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FlipperBizkut
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2002
- Messages
- 1,268
I soon plan to jump into the HTPC arena, and in preparation for this transition, I have decided to start converting my BluRay collection for storage on my hard drive. My ultimate vision for this project is having a nice little XBMC frontend with my movie collection available at the click of a button without the need to swap out discs and the such.
I have been throwing my BluRays into Handbrake for conversion. I am using h.264 at RF:19 in an mkv container. The problem I am having is with the audio. When given the options in Handbrake, I am selecting the DTS-HD MA track from the BluRay, and selecting DTS-HD Passthru as the audio codec. From my understanding, this will copy the DTS-HD MA track to the mkv unaltered from the original. In addition, the DTS core will remain in case the AVR can not handle DTS-HD MA.
When the encoding is done, however, all the software players I have tried (TMT5, VLC, PotPlayer), and my stand alone BluRay player all show only the regular DTS 5.1 instead of the DTS-HD 7.1. None of the players give an option of any secondary audio tracks either. The crazy thing is that the bitrate is well above 1500, so that leads me to believe that it has to be the DTS-HD track, but how can I be sure?
And then it gets even crazier with regards to Dolby TrueHD. Since the AC3 "core" isn't part of the TrueHD track, are you supposed to encode another audio track for fallback purposes? I have read that the "fallback" AC3 track is interlaced with the TrueHD track, but that the mkv container does not support that. I have also read that using mkvMerge will just ditch the AC3 track and keep the TrueHD track without even a warning. Then I come across SolveigMM_MKV_Muxer which is supposed to be able to include the TrueHD track with the fallback AC3 track interleaved within it just like on a true BlueRay.
I am totally at a loss. I don't want to encode two distinct audio tracks if it isn't necessary simply due to the extra size of the file that would necessitate. But I don't want to have just an HD track in case I grab the HTPC and take it to my sister's house who doesn't have an AVR that can decode the HD stuff (and I actually have an older AVR that doesn't do the HD stuff either, but will be replacing it soon). I was honestly thinking of just encoding the rips with the lossy audio, and if I wanted the "full experience," going and grabbing the actual BluRay disc and doing it that way. I don't know.
So I figured there were several of you guys that were doing this same thing, and I figured I would ask you to see what the best practice was before I go about encoding everything wrong and wasting all that time. I appreciate any insight you could provide.
tl;dr - I'm trying to rip my BluRay collection making sure to keep the HD audio intact, but also ensuring that there is "fallback" audio. I'd like to do this so that the appropriate audio is automatically selected, and prefer just a single track (like DTS-HD contains the DTS Core).
I have been throwing my BluRays into Handbrake for conversion. I am using h.264 at RF:19 in an mkv container. The problem I am having is with the audio. When given the options in Handbrake, I am selecting the DTS-HD MA track from the BluRay, and selecting DTS-HD Passthru as the audio codec. From my understanding, this will copy the DTS-HD MA track to the mkv unaltered from the original. In addition, the DTS core will remain in case the AVR can not handle DTS-HD MA.
When the encoding is done, however, all the software players I have tried (TMT5, VLC, PotPlayer), and my stand alone BluRay player all show only the regular DTS 5.1 instead of the DTS-HD 7.1. None of the players give an option of any secondary audio tracks either. The crazy thing is that the bitrate is well above 1500, so that leads me to believe that it has to be the DTS-HD track, but how can I be sure?
And then it gets even crazier with regards to Dolby TrueHD. Since the AC3 "core" isn't part of the TrueHD track, are you supposed to encode another audio track for fallback purposes? I have read that the "fallback" AC3 track is interlaced with the TrueHD track, but that the mkv container does not support that. I have also read that using mkvMerge will just ditch the AC3 track and keep the TrueHD track without even a warning. Then I come across SolveigMM_MKV_Muxer which is supposed to be able to include the TrueHD track with the fallback AC3 track interleaved within it just like on a true BlueRay.
I am totally at a loss. I don't want to encode two distinct audio tracks if it isn't necessary simply due to the extra size of the file that would necessitate. But I don't want to have just an HD track in case I grab the HTPC and take it to my sister's house who doesn't have an AVR that can decode the HD stuff (and I actually have an older AVR that doesn't do the HD stuff either, but will be replacing it soon). I was honestly thinking of just encoding the rips with the lossy audio, and if I wanted the "full experience," going and grabbing the actual BluRay disc and doing it that way. I don't know.
So I figured there were several of you guys that were doing this same thing, and I figured I would ask you to see what the best practice was before I go about encoding everything wrong and wasting all that time. I appreciate any insight you could provide.
tl;dr - I'm trying to rip my BluRay collection making sure to keep the HD audio intact, but also ensuring that there is "fallback" audio. I'd like to do this so that the appropriate audio is automatically selected, and prefer just a single track (like DTS-HD contains the DTS Core).