decoding DTS HD MA

I believe so.

Side note: XMBC seems to handle DTS HD MA without the stupid downsampling crap (for which there is zero practical reason for other than studio punishing legit customers, it does zero to save them in any way and actually backfires) that TMT or PowerDVD do for tracks that are great than 16bit or 48kHz.

I'm not sure if it can send the results out as PCM though, you'd need more than SPDIF anyway unless it were to mix them down to stereo, you'd need HDMI. I've never tried that as my soundcard has better D/A and such than my receiver so sending analog to it is better than sending digital to it anyway. I wonder what it's digital output options are, perhaps it can.

What are you talking about?

Of course nobody in the free and open source software community has found a way to decode DTS-HD.

I believe that XBMCs Audio Engine can only decode the core DTS track, but I can't find explicit documentation saying this

If anybody decodes DTS-HD in PC, it's only core DTS that he can decode, unless he uses a DTS-licensed player such as TMT (or a player with a DTS-HD decoder borrowed from a licensed player).
Edited by renethx - 3/14/13 at 6:48pm

And not in xbmc (because of their proprietary codecs) - even the existence of a DTS-HD decoder makes no difference. Best possible in xbmc is core DTS.

I thought LAV did this.

Take a look here.

XBMC can only decode the DTS Core 5.1 track in a DTS-HD stream to Multichannel LPCM.

XBMC can passthrough/bitstream the full resolution DTS-HD 7.1 track for decoding on a AVR receiver.

I use Lav with WMC... I have a mkv file with a dts HD audio track.. When I play it dts HD shows up on my receiver. I don't have the dtsdecoder dll... Are you saying I'm not really hearing dts HD?


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No. Did you use Shark007? It will include that for you too.

What are you saying is included with Shark (dtsdecoderdll.dll file)? If so, I'm certain that it isn't.


You will be hearing the DTS HD if you bitstream to your AVR and let it decode the sound. The dtsdecoder file is only required if you want the player to decode the stream and pass it as LPCM to the receiver.

Ok I understand now...thanks. And no, no shark codecs.. Just Lav.

I happy with having my receiver do the work.




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You are correct here. Sorry to mislead. Shark cannot include that "legally" I don't think. And yes you can pass dts-HD/MA but not dts-ES to the receiver without the decoder.

DTS-ES is nothing special, if you bitstream to your receiver you can pass it as well.

I was looking at doom9 where it says that in the LAV thread, second post.

I'm not sure what DTS-express is, but DTS-ES is just a variant of DTS called "DTS Extended Surround"


Okay, I know a little more now LINK, but I'm not sure how relevant this is. I've not come across any disc or live tv feed with DTS express that I know of.

Yeah, I mis-typed..

I was just watching "Pitch Perfect" without TMT installed and I saw very clearly "DTS- MSTR" on my receiver.

Fresh format, LAV is installed with madVR.

Am I some sort of statistical anomaly that Dts-hd is only decoded in my house and none other? Lol

youre not decoding it on your computer. youre bitstreaming.

"decoding dts-ma" means just that - decoding the dts-ma track and turning it into something else. when you decode at the htpc you turn it into something else, either lpcm, dts, or pcm. lpcm is lossless so in theory that would be as good as bitstreaming. someone with a high end sound card that wants to send multiple analog audio cords out would do this.

you are letting your reciever decode it. youre sending it computer data that decodes, amplifies, and sends to the proper speakers.

the difference is that receivers license dts, dolby digital, wma pro, etc. they pay to be allowed to do that. freeware does not.

Oh.. That is what I was doing with my x-meridian... Thanks for clarifying that.

Someone (not going to say who) told me something a lot different about bitstreaming

DTS Express is really only used on Blu-rays for secondary audio tracks. That means, audio tracks that go on top of the main audio, commentators, PiP audio, and stuff like that. Nothing that gets used by the main movie.
Its not exactly a very relevant format, unless you're trying to implement a full Blu-ray interactive menu experience with all the features.

But its not the same as DTS-ES DTS-ES are typically non-HD DTS tracks with 7 channels, for example the Star Wars Blu-rays used 6.1 DTS-ES for some languages, and DTS-HD for others. Its a simple extension to add an extra channel to the lossy DTS core.

Even some DVDs used it I believe. I think LOTR Extended Edition DVDs have 6.1 DTS-ES tracks.

hmm just last year everyone was insisting that XMBC had added full DTS-HD MA decoding and that it could decode it and send it out over analog.

i though i even later saw a build release note saying that they had added full DTS-HD MA decoding.


hmm, that would stink.
Edited by skibum5000 - 3/16/13 at 10:03pm

C'mon skibum - no they weren't. Perhaps you've read and misunderstood a comment somewhere along the line - XBMC have never claimed and have NEVER provided a decoding solution for DTS-HD MA, other than to DTS core - they did add 'bitstreaming' capabilities via the new Audio Engine, but NEVER full decoding. You brought this up sometime ago in the XBMC thread and I advised you of this at that time as well.

Want a full decoding solution - convert audio tracks to FLAC.

Yeah I brought it up because people started saying it decoded it and you can't blame them when XMBC said: "No matter the audio source, AE handles the decoding, resampling, transcoding, encoding and streaming of your media, including for the first time DTS-MA, TrueHD and 24-bit audio. XBMC has never sounded better!"

Come on you gotta admit that is pretty misleading wording!

Agreed - care to post a link to that statement and I will draw it to their attention and ask them to reword. It certainly does all that, just not with DTS-MA.