Avi-DTS guide

[Wilbert]

Some of you know that since about a week it is possible to encode a dvd to DivX/Xvid containing a dts stream, and to play those files. I wrote a small guide which described this. It is a first draft, so it contains typos, misses colors. Of course other comments are welcome. I hope you will enjoy it.

The guide can be found here.

[LaFouine]

Thank you for your work.
Very useful.

For information I made my first DTS DivX, on 2 CDs, encoding a 122 minutes movie.

My settings were :
DivX 5.02 with GordianKnot at 873 kbits/s
Size 576x304
which gives me a 0.190 bits/(pixel*frame) in GKnot. It is the limit but it is still OK

I've watched the movie on a 16/9 TV and send the DTS sound through S/PDIF to an external DTS decoder and it is really astonishing !!!

[The Maynard]

I tried this with just ripping the DTS track and burning it as an audio cd. I ripped the 1st chapter of LOTR and I was blown away by the crystal clarity of it. It was very moving!

[The Maynard]

Actually, I did this a little different than what was listen in the guide. I used Smartripper to rip the vobs but I didn't have it demux the DTS stream.
I loaded the vobs into the program VobRator which will change the DTS stream from 0x89 to 0x80 so that most audio converters can see it. This recreates the vob files. Once that is done then I used Besweet to convert the Vobs into 6 Waves. The six waves are seperate waves for each channel. Then I load those wave files into a program called SurCode. You load them into the appropriate field (front-left wave goes into the front-left field). This will then combine those six wave files into one .wav file that is encoded with DTS. If you listen to it through your computer it sounds like static. But when you output it to a DTS encoder then it sounds Freakin GREAT!
This is a very long way around and has been the only way I've tried it so far. I didn't know they came out with a new version of DVD2AVI so I will have to download that and give it a try. But the way I described above works good too, if you have the time.

[Wilbert]

Nice! But there's something which I don't understand. Besweet can't handle dts tracks. Are you sure that Besweet is actually not decoding the AC3 tracks (which are also present in the vobs)? (Like in this guide: http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/BeSure.html.)

[The Maynard]

I am sure it is because when I rip the DVD with Smartripper I use stream proccessing and I sellect only the dts track 0x89.
Then VobRator changes it to track 0x80 so that BeSweet can see it.
Then BeSweet converts the vob to 6 waves.
And then SurCode takes those 6 waves and converts them into one dts encoded wave. It works just fine because the DTS track is the only one that was ripped.

[The Maynard]

DVD2AVI v1.86 also has DTS capabilities. And I've had it downloaded for at least a month and never installed it or realised it. Now to give it a try and see if it's easier to use than my way.

[Wilbert]

I guess I have to try it myself instead of asking you those questions. You demuxed your dts track with vobrator and loaded this dts track in Besweet.

Then you converted it to six waves. Do you know whether these wavs are uncompressed wavs, or are they dts tracks with a wav header?

In the latter case you should be able to decode it with graphedit. Interesting if this is indeed true!

[The Maynard]

I'm not entirely sure if they are true waves or DTS tracks with a wave header. They play and each file represents each speaker and they are very very very rich sounding. Actually, Surcode is what takes the 6 files and merges them into one wave with a DTS header and a DTS bitstream. So they may be uncompressed. Hell I don't know. All I know is it sounds awesome.
I'm working with the newest version of DVD2AVI right now to see if it's easier. I'll report back soon.

[Wilbert]

A small question. I don't have Surcode so I can't check it. Is it possible to change the bitrate of your dts track, or does Surcode use some fixed bitrate?

[The Maynard]

It uses a set bitrate. There are absolutely no settings for you change on it. Just load the waves and encode. I think it's a professional DTS software but I did a Google search for DTS RIPPING and found it. It has a file crack in it that you can use to make it work. But it's a pro tool. So the settings are professional quality.

[Wilbert]

I tried it and it didn't work. Here's what I did:

0) I used the movie gladiator.

1) I opened a vob file in Vobrator (see 1.png), removed the AC3 0x80 track and renamed the DTS 0.89 track to 0.80 (see 2.png).

2) I saved the vob file and opened it in Besweet. Under output I selected "six waves" (see 3.png). But nothing happened when I pressed "VOB 2 WAV". I tried it with v1.4.12 and v1.5.12 (latest, forgot the exact version number). I included besweet.log.

Did I do something wrong?

[The Maynard]

No, I was incorrect. You were right. BeSweet does NOT read the DTS. It was reading the AC3 track all along, even when I was pointing it to the DTS stream it was defaulting back to the AC3 stream. I did the exact same thing you did with removing the AC3 stream and when I tried encoding into 6 waves it froze.
I'm sorry. It looks like we'll have to wait for Besweet to get an upgrade.
I tried it the way that was listed in the above guide but I couldn't get any audio to play. I will be ordering a 5.1 sound card in the next week so this won't be a problem.
Sorry for the incorrect info. But hey, if you ever want to make an audio cd with DTS encoded AC3 surround, this works fine.

[digitaldick]

more about that.....

Hey Maynard- I really enjoyed this thread! Most informative! I'm wondering if you have had any success with the DVD2AVI Program yet? I cannot seem to find any "User Guides" for it. All 5 links on the home page link in English are defunct. Hope to hear from you! Thanks.

< I'm working with the newest version of DVD2AVI right now to see if it's easier. I'll report back soon.>

[The Maynard]

So far I haven't really been fooling around with it because I don't have my Divx system built yet and I don't have a 5.1 sound card yet. I'm not sure whether or not the sound card will even output a DTS signal either so I'm holding off on all of that until I get all of this squared away. Plus, the .dts file is very large in size so either doing it with Besweet or DVD2AVI it will result in a very large file and it would end up taking up more than 3 discs. So I will hold off on this for a little while.