5.1 digital audio file format playback

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by walrus, Jan 18, 2016.

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  1. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing Thread Starter

    Location:
    Nashville
    In a continuing quest to streamline my life, make it easier to listen, and have less clutter, I've been investigating ways to archive my surround discs in a digital file format, beyond just ripping DVD's to ISO files, which isn't particularly efficient, data-wise.

    My Mac can output 5.1 easily via DVD's, DVD ISO's, and .mkv files extracted, but again, these take up way more storage space than necessary. I've investigated 5.1 FLAC and ALAC, but can't actually get any software to output in 5.1, either via USB or optical. My DAC is stereo-only, but seems to pass-through 5.1 to my receiver just fine with regular DVD files (also tried going straight into the receiver via optical, and same result).

    Anyone had any luck doing this? Looking for any software recommendations as well, I have DVD Audio Extractor and have tried the free Audirvana to play the resulting files, but still just get a stereo output (with interesting results, not even a straight downmix). Obviously having individual track files would be optimal, but if I had to rip them to single DTS wav files or something similar, I could deal with that. Just wondering if anyone else has gone down this path (with a Mac) and gotten 5.1 FLAC/ALAC/something to work.
     
  2. Arnold_Layne

    Arnold_Layne Forum Resident

    Location:
    Waldorf, MD USA
    Dolby Digital and DTS can be transmitted via optical. However 5.1 PCM (FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF) cannot.
     
  3. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing Thread Starter

    Location:
    Nashville
    That makes no sense, but okay. I wonder if using the USB out into my DAC, and coax to my reciever will work?
     
  4. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    HDMI is probably the only interface that can carry uncompressed /losslessly compressed 5.1 audio. Optical / Coaxial SPDIF can only carry lossy surround formats, i.e. DTS, Dolby Digital. If you can transcode your uncompressed 5.1 files to either of these then the optical out will work. Not sure about USB.
     
  5. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing Thread Starter

    Location:
    Nashville
    Thanks for the info. I couldn't really find anything definitive in my google searches.

    Thing I don't understand: DTS is technically a lossy format, okay. But the DTS 'master audio' on a blu ray, that's 192/24 and presumably not compressed, has no problem carrying over optical/coax, so it's not a format bandwidth thing. Just seems odd.

    I'd be fine ripping them to some kind of DTS file format, but haven't found a way to do this that actually works. DVD Audio Extractor can make DTS-CD's, but I think that's a different creature than what I'm going for. (especially since I'm not burning anything, just archiving to hard drive)
     
  6. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    If you play a DTS Master Audio soundtrack from a Blu Ray, it contains a lossy DTS "core audio" component, which is what will be output from the coaxial / optical digital output of your player. It's good insofar as it confers compatibility with legacy AV decoders with an optical in and an "old" DTS decoder but no HDMI capability, but the downside is that it is not lossless / uncompressed. I believe Dolby True HD does a similar thing.

    The only way of getting the uncompressed / losslessly compressed audio is via HDMI. Depending on the respective capabilities of the player / decoder, this may occur through either the player decoding the soundtrack to e.g. 5.1 PCM or transferring e.g. DTS Master Audio to the receiver / decoder.
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2016
  7. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing Thread Starter

    Location:
    Nashville
    Thanks for the info. It was really hard to find this laid out so simply. I'm surprised no one has really found an easy, streamlined way to digitize and play (and sell) surround audio as files. I'll have to see what my old Onkyo receiver is actually capable of, I suppose. I'm not terribly optimistic though.
     
  8. Arnold_Layne

    Arnold_Layne Forum Resident

    Location:
    Waldorf, MD USA
    There is an easy way. A receiver with HDMI inputs and a computer with HDMI output.
     
  9. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing Thread Starter

    Location:
    Nashville
    A new receiver is not in the budget anytime soon. Mine has two HDMI ins and one out, but if I try to route video through it, the signal to my TV is just a flicker. No idea why, but I've basically just never bothered to use the HDMI inputs as a result. I think it's from 2006-07-ish, not even sure if receivers had HDMI audio at that point, or if the inputs are just a convenience thing to route video signals. Gonna see what happens when I get home later. This is kind of out of my area of expertise.
     
  10. Ephi82

    Ephi82 Still have two ears working

    Location:
    S FL
    Some months ago I bought an Acura with a DVD-a player in it with an Eliot Scheiner surround system. Wow, great system.

    I converted many DVD concerts, with 5.1 surround tracks, to FLAC , and then converted the FLAC to DVD-A discs. I was also able to do this with non copyright protected Blu Ray, and BluRay Audio discs.

    Now don't ask me to tell you how I did it, but I started with Google, used some free trial software (DVD Extractor was one), and I now can stream the 5.1 FLAC from my laptop on the home network, and I have a bunch more DVD-A for the car. I am not a computer geek, so this is more than doable if you set your mind to it.
     
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  11. Sevoflurane

    Sevoflurane Forum Resident

    Ripping 5.1 soundtracks using the above method works well. What are you streaming to? The impression I get is that there is a relatively small number of AV receivers that will properly decode a streamed 5.1 FLAC /WAV file. I'd hoped that my (currently mothballed due to recent house move) all in one Sony surround system would be able to play a surround file, but it refuses to recognise 5.1 WAV files via either the network or played from a USB stick and will only play stereo files. Fortunately, it plays SACD, Blu Ray, and home made DTS audio CDs.
     
  12. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing Thread Starter

    Location:
    Nashville
    Yeah, the goal here is to be completely disc-free, and surround albums are the last thing I have to sort out. (Also, as I don't get to spend much time actually at home, being able to make playlists out of 5.1 songs would be super awesome when I only have a few minutes to relax)

    So turns out the HDMI route does work in my crappy receiver. It's pretty clunky from a UI perspective (apps seem really confused by all the outbound connections I have on this poor little Mac Mini), but I think I can make it work with enough cables. Although interestingly, different apps handled the 5.1 sound differently, there was one where the center channel lead vocal was completely absent, whereas another app played it fine. At least I've sorted out why it wasn't working in the first place, I wasn't aware of the technical limitations of optical connections, so thanks a ton for that info.

    Hopefully someone will figure out a more streamlined way to sell 5.1 music online. Seems very much like a missed business opportunity for HDTracks and the like not to offer this in some way.

    Thanks for your help, guys. Very useful info here.
     
  13. clived

    clived New Member

    Location:
    UK
    Steve, you could use software such as JRiver Media Center to output your 5.1 FLAC files transcoded to Dolby Digital, over optical. I used to do this before I moved to HDMI. JRiver MC has a lot of options for transcoding, room correction and other effects (if you're so inclined). The only thing I can't make it do is decode DTS CD and Dolby Prologic content )both from stereo CD sources), but my DAC does the former, but not the latter (so I have to go back to optical straight to the receiver for that).
     
  14. walrus

    walrus Staring into nothing Thread Starter

    Location:
    Nashville
    Hmm. I'll try to give JRiver another shot, the Mac version never worked for me, it froze/crashed all the time. But maybe if I stick with Swinsian for my normal files and just keep a small library of surround stuff in JRiver, it'll behave. Thanks for the suggestion, I didn't even consider that JR could transcode that sort of thing. Will definitely give it a shot!
     
  15. riskylogic

    riskylogic Forum Resident

    I stream 5.1 FLACs, mostly ripped with DVDAE, to my Yamaha receiver over hard wired ethernet. It works most of the time, but it doesn't keep up with multichannel files coded at rates higher than 48Hz. I don't know if the problem is ethernet bandwith or the Yamaha DAC. One of these days I'll hook up the Oppo 105 to see if it does any better
     
  16. Kal Rubinson

    Kal Rubinson Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    I doubt if is is ethernet bandwidth and I do not know what your hardware is. Can you be more specific on everything you use?

    FWIW, I regularly stream multichannel PCM at 24/192 using JRiver on a Boot-camped MacMini to a Marantz AV-8802a. I can also stream multichannel PCM up to 24/352.8 and DSD256 using JRiver on a WinPC to my exaSound DAC.
     
  17. Bingo Bongo

    Bingo Bongo Music gives me Eargasms

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    I haven't done 5.1 yet, but did streamline all my music, and it felt great. Enjoy! :righton:
     
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  18. rd1

    rd1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    North Ga.
    Does the JRiver application software have to be connected online to work?
     
  19. Kal Rubinson

    Kal Rubinson Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    If you mean connected to the internet, the answer is no.
     
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  20. rd1

    rd1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    North Ga.
    Good to know, thank you.

     
  21. Archimago

    Archimago Forum Resident

    Yes. I have all my surround music in 5.1 FLACs including many surround SACDs.

    The best solution IMO is using HDMI to a surround receiver or processor. A computer with multichannel HDMI output works well. These days, I will also use a device like the ODROID-C2 running KODI, HDMI out to receiver which will accept lossless PCM. Point Kodi at my multichannel directory on my NAS. Remote control using Kore on my Android tab/phone.

    Good luck!
     
  22. konoyaro

    konoyaro Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA, USA
    Another thing to keep in mind if using ALAC for 5.1 audio playback in iTunes is that it won't handle an m4a file but will if the extension / container is changed to m4v.
     
  23. riskylogic

    riskylogic Forum Resident

    Did it, and yes using the Oppo solved the problem. So, I guess the Yamaha DAC is the problem. I guess I need to trade in the 83SE.
     
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