[Royal Amethyst]

So I know this seems to be a fairly common thread, but nothing anywhere I find seems to offer any solutions. So I recently got a few DVD-Audio discs for some good old 24-bit, 96-192kHz, surround sound London Symphony Orchestra! A few problems have cropped up, though.
 
First and foremost, the Classic Beethoven disc I got is actually a 20-bit DTS disc, which as far as I can tell is just a 5.1 Redbook standard 16-bit CD that was dithered down from a 20-bit source. That's highly disappointing, but at this point, I'm willing to just rip it at 16-bit, 44.1kHz. The only problem is that WMP, Foobar2000, or Songbird will either a) not play it, therefore I must rip it to WAV or FLAC, or b) play it, but not as music, rather as a horrible static or white noise. I've looked all over from every program telling me I need to enable this setting, disable other settings, rip to WAV and convert to a DTS audio file, but nothing helps.
 
Second, the DVD-Audio disc, which is Night in Berlin, a bunch of German classical composers' songs, will not be recognized as a DVD-Audio disc in Foobar2000, even with the DVD-Audio add-on with watermark-detecting enabled. When I open it, it looks just like a DVD-Video disc with a few pictures, and the audio is on two tracks: a 448kbps Dolby Digital, and a 1500-ish kbps DTS. Both 48kHz and 16-bit. This is also reflected by the contents of the disc, which is an empty AUDIO_TS folder and a bunch of IFO and VOB files in the VIDEO_TS folder. I just wanted to rip to some 24-bit, 192kHz or 96kHz FLAC files. I understand that DVD-Audio discs were made not to be easily ripped, but this is ridiculous, I just want to add them to my Songbird.
 
So in summary: Can't play the 20-bit DTS CD and the DVD-Audio disc seems more like a DVD-Video with the same crappy, compressed DVD-Video audio. Though hopefully I'm wrong.

 

[anetode]

If it's not a DVD audio disc and all you are finding is a DTS file then you're simply not going to get 24/`192 data out of it. If you find the high-rez files, you could try http://www.videohelp.com/tools/eac3to.

As for the 20-bit DTS cd, are you saying that foobar gives you the option to rip it to wav/flac but you don't want to, or that it doesn't allow you to rip it at all?

 

[Royal Amethyst]

Quote:

If it's not a DVD audio disc and all you are finding is a DTS file then you're simply not going to get 24/`192 data out of it. If you find the high-rez files, you could try http://www.videohelp.com/tools/eac3to.
As for the 20-bit DTS cd, are you saying that foobar gives you the option to rip it to wav/flac but you don't want to, or that it doesn't allow you to rip it at all?

It claims to be a DVD-Audio disc. It says 24-bt right on the cover, with the "Silverline" logo. From what I can tell, many DVD-Audio discs are encrypted such that you cannot see the AUDIO_TS data, so that's what I'm trying to work on right now. The problem with eac3to is that 1) it's confusing as hell and 2) it doesn't seem to be able to load/recognize the data from the DVD-A disc.
 
I figured out the 20-bit DTS CD, I just needed to find a library DLL file for foobar's components to get it to play anything but static. One of the songs is still not ripping, failing every time claiming something like " unexpected audio format change".

 

[anetode]

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/DVD-Audio-Explorer first, then eac3to.

 

[Royal Amethyst]

Oh yeah, DVD-Audio Explorer. Refuses to open any of the IFO files. I select "Open" and search the DVD-A disc, and the only files that DVD-Audio Explorer wants to work with are IFO files. There are three in the VIDEO_TS folder, and opening them does nothing.

 

[Radioking59]

This is widely regarded as the best program for ripping audio from DVD-Video and DVD-A. It says it handles DTS but I have never tried it.
 
http://www.dvdae.com/
 
It's $30 but you get a free 30 day trial.

 

[Royal Amethyst]

Thanks Radioking59. It opens the DVD and sees a bunch of tracks but... they're either AC3(48kHz, 6 Channel) or DTS (48kHz, 6 Channel). I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I was lied to, and that I do not own a DVD-Audio disc, but rather a regular DVD with video and crappy, compressed audio tracks. I feel ripped off to the extreme.

 

[Radioking59]

For high res classical you might want to look into SACD. I don't listen to classical music, but I really don't recall seeing many classical DVD-A discs while searching for DVD-A on Amazon and Ebay.  There are a lot of classical SACDs and many are multi-channel.  Just be warned that most SACDs are out of print and go for a lot of money. Generally prices will be lower on ebay than Amazon.
 
As a general rule stay away from those Silverline discs. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part they are crap.
 
For SACD reviews and to see what's out there go here: http://www.sa-cd.net/
 
For surround in all formats go here: http://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/content.php

 

[Royal Amethyst]

Yeah, the problem I have with SACD's is that there is virtually no way to rip them to FLAC, as well as no way to play them on my PC. I would prefer to be able to take my music collection where ever and listen to it unencumbered by my physical media, but that's just me.

 

[Radioking59]

There is a way to do it, but it requires an early Playstation 3 that has SACD playback.  I'm thinking about going this route myself. I'm not sure I want to kiss my paycheck goodbye and start buying SACDs.  That's the only thing holding me back.
 
http://jere.my/?page=writings&sub_page=archive&display=0000000024