Seamlessly branching multi-disc movies with Atmos

[Rocky]

If you add an argument to thdtrim that lets me customize how much of the very start is kept, I can do some testing with various values and see if any of them work.

We need to do something like that because I don't have an AVR. Let me think about how best to do this.

[Rocky]

OK, before I try to give you something general, I'd like to try a few experiments. This second trim version retains the first major of the double major at the start, then cuts full cycles. So the resulting file still starts with a double major. Please play around with it and report results. Note this file has a 2 at the end, so be sure to get the right one as the first is still online.

https://rationalqm.us/misc/horseshowers2.zip

[horseshowers]

OK, before I try to give you something general, I'd like to try a few experiments. This second trim version retains the first major of the double major at the start, then cuts full cycles. So the resulting file still starts with a double major. Please play around with it and report results.

Thank you. Tried the following:
>thdtrim d1.thd d1test.thd 0 5.005
>thdtrim d2.thd d2test.thd 1.96 0
Same result, though there's now also a noticeable gap when playing the file in VLC, which is certainly not ideal.
I also tried the old trimmed+trimmed and the new file with the receiver in TrueHD mode (ie not Atmos) and got the same result. I'm not sure if this means anything, I'll have to test with a different TrueHD file without any Atmos tomorrow, but it could mean that the issue is with TrueHD and not necessarily with the Atmos stream.

You wouldn't happen to know of any way to extract the Atmos layer? Just got the idea to combine the two TrueHD core tracks properly in a DAW, encode the resulting WAVs back to TrueHD with DME, and adding in the appropriately cut and spliced Atmos layer from the original file. I wonder if that would even work.
I do know it's possible to do Atmos with LPCM because that's how the Apple TV works but idk if that's something only the Apple TV can do.

There are a few people working on full Atmos decoding/re-encoding and allegedly making good progress, so maybe this will become moot in the not-too-distant future where we can just fully decode/extract Atmos and re-encode it again using the "available" Dolby Encoding Engine or Media Encoder tools.

Do you know how far along this project is, and where I can read more about it? Getting that level of control would be very exciting.

Anyway, I need sleep now. Will test more tomorrow.

[SomeHumanPerson]

Do you know how far along this project is, and where I can read more about it? Getting that level of control would be very exciting.

Unfortunately, no to the second question. A very tentative "pretty close" to the first question, I think.

At one point there was a GitHub with a lot of discussion (might even have been an issue thread on the DEEW GitHub) but that dried up. I only know the work is ongoing based on remarks by the DEEW developer in one of my other hangouts. The main conversation must be somewhere that I'm not privy to.

AFAIK, outside of the above work in progress, there's no current way to extract the Atmos stream/metadata in order to do what you were talking about (re-encoding with DME).

[Rocky]

horseshowers, it looks like you are going to need an expensive Atmos authoring suite. I don't think extracting the Atmos substream and then cutting that will change anything. I don't know anything about any active projects but if they worked they'd be common knowledge.

So I can only declare defeat on this issue.

[Sherman]

Happens to the best of us, Rocky. Take it on the chin. Oh, by the way, can you plug in the linux drive?

[Rocky]

Second drawer in the office. Don't break anything. Use the 7700K machine. We're only about 20 revisions behind. If you knock this out of the park, who knows, moderator?

[Sherman]

I got this, Rocky.

[Wonder Woman]

Another megawatt. Why bother?

[Britney]

I know, right.

[DG]

Sherman, you are appointed Director of Linux Development reporting directly to me. We all have so much faith in you.

If you like, Sherman, share with us your vision for the future of DG tools on the linux platform. Balti told me about you. He thinks you are great.

[Wonder Woman]

Wow. Director Sherman!

[horseshowers]

horseshowers, it looks like you are going to need an expensive Atmos authoring suite. I don't think extracting the Atmos substream and then cutting that will change anything. I don't know anything about any active projects but if they worked they'd be common knowledge.

So I can only declare defeat on this issue.

Unfortunate, after all that work. It was neat to learn more about how the TrueHD format works tho, thank you for putting in all this effort.



I finally got my Zidoo Z9X Pro today, and it plays the initial test file perfectly. No gap. No skullduggery required. My earlier suspicions that this could be compensated for in the player have been proven correct. So if anyone reading this thread is in the market for a new media player for local files, buy a Zidoo, not a Dune HD.

[SomeHumanPerson]

So if anyone reading this thread is in the market for a new media player for local files, buy a Zidoo, not a Dune HD.

What marketplace did you buy yours through? I was looking at these a couple of days ago but they don't offer the Z9X "Pro" on Amazon.ca (only the original Z9X) and it appears that they may have been removed from Amazon.com (no Zidoo products came up in search).

[horseshowers]

What marketplace did you buy yours through? I was looking at these a couple of days ago but they don't offer the Z9X "Pro" on Amazon.ca (only the original Z9X) and it appears that they may have been removed from Amazon.com (no Zidoo products came up in search).

The only place that sells the Z9X Pro currently is futeko.com, they're very friendly with Zidoo. I expect Amazon will get it eventually.