Sixpack: demuxing DTS, professional needs help pretty bad... Options

[TapeTV]

I have spend at least 3 days going all over the web, dl utils, mods and what not... and yes: read all there seems to be reading on how to demux ac3 and dts-audio into 6 seperate files (L,C.R,Ls,Rs and Lfe). I'm a professional sounddesigner/mixer/producer and all I want is to decode AC3, but more important DTS to be able to check out the mix-levels in Protools.

I'm on Mac and use a PC as well. Under OS X there's close to nothing that comes close (MacTheRipper can get it, VLC 0.7.2. can play it, and mAC3dec does a nice job on AC3 files, but won't eat DTS). On PC I've fundled in the dark with BeSweet, DVD Decryptor, Vobrator, Foobar... but it becomes more hazy and fuzzy, as I click through all options and commands...

I'm handy but not a command-line junkie and I got heaps of work waiting for me. Can someone guide me to a reliabel tool that does just that: demux DTS-encoded content into 6 AIFF's (or WAV's or MP3's for that matter) without all the fancy stuff (downmixing, channel-swapping, enhancing). I'm at the end of my ropes here...

Any help is much appreciated!!!

[seanyseansean]

Won't virtualdub demux ac3?

[TapeTV]

Won't virtualdub demux ac3?

Tried that, but I get an 'unsupported format' error and it will just doe 2ch stereo...

[pest]

besweet is capable of decoding ac3 into 6 wav or aiff-files.

click

[TapeTV]

That's what I started with (installed the GUI and options) and indeed, it seems to be capable of it, but when I hit encode, it just puts out one single file, although I had '6 WAVs' checked.
Maybe I'll need to try again: in what order do I have to install what files to make that work? (since BeSweet relies on all kinds of dll's and libs as I understood).

Remember: I can decode AC3 within VOB's, but I need to demux DTS-encoded audio into 6 single channel files...

[rjamorim]

You can easily decode DTS with dtsdec. But it requires command line usage...

You can grab it here:
http://www.rarewares.org/files/others/dtsdec.zip

Put dtsdec.exe in the same folder as your DTS file, and run the command line

CODE

dtsdec -o wavall > output.wav input.dts

This post has been edited by rjamorim: Jul 18 2005, 16:28

[TapeTV]

That's seems easy indeed: had that prog already, but when I opened it, it just threw a command-window @ me and immediately stopped.

So in the same directory right?!
What extensions should my dts-content have? .vob, .dts, .ac3? Would it work with DTS-audio-CD's?

[pest]

if cmd is too complicated for you just try foobar with the diskwriter
set to wav-output. i don't know if your favorite wave editor
supports multichannel wave-files. maybe sox could do the splitting
for you

[Mr_Rabid_Teddybe...]

Downloaded some DTS 5.1 files from norwegian radio
http://www.nrk.no/magasin/ulyd/4599593.html

The DTS 1,2 (1234) versions decode well in foobar, while the DTS 1,5 (1536) are not recognized at all. Just tried to decode both kinds with

CODE

dtsdec -o wavall > output.wav input.dts

Wav files are created, but they do not contain any sound....

[TapeTV]

I know I can't expect a crash-course in XP or cmd, but either on my PC and in Virtual PC, as soon as I run dtsdec, I see the black terminal window open and close immediately... Any Idea's? I run XP in both environments... Same happens to dts2wav.exe btw.

And I found out the DTS-file I extracted from a VOB contains 96kHz/24bit DTS... would that pose a problem for the apps I tried before (foobar, hypercube)?


This post has been edited by TapeTV: Jul 19 2005, 06:59

[rutra80]

ROTFLMFAO @ the animation

This post has been edited by rutra80: Jul 19 2005, 21:26

[dekkersj]

May be, just may be, this can help (own research, I succesfully decoded a U2 DVD with it):

DTS to CD-DA

Good luck,
Jacco

[TapeTV]

Bedankt! That indeed is a very handsome guide.
These are the ones that sticked to my browser: a guide for decoding with foobar and the FAAC-engine and this one is also extensive but uses BeSweet which I couldn't handle all too well. I still feel there's too many steps involved here; first off, you need to decrypt the content (ok) but than it seems to me the demuxing-step (in your example VOBrator) comes in weird. Why can Hypercube transcode directly from the VOB? Or what if you would use a ripper that rips directly to ac3, m2a or dts? Maybe I don't understand the difference between demux and demultiplex?! Please instruct me, o tutors!?

But since I started experimenting, I learned two things: I can't handle command-line apps (first I had to destroy a couple of spybots to at least enable it, but then still I'd need a crashcourse I'm afraid). But second: the DTS-stuff I'd like to decode is 24bit and 96kHz: I guess most decoders are set to 48kHz by default. It's probably closer to DVD-A, which is completely different ballgame (see this post)

Does anyone know which of the contenders below would allow 24/96 DTS as input:
foobar
hypercube
tranzcoder
dtsdec
dts2wav

or should I look for DVDARipper? (if I can find it somewhere)

This post has been edited by TapeTV: Jul 20 2005, 07:28

[TapeTV]

bump;\

[dekkersj]

difference between demux and demultiplex

I would say that there is no difference. If you have a VOB file, the info is multiplexed (interleaved) into one file. You have to demultiplex it to get the original streams. For the case of DTS (among others) one has to decode it to a format that can be played in a "player". If you just want to listen to it, use Intervideo WinDVD. Most probably this will install "things" that allow you to decode DTS files in other applications (codec stuph). What I learned by experience is that this WinDVD player helps a lot in decoding DTS files, as one can read in the abovementioned guide...

Regards,
Jacco

[TapeTV]

Just wanna let y'all know it finally worked for me in this order:
1. Extract VOB's with DVD Extractor (or any other CSS decryption copy-tool)
2. Use VOBrator to extract the DTS-streams
3. Fix 'em with DTSParser
4. Convert them with FooBar to 6 channel WAV (playable in Quicktime and directly importable in Protools).

Were I got stuck is the way other tools decrypted or demuxed the streams: digital noise, silence, wrong headers and (most of all) damaged DATA-headers in the WAV's. Once you f**k up somewhere, it takes quite some steps and time to figure out what the culprit is. The files I ended up with are 24/48 btw, but on the DVD-Audio they rave of 24/96... So somewhere they or some proggie is lying...

Thanks a zillion for all who helped!

[naks]

Hiya guys

u seem to know quite a bit about dtsdec, and I was wondering if u could help me out.

I've been using dtsdec to extract wav from dts files, but they end up highly distorted because of the high volume on the dvd.

I've tried this command parameters, but they don't seem to make a difference. Could you tell me what I'm doing wrong?

dtsdec -o wav -r -a -g -20.0 > 01b.wav 01.dts

I'm trying to reduce the sound level by reducing the gain level, but it doesn't seem to be working.

help?