Playing AC3/DTS tracks sourced from DVD

[smst]

The bit of actually getting the audio from the DVD. What software should I use?

My second post above has a section on ripping, with a brief guide to using SmartRipper. When you've got the file you'll need to convert it to a playable format following the rest of the instructions.

[eldebil]

I'm glad to hear it! I'm interested to know if you included the FLAC step for your DTS file, and if so if it sounded okay or a little jerky or stuttery. If you didn't go for FLAC (just WAV, as I described in my earlier post) did you notice a slight slow-down? I found it most noticeable on vocal sections of a song. It'd be good to confirm the behaviour I saw here, in case there's a chance it's something to do with my setup.

Thanks for your appreciative comments.

My test was the following:
software :
---16 mn of "Faithless - Live at Alexendra Palace" (DTS half rate )
---extracted with DVDdecrypter
---converted to WAV with your python script
---compressed in FLAC (compression=max).
hardware :
---SqueezeBox 3
---receiver: Yamaha RX-V750
---SPDIF connection: coaxial

I haven't noticed any problem with this setup but I plan to rip all my concert DVDs to test it a little more deeply.
I promise to post more feedback of my tests in this thread.

PS: Merry Christmas to everybody

[chrisal]

Hi,

I'm having a go at this but winzip is telling me the archive is corrupt - is there another place to download it?

Cheers

Chris

[chrisal]

It's ok - i've managed to unzip it ok now...

[adhawkins]

Apologies for being dim and asking for a step-by-step guide. I was reading this through the GMane interface, and for some reason the second of your posts didn't make it there.

I'm just ripping a DVD now, but I can't get the spdifconvert ZIP file to download successfully. Can you help?

I notice someone else had similar problems and then got it to work. How did you do that?

Andy

[adhawkins]

Odd...tried it on another PC in the house and it worked...

I'll have a play tomorrow.

Andy

[chrisal]

Yep - I had problems but the file in the attached zip seems to be a nested archive. I've re-zipped it and attached it....

[Philip Meyer]

These posts seem pretty useful! Perhaps you could add them to the wiki at http://wiki.slimdevices.com for future reference?

Phil

[adhawkins]

Just an update on my progress. I've now ripped an entire DVDs AC3 soundtrack into a WAV file and compressed this to FLAC. Manually I've converted the chapter information in the _INFO.txt file created by the ripper into the format for a CUE sheet (had a little trouble with the leadout on this, but a browse of the FLAC source solved that).

I've imported this cuesheet and applied a set of tags, and I now have a single FLAC file containing the entire DVDs AC3 soundtrack, and am able to play this through my Squeezebox with access to the individual chapters of the DVD.

I'll be knocking up some Perl to do the cuesheet generation automatically, and I'd be happy to post it here once it's in a fit state to do so.

All we need now is to get the DTS side sorted and I'd be a *very* happy bunny

Andy

[adhawkins]

Ah, just listening to this, and all the cue points are in the wrong place I think.

I'll have to have another play to check exactly what is going on. Is the AC3 compressed in some way? If so, then I guess the conversion that FLAC does from time to sample numbers could be getting screwed up?

Any ideas?

Andy