Blu-ray audio ripping - preserving LPCM

[Handruin]

I just got the Blu ray Between The Lines: Sara Bareilles Live At The Filmore [Blu-ray] and I've been exploring ripping it and converting it into a media file inside an mkv container with H.264 encoding for the video.

I've extracted the contents of the Blu ray using AnyDVD-HD and while exploring audio options under Handbrake I see several options to extract. One of the audio options is for LPCM. With other audio formats (DTS, DTS-HD, etc) I would just select a pass-through for their type but for LPCM there isn't a matching pass-through that I can see. I'm converting right now and turning the LPCM into a 24-bit FLAC but I'm not convinced this is the best way to do this to preserve the best audio. When I want to play back this file later I suspect my receiver will need to understand what to do with this FLAC encoding and may possibly work but if it was the raw LPCM this might be better. Does anyone with more experience with this have a recommendation on how to best preserve the audio tracks?

 

[Stereodude]

It all depends what you want to play it back on. The listing or the disc at Blu-ray.com says it has Dolby True-HD 5.1 24/96. If your receiver supports Dolby True-HD, I'd demux the video and audio track with eac3to and stick them in a .mkv with mkvtoolnix. Handbrake isn't the tool I'd be using here. eac3to can also convert the audio track directly to multichannel FLAC if that's the way you want to go.

FWIW, playing back a mkv file with multichannel PCM audio is a pain on Windows computers thanks to the inept developers of MPC-HC (if that's your playback software like me). People have been after them for years to add WASPI support to the audio renderer. They finally do, and they didn't set it up to override the Windows speaker settings. :rotfl: The whole idea of WASAPI is to output exactly what's in the file to your audio device for processing bypassing all Windows processing. But no... They figured if you have your speakers set to 2 channel you only want 2 channel WASAPI output. Idiots... Microsoft isn't much better. If you tell Windows you have a 7.1 sound system and then play something with only 2 channels you get 5.1 channels of silence and 2 channels with audio, which will stop you from using any 2-> 7.1 modes on your receiver because it's getting a 7.1 audio stream. A proper WASAPI implementation like Foobar2000 has with it's WASAPI plugin will output stereo if the file is stereo regardless of Windows' setting, 5.1 for a 5.1 file, 7.1 for a 7.1 etc... Of course you can't play a video back in Foobar.

 

[Handruin]

Yes it looks as if my receiver supports that playback format. My receiver supports the following from what I can find:

DTS: HD Master&High Res. Audio/ES/96/24/Discrete&Matrix6.1/Neo:6/Express
Dolby: True HD/Digital Plus&EX/Pro Logic IIz, IIx, II/Virtual Speaker/Headphone

Would I be better off selecting the Dolby True-HD 5.1 24/96 track versus messing with the LPCM stream? I admit I'm still new to processing my blu-ray media into digital files/containers. Is the pass-thu option not a good idea in general when using an mkv container? Is it best practice to demux the video and audio each time for optimal sound quality?

For playback software I've been using the Plex media player on my PC and using a Roku 3 for home TV living room setup. The Roku is likely my limiting factor for audio support in this setup so I'll need to research better options.

 

[Stereodude]

Yes it looks as if my receiver supports that playback format. My receiver supports the following from what I can find:

DTS: HD Master&High Res. Audio/ES/96/24/Discrete&Matrix6.1/Neo:6/Express
Dolby: True HD/Digital Plus&EX/Pro Logic IIz, IIx, II/Virtual Speaker/Headphone

Would I be better off selecting the Dolby True-HD 5.1 24/96 track versus messing with the LPCM stream? I admit I'm still new to processing my blu-ray media into digital files/containers. Is the pass-thu option not a good idea in general when using an mkv container? Is it best practice to demux the video and audio each time for optimal sound quality?

For playback software I've been using the Plex media player on my PC and using a Roku 3 for home TV living room setup. The Roku is likely my limiting factor for audio support in this setup so I'll need to research better options.

The LPCM stream is only 2.0 right? That's what the technical information for the disc says at blu-ray.com I figured you wanted 5.1 audio.

The Roku 3 doesn't support Dolby True-HD bitstreaming output. Presumably you have your Roku 3 connected to your receiver via HDMI. If your Roku 3 supports 5.1 LPCM audio output over HDMI (I don't think it does this either) then converting the True-HD to 5.1 FLAC or 5.1 wave would be an option. So, in your case if you want 5.1 audio you're limited to the 640kbit/sec Dolby Digital 5.1 track in your .mkv. If you want a "higher quality" but only 2 channel stereo audio track, FLAC the 2 channel LPCM and stuff it in your .mkv.

I'm not very familiar with what Handbrake does if you're not transcoding or if that's even an option. Hence my preference to not use it if I want to use the original Blu-ray streams.

 

[ddrueding]

It seems my trusty Plextor PX-LB950UE is dying. Any recommendations for an external BluRay drive, specifically for ripping? What are the odds that any drive available now will be compatible with 4k BluRay when those come out?

 

[Stereodude]

At a high level without access to the specs it appears that UHD Blu-ray uses BD-XL media, but who knows if they will do something to them to make them incompatible with drives that support BD-XL media. Are you looking for a USB powered portable, or a 5.25" drive in an enclosure?

 

[ddrueding]

USB powered is more convienent and easier to cable, but powered is also possible. For that matter, it could even be an internal drive. My systems don't live in cases, just shelves on the rack, so I could wire in whatever.

 

[Stereodude]

If you want fast... LG UH12NS30. It's the fastest drive I've personally tested. It's not a BD-R, it's BD-rom.

 

[ddrueding]

Thanks. Ordered.

 

[Handruin]

If you want fast... LG UH12NS30. It's the fastest drive I've personally tested. It's not a BD-R, it's BD-rom.

Have you compared it to the LG BD-RE WH16NS40? I've had good luck with these drives so far. I've not done any burns on them yet.

 

[Stereodude]

Have you compared it to the LG BD-RE WH16NS40? I've had good luck with these drives so far. I've not done any burns on them yet.

No, just Lite-on, Pioneer, Samsung, and one of its predecessors. I have a thread on Myce with the results. You can use a similar size BD-R or pressed BD to see how your LG burner compares.

 

[Santilli]

http://www.lg.com/us/compare/compare.lg?category=/us/burners-drives

 

[Stereodude]

No, just Lite-on, Pioneer, Samsung, and one of its predecessors. I have a thread on Myce with the results. You can use a similar size BD-R or pressed BD to see how your LG burner compares.

Here's the post with the results.

Using LG's comparator it looks like the burner Handy asked about should be equally fast for ripping. Of course actual results don't always match the specs. I also haven't tested my newer Pioneer BDR-2209 burner against them either so it's possible it's equally fast. The specs seem the same for reading Blu-rays as the other two.

Still, I like to keep the ripping to a drive I'm not burning with so I don't wear out my burner.

 

[ddrueding]

Thanks guys. I never burn anything. The only use I have for optical media is ingesting it.

 

[Handruin]

Here's the post with the results.

Using LG's comparator it looks like the burner Handy asked about should be equally fast for ripping. Of course actual results don't always match the specs. I also haven't tested my newer Pioneer BDR-2209 burner against them either so it's possible it's equally fast. The specs seem the same for reading Blu-rays as the other two.

Still, I like to keep the ripping to a drive I'm not burning with so I don't wear out my burner.

Thanks guys. I never burn anything. The only use I have for optical media is ingesting it.

I don't have any of the blu-ray movies that you used to do your performance test otherwise I would have tried for some comparison. I chose this LG BR drive because it wasn't much more money than a BR-ROM drive (like maybe ~$10 more at the time) so I figured the added functionality might be worth having in case I ever needed to burn a BR disc. Otherwise I agree with you that I'd normally keep the wear and tear of the burner.

I noticed in your post that you flashed the firmware to a modified version for read speed improvements. Do you have any links to share on info about doing this? I've updated the firmware on both my drives to the latest LG offered but never looked for modified versions for improved read speeds.

 

[LunarMist]

Thanks guys. I never burn anything. The only use I have for optical media is ingesting it.

Oh, is that the new fad? I just play stuff on TV. Apparently I'm doing it wrong.

https://rossvross.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/jawsrichardkiel.jpg

 

[ddrueding]

 

[Stereodude]

I don't have any of the blu-ray movies that you used to do your performance test otherwise I would have tried for some comparison. I chose this LG BR drive because it wasn't much more money than a BR-ROM drive (like maybe ~$10 more at the time) so I figured the added functionality might be worth having in case I ever needed to burn a BR disc. Otherwise I agree with you that I'd normally keep the wear and tear of the burner.

You don't need the exact discs, just ones that are a similar size.

I noticed in your post that you flashed the firmware to a modified version for read speed improvements. Do you have any links to share on info about doing this? I've updated the firmware on both my drives to the latest LG offered but never looked for modified versions for improved read speeds.

I haven't seen this for any of the recent drives. Some people made tools to edit the firmware image. AFAIK, the SW doesn't support newer drives. The older (slower) LG drive in my posted results had the speed tweaks. The new one doesn't have any tweaks.