as most opensource software supports these. This is very simple and doesn't require much time. I'm working on a new more advanced guide at the min so I will include many of the options that you outlined then, this time I will also use Blu ray as the example (despite examples already given). If you need any help please ask its what we are all here for. Happy watching.
Cheers,
Jiff.

Edit: Yes meGUi is an alternative to step 3 ....did it because some where having problems with all the command style .bat files. you can use either method for re-encoding DVD tho. You can also use eac3to to join the vob files/extract audio and create an mkv ask if you need instructions.

[Ix]

I may be a complete retard but I'll ask anyway - you still NEED AnyHD to decrypt the disks right? You can't simply run this tool right off a disk correct? I ask because my first and second tries failed right away with this in the log:

eac3to v2.47
command line: eac3to.exe "F:\HVDVD_TS\FEATURE_1.EVO"+"F:\HVDVD_TS\FEATURE_2.EVO" "C:\HD Rips\Serenity\SerenityHD.mkv" -stripPulldown
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The (E-)AC3 reader didn't receive the format information.
The (E-)AC3 reader didn't receive the format information.
The (E-)AC3 reader didn't receive the format information.
This doesn't seem to be a valid (E-)AC3 stream.
The format of the source file could not be detected.


Do I need to have AnyDVD HD running in order for this to work?

[Ix]

I have answered both of my own questions:

Yes, I am retarded.

Yes, you need AnyDVD HD for this to work. I am guessing this is just one of those super-obvious "doh" assumptions that don't even need to be said (but for the sake of those like me, perhaps they should be).

Anyway thanks a million for this guide, I have been searching high and low for a way to play my HD DVD's on my HTPC with uncompressed audio. This and my 8200 motherboard may finally just lead me to it, I hope. I sold my 360 HD drive a while ago (couldn't get uncompressed audio out of it anyway) so the 20 or so HD DVD's I own have been collecting dust, and many of them will not be on BD for some time. Now I get to enjoy my legally bought copies without corporate stupidity.

[Ix]

Maybe not such a noob question now - how are you all dealing with eac3 (DD Plus) files created by this process? I've discovered to my joy that MP, etc won't play them. I keep finding referenced to the now-defunct Cineplayer HD Pack, which you can't even buy anymore.

Can you convert DD Plus audio to flac and have it play that way inside the mkv?

[jong1]

I personally am converting main soundtracks in EAC3 to FLAC and commentary streams (where quality is not so crucial) to AC3.

[JiffOrange]

Maybe not such a noob question now - how are you all dealing with eac3 (DD Plus) files created by this process? I've discovered to my joy that MP, etc won't play them. I keep finding referenced to the now-defunct Cineplayer HD Pack, which you can't even buy anymore.

Can you convert DD Plus audio to flac and have it play that way inside the mkv?

Hi lx,
Nice to have you with us ....first yes you can convert DD plus (eac3) soundtracks to flac to hear your soundtrack at full bitrate etc. Second, yes you can have the flac play from an mkv (with this method all audio/video is muxed into mkv regardless of source). If your not so bothered you can use regular DD@640 kbps but I like to maintain everything as the same quality as the disc i.e. flac. The newer versions of eac3to should do this automatically for you (atleast for the default soundtrack) when you use a command like the one you show above.
Third, MPC will play DD plus track with the cineplayer HD pack but it takes a bit of messing with to get it to work ....note that the cineplayer HD pack is still required with eac3to to decode dts Master Audio tracks at the mo ...but I believe madshi is working on getting the new TMT decoder to do this since its supports all 7.1 channels (only 5.1 with Cine). If you don't have this pack then you can still get the core legacy dts track from the stream. Hope that helps, any other qs please post that is why we are all here.

On a side note has anybody done any re-encodes yet? I would like to get peoples opinion on the quality (I know they look very good by my eye) but suggestions are always welcome ....ultimatly feedback will allow me to tweak what we already have to get the best possible.
Cheers,
Jiff.

[Ix]

Hmm, I am using eac3to 2.47 but in running this:

command line: eac3to.exe "F:\HVDVD_TS\FEATURE_1.EVO"+"F:\HVDVD_TS\FEATURE_2.EVO" "C:\HD Rips\Serenity\SerenityHD.mkv" -stripPulldown

on the Serenity disk (which is DD+) it just generated a .eac3 file for the main soundtrack. I remember reading another of your posts where you had to run eac3to a second time with a .flac option to convert the audio - is that still the case, and what's the command? Or am I missing something obvious again.

Thanks again!

[JiffOrange]

Hi lx,
Sorry my bad ....I think that eac3to only does an automatic conversion on lossless audio tracks i.e. TrueHD etc to flac. I've done so many of these now I get myself confused. So to get flac from your DD plus file you will need to use the following:

eac3to.exe "C:\HD Rips\Serenity\yourfilename.eac3" "C:\HD Rips\Serenity\SerenityHD.flac" -libav

You will obviously have to change the yourfilename prefix to what the actual source file is called (I usually remane to something simple because eac3to puts all the stream info in the filename and it can be a pain to write it out). Save as a .bat file and away you go ....shouldn't take long to do ~10 mins. Running eac3to a second time is to remove gaps to prevent audio from becoming out of synch ....eac3to will tell you if you need to do this again in the log file it produces, you probably will not need to. This is more to address seemless branching titles on blu ray but it does occur from time to time with others (Carlitos way HD DVD for example). Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Jiff.

[Ix]

Thanks Jiff. After ripping the eac3 file to flac again (I forgot the -libav switch the first time) and hard setting the video and audio defaults I got Serenity to work! Yay. I also did all 3 Matrix movies, but as they are TrueHD it was simpler.

On to the rest of my HD DVD collection, and then I think I will try a couple of my BluRays.

[JiffOrange]

Thanks Jiff. After ripping the eac3 file to flac again (I forgot the -libav switch the first time) and hard setting the video and audio defaults I got Serenity to work! Yay. I also did all 3 Matrix movies, but as they are TrueHD it was simpler.

On to the rest of my HD DVD collection, and then I think I will try a couple of my BluRays.

no worries mate, glad to help ...happy viewing!
Cheers,
Jiff.

[Ix]

Playing lossless audio:

Stupid question time again. So I've created successful rips using this guide from several of my HDDVD's. I've gotten all of them with lossless sound converted to .flac, either DD+ or TrueHD. I'm not doing any reencoding whatsoever - I'll take quality over file size.

All the files play just great on my HTPC. However, I am using an nVidia 8200 mb, which supports 8 channel lossless sound over HDMI, and is feeding to my Onkyo 705 HDMI receiver which supports same (HDMI 1.3 all the way). My question is, how do I best ensure that my receiver is receiving, and outputting, the lossless sound? Does it feed it bitstream when playing .flac? PCM? Does my PC decode the lossless format or my receiver? I haven't played with it much yet and I'm curious as to how this works. The only HDDVD player I have is the Xbox 360 drive, which doesn't do lossless at all, and of course I am in no mood to buy a stand alone HDDVD player at this point. All I really want is a way to watch the HDDVD's I own with the best sound now that I have a receiver that supports it. Any pointers?

Thanks again

[JiffOrange]

Playing lossless audio:

Stupid question time again. So I've created successful rips using this guide from several of my HDDVD's. I've gotten all of them with lossless sound converted to .flac, either DD+ or TrueHD. I'm not doing any reencoding whatsoever - I'll take quality over file size.

All the files play just great on my HTPC. However, I am using an nVidia 8200 mb, which supports 8 channel lossless sound over HDMI, and is feeding to my Onkyo 705 HDMI receiver which supports same (HDMI 1.3 all the way). My question is, how do I best ensure that my receiver is receiving, and outputting, the lossless sound? Does it feed it bitstream when playing .flac? PCM? Does my PC decode the lossless format or my receiver? I haven't played with it much yet and I'm curious as to how this works. The only HDDVD player I have is the Xbox 360 drive, which doesn't do lossless at all, and of course I am in no mood to buy a stand alone HDDVD player at this point. All I really want is a way to watch the HDDVD's I own with the best sound now that I have a receiver that supports it. Any pointers?

Thanks again

Hi again,
Your PC does the decoding of the flac stream into PCM and then this is put out over your HDMI connection to your Amp (your display should say something along the line of MPCM or LPCM etc) which then converts the data to analogue through its DAC's and the amplifies the signal to output to your speakers. Now comes the tricky bit ....if you are using ffdshow to decode your flac stream you are only going to be getting 16 bit sound depth (limitation of the software), to ensure you are getting 24 bit sound depth disable flac decoding in ffdshow in the config menu and install the madflac decoder (link on the guides...written by madshi the same guy behind eac3to). This will insure you have got true lossless sound. If you are already using madflac then you are getting true lossless sound. Good luck, any more Qs feel free to ask.
Cheers,
Jiff.

[Ix]

Originally Posted by JiffOrange

Hi again,
Your PC does the decoding of the flac stream into PCM and then this is put out over your HDMI connection to your Amp (your display should say something along the line of MPCM or LPCM etc) which then converts the data to analogue through its DAC's and the amplifies the signal to output to your speakers. Now comes the tricky bit ....if you are using ffdshow to decode your flac stream you are only going to be getting 16 bit sound depth (limitation of the software), to ensure you are getting 24 bit sound depth disable flac decoding in ffdshow in the config menu and install the madflac decoder (link on the guides...written by madshi the same guy behind eac3to). This will insure you have got true lossless sound. If you are already using madflac then you are getting true lossless sound. Good luck, any more Qs feel free to ask.
Cheers,
Jiff.

Great, thanks! I did install MadFlac but I'll check my fddshow setttings to be sure it isn't taking over. When my receiver gets fed lossless PCM I see "Multichannel" light up so I'll test it tonight.