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[6233638]

Going through my CD collection again, I've been having a look at the DVD discs that came with a number of albums.
 
I had just assumed that they were discs with a couple of music videos on them, which I'm not really interested in, but it seems that many of these actually contain high resolution stereo tracks and/or multichannel versions of the album.
 
 
For proper DVD-Audio discs which use MLP encoding, ripping seems to be relatively easy.
Media Center doesn't seem to have native support for MLP tracks, but there is a foobar plugin which lets you load AUDIO_TS.IFO on the disc and extract all the MLP encoded tracks to your PCM format of choice. (FLAC etc.)
From there, you can just import and tag them as normal audio tracks.
 
 
But many of these discs are using Dolby/DTS audio instead. (24/96 DTS being common)
So far, the best thing seems to be ripping the "video" (usually just a static image) and audio track to an MKV file using MakeMKV, which keeps the original Dolby/DTS audio intact rather than converting it.
I can then load that MKV file into MKVmerge to remove the video track, and give all the chapters the proper track names, which leaves me with a single MKA file.
 
This is the part where I'm having some difficulty now though - how do I get Media Center to see these MKA files as individual tracks rather than one long track with chapter markers?
 
MKVmerge does have the option to split the file into individual MKA tracks based on the chapter information, but after finding out that splitting SACD files into individual tracks can introduce problems with gapless playback, I would rather keep it as a single file.
 
 
It seems like Particles would be the obvious solution for this, but I'm having difficulty getting them to work well.
Playback just seems to stop or hang at the end of the first track, and I'm having to create them manually. While duration displays correctly when you actually play the individual tracks, each track is listed as having the full length of the album in the normal library views.
 
Are there any good solutions for this, or should I just accept that they will be listed as a single file in the library?

[MrC]

I'm not sure about the hang issues.

Here's something for duration:

   http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=87265.msg597513#msg597513

[stevemac]

I took the route to convert them to FLAC using DVD Audio Extractor.  I extract the higher resolution stereo and multi-channel versions.  JRiver plays them without an issue

If I get a chance I'll try MKA & let you know how it goes

regards,

Steve

[bulldogger]

I took the route to convert them to FLAC using DVD Audio Extractor.  I extract the higher resolution stereo and multi-channel versions.  JRiver plays them without an issue

Steve

That's what I did as well. No issues.

[jmone]

I use the oldie but goodie DVD Decrypter to break them up by chatper, and if you then want to pull the audio out, MC's own convert format (audio only).

[mark_h]

DVD Audio Extractor here too.  Works with blu-rays as well (although AnyDVD is also required).  But rips audio to  FLAC very simply for import into MC.

[astromo]

I use the oldie but goodie DVD Decrypter to break them up by chatper, and if you then want to pull the audio out, MC's own convert format (audio only).

I'm with you for using MC for doing the audio convert. In the middle of pulling the audio out of the "Man in Black" DVD with Tex Perkins doing a tribute to Johnny Cash. No CD produced, so no choice to go any other way.

I'm using Audacity (MC's Media Editor just doesn't have the extras I require) to chop up the audio (I need to slice out dialogue) and add in Fade-in & Fade-out to give the audio compilation that "pro" feel.

[6233638]

Everyone that is suggesting DVD Audio Extractor - are you only using this to extract MLP tracks (lossless PCM) or are you converting Dolby/DTS (lossy formats) to PCM? (FLAC etc.)
 
The reason I've been converting these discs to MKA files is because it retains the original DTS audio track without any conversions and potential quality loss.
 
It also means that the resulting file is much smaller - a 45 minute album using 24/96 DTS 5.1 is about 500MB.
If I convert that to ALAC, it blows up to about 2.5GB in size.
Even a stereo downmix is about a gig when converted to PCM.
 
 
It sounds like most people are splitting these into separate files, but I think I'll just keep it as a single track rather than risk it. (splitting them up is easy enough to do)
I mostly listen to full albums anyway, and rarely ever want to hear an individual track.
 
 
I do now regret getting rid of a couple of discs, as I didn't know what I had at the time. As I said in my original post, I thought I just had a regular DVD with a couple of music videos on it.
It's also interesting to find that these are the only high res releases for some albums - I've had a couple where the "bonus disc" has contained 24/176 MLP tracks!
I have to say, it's also piqued my curiosity about surround music.

[mojave]

I use DVD-Audio Explorer 2008 to extract MLP and convert to FLAC using this guide:
Guide: Ripping DVD-Audio Discs (DVD-A) to FLAC in Windows

[syndromeofadown]

For the MLP I would use dvd audio extractor (DVDAE).
DVDAE can also rip the Dolby tracks but will only get the core of the DTS.
For the DTS i would simply rip the disc to a hardrive folder and play it like a regular dvd rip MC.
MC will play everything on disc except the MLP.
Note that you need dtsdecoderdll.dll to get the full DTS and not just the core.
Then if you want individual tracks, use MC to convert the DTS to FLAC. There is a guide on this forum.

It is rare that DTS needs to be extracted because there is typically MLP of the same quality and channels on discs.
If you have the MLP you don't need to bother with the DTS.

[kstuart]

It is rare that DTS needs to be extracted because there is typically MLP of the same quality and channels on discs.
If you have the MLP you don't need to bother with the DTS.

This.

[6233638]

It is rare that DTS needs to be extracted because there is typically MLP of the same quality and channels on discs.
If you have the MLP you don't need to bother with the DTS.

Well this is why I have an asterisk in the title - these are not discs which are exclusively DVD Audio (which I think means it requires MLP?) but bonus DVDs which were included in special edition versions of albums I've bought.
 
Many only have the high-res DTS track rather than MLP, because they're also including music videos on the disc rather than being an audio-only disc.
 
 
Extracting MLP tracks is really easy to do in Foobar and seems to be working well.
I'm reasonably happy with how things are when extracting the DTS tracks to MKA files, it's just that they only get listed as a single track in Media Center.
 
I assume there's no reason to bother with the Dolby 5.1 track if the disc has a 24/96 DTS track?
It seems like they're going to be the same mix, but with less compression if they're DTS.

Then if you want individual tracks, use MC to convert the DTS to FLAC. There is a guide on this forum.

Converting DTS encoded tracks to PCM seems to significantly inflate their file size and as I understand it, is a lossy process because DTS uses floating point data, which PCM does not.
 
It's trivial to split a file into individual MKA tracks containing DTS audio via MKVmerge - I was just hoping to avoid splitting the tracks up after finding out what it was doing to my SACDs, and hoping to avoid the same thing happen again. (I don't want to be ripping discs again at some point in the future)

[mark_h]

Everyone that is suggesting DVD Audio Extractor - are you only using this to extract MLP tracks (lossless PCM) or are you converting Dolby/DTS (lossy formats) to PCM? (FLAC etc.)

I use it to extract whatever is on the disc that I want   Typically this will be the high resolution lossless version of an album, but from time to time I'll rip a concert disc too, even if it's lossy.  But always to FLAC to preserve fidelity.

[6233638]

But always to FLAC to preserve fidelity.

If the track is DTS or Dolby (lossy formats, which store values in floating point) then you are best to keep it as DTS/Dolby rather than converting it to PCM audio. (which uses integer values)
Because it's a lossy format, the decoder you use for DTS can influence the audio quality.
 
If a track is marked as "16-bit" most decoders will only output 16-bit, but because it's stored as floating point data, it should really be converted to the highest bit-depth your program supports - which some decoders will do. (or at least, 16-bit tracks are decoded to 24-bit)
 
 
Using the "This Binary Universe" bonus disc as an example ("24/48" 5.1 DTS track) the audio extracted to MKA is only 406MB.
Converted to a 24-bit FLAC file, it grows to 1.8GB in size - and that conversion is a potentially lossy process.
 
This disc actually does have an accompanying video, rather than displaying a static image/menu, but I don't really care for it.

[GreggP]

I second DVD Audio Extractor.

http://amplioaudio.blogspot.com/2010/02/extracting-audio-from-dvd-video.html