The DTS issue

[panteragstk]

I have been working with sage support about the DTS playback issue with no results. I'm not blaming anyone for my problem, it is just than I'd rather not re encode my sound files to ac3 if sage is supposed to support DTS. Nobody but me seems to have raised the issue so I thought I'd start a thread about the non existent DTS support. I love everything about sage except the fact that my DTS encoded video files will not play correctly within sage. Does anybody have a solution? Thanks.

[Motofreak75]

its guessing game on what your issues really are having.

in order to help, we need more details

thanks

[jm987]

Do you have a receiver that is decoding the DTS stream?

AFAIK, by default it only provides pass through and does not provide decode capabilities. I believe there is a setting so Sage will re encode on the fly the format to AC3 but it also re encodes the video at the same time.

I have one TV that has a DTS decoding receiver and the other one does not so I'm using the popcorn hour mkv audio encoder to convert or add a AC3 track from the DTS audio.

I've been very impressed with the application and have not had any audio timing issues.

[iammike]

Originally Posted by jm987

AFAIK, by default it only provides pass through and does not provide decode capabilities. I believe there is a setting so Sage will re encode on the fly the format to AC3 but it also re encodes the video at the same time.

Sage still has to extract that audio track from the file it's playing. I think that is probably where the problem lies. According to my last e-mail from Sage support, the DTS issue is a known problem that they are working on.

[panteragstk]

The only files I have with dts sound are .ts or .m2ts video files. The ones with ac3 work fine. I am just trying to get sage to send the bitstream signal to my receiver like mpc does. This and vc-1 playback are the only two problems I have with sage. EVERYTHING else woks flawlessly. The support for dts is brand new in 6.5 so I diddn't expect it to work perfectly in a beta release. That is what betas are for, testing. I'm just trying to help sage find the problem before the official release. I think my vc-1 issue is something else entirely so not a sage issue.

any other feedback would be great.

[HelenWeathers]

Ultimately, I would like to see the same level of support for DTS (and eventually DTS-HD and DDTrueHD) that we now enjoy for AC3 audio tracks. That is to say, you should be able to play the audio on your SageTV machine, your SageTV Client and your SageTV HD Extender while hooked up through your L/R stereo outputs, your S/PDIF outputs and your HDMI outputs. EDIT: So you can enjoy SageTV to it's fullest even on older TVs that don't have native support for some of the newer audio formats. LPCM too.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

The only files I have with dts sound are .ts or .m2ts video files. The ones with ac3 work fine. I am just trying to get sage to send the bitstream signal to my receiver like mpc does. This and vc-1 playback are the only two problems I have with sage. EVERYTHING else woks flawlessly. The support for dts is brand new in 6.5 so I diddn't expect it to work perfectly in a beta release. That is what betas are for, testing. I'm just trying to help sage find the problem before the official release. I think my vc-1 issue is something else entirely so not a sage issue.

any other feedback would be great.

Make sure you've got a DTS capable "decoder" installed. I don't know if the SageTV audio decoder can handle DTS, AC3Filter (which is installed with Sage) should though.

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

Ultimately, I would like to see the same level of support for DTS (and eventually DTS-HD and DDTrueHD) that we now enjoy for AC3 audio tracks. That is to say, you should be able to play the audio on your SageTV machine, your SageTV Client and your SageTV HD Extender while hooked up through your L/R stereo outputs, your S/PDIF outputs and your HDMI outputs. EDIT: So you can enjoy SageTV to it's fullest even on older TVs that don't have native support for some of the newer audio formats.

The only thing that's missing from that want list is DTS decoding on the extender. And frankly I don't know how soon that will come. DTS just isn't very common outside Blu-ray. Every other format always has a DD stream, and there's really no point to DTS if you're not running it through a surround system and frankly, the benefits of DTS over DD are dubious at best.

[Flips]

Again not sure what the original issue is, but when I tried to get Sage to output DTS to my DTS capable receiver, I couldn't get AC3 to output the sound even though it was set that way in Sage. I had to change sage.properties and sageclient.properties to say always use dshow to true.

flips

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Make sure you've got a DTS capable "decoder" installed. I don't know if the SageTV audio decoder can handle DTS, AC3Filter (which is installed with Sage) should though.



The only thing that's missing from that want list is DTS decoding on the extender. And frankly I don't know how soon that will come. DTS just isn't very common outside Blu-ray. Every other format always has a DD stream, and there's really no point to DTS if you're not running it through a surround system and frankly, the benefits of DTS over DD are dubious at best.

I have a dts capable decoder set to pass through to spdif and ac3 always works.

Also, DTS sound is very superior to ac3 for the simple fact that the bitrate is double and sometimes triple that of ac3. I've always been able to tell a HUGE difference between the two. Now, if an ac3 track is mixed correctly from the studio it can sound very good, just not as good as dts.

Re encoding my dts tracks to ac3 is always and option, but sage supports dts now so I'd like to preserve the original audio track.

[stanger89]

Higher bitrate doesn't necessarilly equate to better sound, especially when two codecs work vastly differently. It's like MP3 vs AAC. And don't mistake different mixes for differences in codecs. I know some have reported the DTS core (lossy compression) soundtrack sounds better than the TrueHD (lossless compression) soundtrack on the Top Gun BD. Codec used is about the least important factor in the sound quality of a soundtrack.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Higher bitrate doesn't necessarilly equate to better sound, especially when two codecs work vastly differently. It's like MP3 vs AAC. And don't mistake different mixes for differences in codecs. I know some have reported the DTS core (lossy compression) soundtrack sounds better than the TrueHD (lossless compression) soundtrack on the Top Gun BD. Codec used is about the least important factor in the sound quality of a soundtrack.

I get what you are saying, but why (to my ears) does the dts track of a movie (dvd) always sound better. To my knowledge higher bitrate=more info=more dynamic range and sound data. The arguement about dts core and dolbyTruehd is odd though. And when I said the way a track is mixed I was referring to more effects in rear channels for example. It just seems to me that dts has a "fuller" sound than ac3 on the same dvd. JMO though.

Changing the subject, do you use sagetv for blu ray rips, or any other video file with dts sound?

EDIT: I found this Dolby Digital vs DTS artical and it says the same thing as you were. Interesting.

[HelenWeathers]

Originally Posted by stanger89

The only thing that's missing from that want list is DTS decoding on the extender.

And LPCM.

I wanted the HD-200s to replace the Client PCs in my home. They do the job 100% for SageTV recordings. They do the job about 70% of the time for my movie collection. So I havn't been able to replace my Client PCs with the HD-200s.

EDIT: I'm not trying to be harsh here. It's just that the HD-200 is so very close to doing it all, that it's maddening.

I think fully handling the current standards for audio (and video) is a necessary next step for Sage with all their products.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

I get what you are saying, but why (to my ears) does the dts track of a movie (dvd) always sound better.

Because it's 3dB hotter, so if you don't make a point of equalizing the volume, the louder option almost always sounds better (I really think this is what gets most people when they "test" by switching tracks on the DVD).

DTS is mixed differently (ala Top Gun example).

To my knowledge higher bitrate=more info=more dynamic range and sound data.

Within any particular codec, yes, more bitrate == less loss. But that falls appart completely when you compare different codecs. Let's look at video. Is OTA better quality at ~15-19Mbps (MPEG-2) than say HD DVD at 12-14Mbps (VC1)? No, because VC1 is far more efficient and can store the same info in less space.

Or MP3 vs AAC, AAC can equal the quality of MP3 at about half the bitrate.

The same is true of AC3 and DTS. AC3 works very differently than DTS, and is much more efficient. There aren't many objective studies but the ones that have been done show that when 640k AC3 and 1536k DTS are basically indistinguishable, and at the more commond DVD bitrates, 448k AC3 and 768k DTS, AC3 suffers less loss than DTS. DTS tends to roll off high frequencies at that bitrate, but also the sub channel is handled differently.

When you really look into it though, you realize one thing, that the differences between them are negligible, it's what they're compressing that makes all the difference.

The arguement about dts core and dolbyTruehd is odd though.

And it should, logic dictates that lossless should always sound better. But this example shows clearly the problems with using the soundtracks on a disc to compare codecs, that problem is there's no guarantee the different tracks came from the same source. In the Top Gun case, the DTS soundtrack is entirely different than the TrueHD one.

And when I said the way a track is mixed I was referring to more effects in rear channels for example. It just seems to me that dts has a "fuller" sound than ac3 on the same dvd. JMO though.

Probably because it's 3dB louder.

Changing the subject, do you use sagetv for blu ray rips, or any other video file with dts sound?

I've played a number of DVDs with DTS with no issue. I always used nVidia decoders when I was using an HTPC. I never had TS files with DTS until I started ripping BDs. My HD200 handles extracting the DTS core from the DTS-HD MA stream just fine.

EDIT: I found this Dolby Digital vs DTS artical and it says the same thing as you were. Interesting.

It's rather controvercial, but if you read through there's lots of good info.

[quote=HelenWeathers;335218]And LPCM.[QUOTE]

That wasn't in your list

I wanted the HD-200s to replace the Client PCs in my home. They do the job 100% for SageTV recordings. They do the job about 70% of the time for my movie collection. So I havn't been able to replace my Client PCs with the HD-200s.

Do you have that many moves with an LPCM track?

I think fully handling the current standards for audio (and video) is a necessary next step for Sage with all their products.

Near as I can tell they're working on it. The HD200 already extracts the core stream from TrueHD/DTS-HD MA just great.

[panteragstk]

3db hotter? Did not know that. It is always nice to learn something new from people who actually know something. My dvd's with dts tracks have no problems at all, it is the .ts or .m2ts files with DTS-MA tracks or just plain DTS that sage doesn't like. It is odd that the HD200 works with these files but not the actual sagetv application. I wonder what the problem is? This is currently the ONLY issue I have with sage. (fingers crossed for a fix)

[stanger89]

Well the Sage app I'm sure is at the mercy of the audio decoders you have installed. For DTS-HD MA and TrueHD you'll need decoders that understand them on the PC. I think ffdshow tryouts supports them these days.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Well the Sage app I'm sure is at the mercy of the audio decoders you have installed. For DTS-HD MA and TrueHD you'll need decoders that understand them on the PC. I think ffdshow tryouts supports them these days.

See, that's my problem. MPC plays my files encoded with either just fine, but sage does not. Well, sage will play the TrueHD encoded files but not DTS-HD or DTS. That is what's weird.

[stanger89]

MPC doesn't use directshow though, not by default at least.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by stanger89

MPC doesn't use directshow though, not by default at least.

When I open a file with dts in graphedit it opens the same way in mpc, and both playback DTS video files perfectly. How do I tell if mpc is using directshow? Also, have you ever messed with the mpc codecs. I can't get sage to use them. Sage will only use the pdvd 8 and 7.x codecs.

[gplasky]

All the codecs being used in MPC are built in. So unless you defined a External decoder in the MPC options it is using its built in codecs for everything.

Gerry

[stanger89]

What decoder is getting used in graphedit, and what decoder do you have selected in the audio section of detailed setup?