somewhat off-topic - decoding a DTS 5.1 File into multipart WAV

[Robert Kaplowitz]

Hey, ya'll -

I bought a DTS 5.1 recording, and I'm trying to split it into its component parts, so I could use it with QLab. (I wasn't looking for 5.1 - it's just the only digital download format I could find)

It came as an .rar file, that I unpacked into a .wav file and a .cue file. The .wav file is just hash when played through standard DAW or quicktime. But if I open the .cue file with VLC, it reads the encoded .wav file properly, bringing up a lovely playlist.

I tried Exporting it as a .flac from VLOC and then opening the .flac in audacity, but sad hash ensued (inside my headphones, luckily with the volume low).

The programs that I can find out there to convert it (like "bigasoft audio converter) only offer me conversion to stereo WAV or 5.1 - I can use one of them, but hey, as long as it's a surround file, if I could find a way to decode it as such, I could then play it back as a multipart wav in QLab.

Any suggestions?  I'd say file this under "interesting, not urgent" for the support group...

-Rob Kaplowitz

[micpool]

I think Handbrake has a 6 ch discrete mode.

Mic

[John Leonard]

This link any use?

http://musings.silvertooth.us/2013/07/how-to-convert-dts-audio-into-multi-channel-flac/

Cheers,

John

[micpool]

Actually, forget Handbrake. It won't do what you want.

Give this a go.

http://www.faasoft.com/audio-converter-mac.html

Just tried it, and it is really fast and good.

The only thing that isn't obvious is you need to go in to advanced settings. Where it says stereo this is actually a concealed pop up menu where you can set 5.1 as your output.

Mic

[Robert Kaplowitz]

I actually solved it in by using VLC Player's conversion utility (shift-apple-s), defining it as a 5-part .wav with no video, exporting it, then dropping it into Audacity, which gave me 4 distinct clean tracks (the fifth was silence, which suggests that I know squat about 5.1)

Tho - John - I think your link might've worked, too!

Thanks for being here for me, braintrust!

[Paul Gotch]

On 8 Mar 2015, at 03:11, Robert Kaplowitz <robka...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I actually solved it in by using VLC Player's conversion utility (shift-apple-s), defining it as a 5-part .wav with no video, exporting it, then dropping it into Audacity, which gave me 4 distinct clean tracks (the fifth was silence, which suggests that I know squat about 5.1)

The .1 is the low frequency effects channel it may truly be silence. Many decoders will crossover stuff from the other channels and feed it to the subwoofer but that's a decode time decision.

-p

[mick...@gmail.com]

The silent track of 5 should be centre track which is blank on sensible audio 5.1 - and the .1 would be summed in the decode
which you could always create your self with some radical eq from the others.

mick

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[micpool]

A true 5.1 recording won't have any silent tracks. 

If the recording doesn't have a centre channel then it is a 4.x recording. If there isn't anything on the sub then it is a x.0 recording

DVD based 5.1 formats are  often  used as convenient domestic distribution systems for other multichannel recordings, like  4.0, 4.1, and 5.0. These recordings will have silent tracks.

The advantage of this is that anyone with a standard DVD player, an AV receiver and a 5.1 home cinema loudspeaker system will be able to replay the recordings, and the AV receiver will properly decode the stream, after identifying the format, to the correct loudspeakers, without the user having to worry about channel order. The AV receiver, if it has been properly set up ,will also do things like feed some of the LF content from all speakers to the SUB for any speakers that are identified in the set up as SMALL, apply level changes and time delay to compensate for imperfect physical loudspeaker layouts etc.

What is on each track is entirely the choice of the producer.  I have a 4.0 'A Chorus Line Broadway Cast' Album where the surround channels are only used sparingly  for  the "a 5 6 7 8" counts  and for Zachs God Mic (as they were in Abe Jacob's original  theatre sound design). I have some  recordings where the Sub Bass channel is used half a dozen times throughout the whole album for specific LFE effects and others where it is filled with all sorts of LF Crud just for the sake of it. One 5.1 recording has solo vocals in the centre channel, band in L and Right, Kick Drum and octave dividers in  the sub, and audience and ambience in the surrounds

In order to use multichannel recordings in systems that do not include decoders the audio has to be mixed or converted to a multichannel interleaved file. This file can be played in Qlab and using the matrix, either at the cue level or the device level, can be routed, so the correct channel comes out of the correct loudspeaker. The channel order in a 6 channel file can vary greatly.

L R C LFE Ls Rs 

L R Ls Rs C LFE

L C R Ls Rs LFE

and a few other variations are fairly common. 

A good way of determining the channel order of a file is to open it in QuickTime Player. The channel order is displayed in the Info (cmd-I).

If I have a batch of multichannel cues in a show I always master them from a single DAW workspace or session  and produce an ident audio  file with spoken channel identifications for each track, identifying which loudspeaker system it should be routed to, at the same time. If multichannel audio is to come from a variety of sources then it may be better to master them to sets of discrete mono files with a track identifying suffix .L,  .R, .Ls etc and interleave them into  files with a standard channel order using another program like Sound Devices WaveAgent.

Multichannel audio files may also be used as multitrack audio for click tracks etc. In Qlab these can have up to 16 Tracks.

For example,Tracks 1-10 might be 5 stereo stems of instrumental sections which would be routed on the matrix so that all odd channels go to one output called Click Band L and Even tracks to Click Band R

Tracks 11-14 might be SATB mono vocal tracks and would all matrix to the Click Vocal output.

Tracks 15 and 16 might have the click track and verbal cues and counts and would matrix to an output which feeds the MD and musician headphone systems.

One other multichannel tip. If you have an AV amp with HDMI inputs, you may be able to use QLab on a Mac with an HDMI output and get 6 channels of Audio. This can be handy for programming Qlab for multichannel files (or  for programming mono and stereo files on a setup with surrounds a centre and a sub)  if you only have a stereo monitoring set up in your studio, but have a 5.1 cinema system elsewhere in the house. On my lounge system the same HDMI also carries the HD  video signal from the computer, through the AV receiver,  and then to  to the TV HDMI input.

Mic

[Stuart Crawford]

I tried Bigasoft Audio Converter as you suggested and it works in the sense that the individual songs (I've tried both .flac and .wav) are properly exported as multichannel recordings.  And they play nicely on my Mac via the 5KPlayer app.  However they don't play on my receiver (Marantz NR1506) as I just get a "format error" message.  I'm wondering if this is because Bigasoft Audio Converter truncates the songs to 5 minutes in trial mode.  It may be that non-truncated exports would play fine but I'm reluctant to spend $25 to test that hypothesis.  Do you know of other options for the Mac or if it will work properly in non-trial mode?

Thanks!

[micpool]

I don't think this has anything to do with trial mode

Can I just check that you are trying to play a multitrack wav from QLab over HDMI into your Marantz receiver and that you are set up in the Mac Audio MIDI settings page with the correct input to output patch.

The Marantz isn't expecting the DTS encoded original file is it?

Mic

[Sam Kusnetz]

The programs that I can find out there to convert it (like "bigasoft audio converter) only offer me conversion to stereo WAV or 5.1 - I can use one of them, but hey, as long as it's a surround file, if I could find a way to decode it as such, I could then play it back as a multipart wav in QLab.

Your answer is right there: you need to decode the DTS file into actual audio, and that has to happen outside QLab. We don’t (and wouldn’t) pay for a DTS deciding license from Dolby, so you need to use a program which does.

DTS works like MP3 insofar as it’s specially encoded data that needs to be decoded before it can be played as audio. The DTS patent is dramatically more closely guarded, though.

Sam

—

Sam Kusnetz | Figure 53

s...@figure53.com

[micpool]

Hi Sam

I think you are replying to Rob’s thread starting post of over 4 years ago. Subsequent posts have dealt with the conversion of DTS to multichannel audio.

The thread has been resurrected by Stuart to find a solution to why he cant get Multichannel audio to work over his HDMI connection to a Home cinema receiver.

Mic

[Sam Kusnetz]

On May 17, 2019 at 9:04:17 AM, micpool (m...@micpool.com) wrote:

I think you are replying to Rob’s thread starting post of over 4 years ago. Subsequent posts have dealt with the conversion of DTS to multichannel audio. 

…wow. I knew my email client’s threading approach was imperfect, but I had no idea how imperfect it really was!

Thanks Mic. I’ll be over here wiping the egg from my face if anyone needs me…

Best