MLP files from DVD-Audio I mean. Is there anything new about how to decode them directly to wav's (either Stereo or DTS etc. in 24 bit)

What is the simplest way to rip them to Stereo FLACS or APE files?

To my knowledge there's no free decoder available.
I guess for now you're screwed if you're not willing to pay big $$$.

Cheers!
SG

SurCode MLP:
MSRP: $2495

Decoding MLP is not the problem. See for example this: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=125966
Some more info here: http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/DVDAGuide

Nero filters are also reported to work

I wish we had a better tool to demux .AOB files. DVDAExplorer_7a.exe only works sometimes.

I think there was a hack for Surcode MLP encoder to make it decode an arbitrary MLP stream. Can't remember if that was for DVD-A MLP or HD-DVD/BD MLP (Dolby TrueHD).

It works for MLP in EVO streams (as reported at doom9.org), but not for raw MLP streams.


It works for raw MLP streams. As reported in the guide that Menno linked (which i wrote), but i learned that part from this forum


I've some hope on a better solution I will tell you when the time is there ...

There's a program called PPCMripper that can rip MLP to WAV directly from a DVD-A by patching WinDVD. I've used it to rip several DVD-As and it's quite easy to do, compared with the SurCode hack.

The problem is that it supposedly doesn't grab the first few samples from a track, but I haven't noticed any audible difference at all, even on albums with a lot going on musically at track boundaries (Dark Side of the Moon).

I thought that there was some limitation when doing this? That the bit depth was reduced to 16 bit or am i wrong?

Great! I'll finally be able rip those three REM DVD-As that I couldn't before.

The resolution is maintained if you rip with an Audigy sound card. Otherwise, the track is downsampled and dithered.

Just to clarify, the resolution IS maintained when ripping if you don't have an Audigy sound card. It just won't play in WinDVD in full resolution unless you have the card.

quoted from doom9.org:

god those mplayer guys are dicks!

but seriously tho - like really unhappy nerds.

that is pretty awesome and they are like "you did tons of shit wrong, you idiot"

Using my FFmpegSource avs filter and foo_input_avs component, you will be able to play also E-AC3/MLP files in fb2k...

How do you do that? The component was easy, but I'm totally new to "AVS filters" and don't know where to put the FFmpegSource.dll or how to configure it.

Thanks

Ok I understand AVS scripts now, but when using the FFmpegSource plugin I get an error like

"Could not load info (FFmpegSource: No video track found)"

Any syntax I'm doing wrong?

---
LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files (x86)\Final Codecs\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\FFmpegSource.dll")

FFmpegSource("C:\Users\USER\Desktop\Downloads\track1.mlp")
---

See this thread: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=60878

Hmm. Unless there's something I missed in that thread, I'm looking to play back MLP, not decode it (I can use eac3to for that!)

Actually, I just purchased and downloaded the latest version of Nero ($79.99) in the hope of ripping SACD and DVD-Audio to the hard drive, but so far no luck -- my laptop (Thinkpad c:a 2003 vintage) keeps telling me there's no CD is in the drive ... well, technically I suppose that's true if SACD / DVD-Audio is seen by the computer as a data disc. At the same time, my system has no difficulty playing DSD files downloaded from Linn, they sound great although I don't care too much for the music. Is there a hardware requirement to recognize the SACD or DVD-Audio (obviously video works just fine)?

TG

Well, the thread was revived a little offtopic.
The info in the linked thread is pertinent. It's good to have options!
It could be useful to transcode the files and play them in another format.

thanks kurtnoise, that works!

In foobar it plays, but in the information it reports (my 24-bit MLP file) as 16-bit. However, it does report the 6 channels and 96000 Hz correctly.

I wonder if that's a current problem with FFmpeg MLP decoder and they'll eventually fix it up. Also, I loaded the script into Mplayer/zoomplayer/Kmplayer and they all "played" the file back, but silently. Maybe a downconvert/bitdepth problem?




Yes, I know, it is very useful to transcode them to FLAC, cause you can add meta data.

Yes, ffmpeg converts the stuff to 16 bit, because other bit-depths are not supported. Reading the corresponding mailinglist, it is much work to support other bit-depths, so it will take a while.

If you want to keep it as 24 bit, your only free (but closed source) option is eac3to.

My understanding is that SACDs are different from other discs (CD, DVD) on a physical level and that there are no computer drives capable of reading them, so you're out of luck with SACD.

On the physical level, DVD-As are indentical to other DVDs and thus can be read in any DVD drive. You can verify a disc is DVD-A by looking for the AUDIO_TS folder in Windows explorer. As for ripping them, the only way I know of is with WinDVD and several cracks.

Ah, thanks for that info Wilbert! I waded those discussions on the mailing list but must have missed that bit.

Actually, there is one other free option for now - Creative Mediasource Player which can be downloaded from a number of websites for free. It works on non-creative soundcards too. But it's not ideal...don't know about its output + it has the runtime issue like the other decoders we know of.