Article: How To Decode and Play Dolby TrueHD Atmos on Windows and macOS

2 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

emotional words

Hi, sorry, my humour might have been lost in translation as horror. Six letters, both begin in h and end in r. But different emotions. 

But seriously, although I am familiar with anti-virus false positives, if a link is not making it through my anti-virus, then I find it difficult to recommend the link to others to use. 

8 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Yes, it's a disc authoring issue on the Blu-ray.

Bummer. Other than my marathon session last weekend to re-rip my older ATMOS music discs, I do not rip blu-rays much these days, just UHDs. I'd rather buy a download of ATMOS music and then archive the MKVs in offline backup. I have three backups of everything. So 120TB offline in two facilities for 40TB online. Maybe keeping more discs would be easier. But discs degrade over the decades. And I was asked by "house management" to reduce my physical "footprint" in the basement. 

If I remember right, my workarounds at this point would be:

• Go straight to the m2ts file on the blu-ray, or
• Create an ISO using DVDFab... if I remember right, this can be done as unprotected and with just the main title only, leaving blu-ray extras behind. Then run this reduced ISO through MakeMKV. 

I have no technical basis for these. They were learned by stubborn trial and error. My very last step would be to buy another disc from another country with different features. Maybe such a disc is authored separately / differently???

4 hours ago, Carousel said:

My very last step would be to buy another disc from another country with different features. Maybe such a disc is authored separately / differently???

I wouldn’t even try it. 😏

16 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I did some digging on this one. When I extracted the tracks and tried to convert using your settings, here's what I got. 

 

 

 

I may have used DRP outputting to Audacity, which captured it in my specific configuration, then exported to WAV from Audacity, for this album. Can't remember, but I know I was successful eventually getting WAVs of everything.

Thanks for taking a look, and this does look same as my results.  I believe all of the failed mkv's will decode if the TrueHD Presentation is set to 8 with output channel layout set to 5.1.2, but then the decoded files are missing the top channels for some reason.   I suspect top channels are missing because the information is excluded when True HD presentation is 8, but this is all very new to me and I need a better understanding.

BTW - I'm running into similar issues with the very next disc I selected to decode -  Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark.  

And how are you processing this one? Breaking the disc down into separate files first? Or keeping it simple and just ripping one MKV file with MakeMKV with all the record tracks as chapters in the one file, and just the TrueHD sound track? See Pink Floyd Animals image from my post above.

14 minutes ago, Carousel said:

And how are you processing this one? Breaking the disc down into separate files first? Or keeping it simple and just ripping one MKV file with MakeMKV with all the record tracks as chapters in the one file, and just the TrueHD sound track? See Pink Floyd Animals image from my post above.

Individual mka's.   Somehow I forgot about trying to process album in entirety.  Once I  joined the mka's and processed the album as whole, that decoded without problems. 

Thanks for asking.

1 hour ago, whoareyou said:

Thanks for taking a look, and this does look same as my results.  I believe all of the failed mkv's will decode if the TrueHD Presentation is set to 8 with output channel layout set to 5.1.2, but then the decoded files are missing the top channels for some reason.   I suspect top channels are missing because the information is excluded when True HD presentation is 8, but this is all very new to me and I need a better understanding.

This is part of a quirk I discovered when first testing the Dolby Reference Player to see if it would even work. It's how we discovered that importing a track other than track 1, into the DRP, required setting the presentation to 8 or less upon import, then changing it to 16 for playback. MMH can't make this adjustment for import and playback, thus the issue. 

1 hour ago, whoareyou said:

BTW - I'm running into similar issues with the very next disc I selected to decode -  Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark.  

 

No issues with Joni Mitchell (16 channel presentation > 5.1.2

How do you image jpg images to the mkv file so that while the file plays you can see the jpg image.

@steveoat I use MP3Tag

I'm looking to dip my toe into Atmos, but don't have a multi-speaker setup.  I have heard that Atmos can be experienced with normal headphones without any special speaker setups (I know it won't be the full experience, but I'm looking for at least a taste).  I've read lots of guides and found the Music Media Helper program on this site.  

Can someone tell me if I'm doing this right?  Here's my process.  First off, I've purchased the Dolby license through Dolby Access.  I have the "Dolby Atmos for Headphones" spatial sound option selected for my audio device in Windows 11. 

I'm using the Music Media Helper to decode the Atmos tracks from my Blu-ray audio MKVs to WAV, using "Stereo" for the output channel layout.  It's my understanding that this generates 2-channel files with Atmos metadata.  Now, since Dolby Atmos is enabled at the sound device level, can I use any media player to play back the files and get the Atmos effect?  I'm using VLC.  Is this right, or do I need to be using a special media player?  I am noticing a depth and separation that is not present in the stereo mixes, but I'm not sure if I'm getting the full or intended effect.        

I acquired the Dolby Reference Player, however it doesn't open WAV files (or MKV for that matter).  And I've heard multichannel players mentioned, such as JRiver and Audirvana.  Would these be preferable over VLC? 

Any feedback would be appreciated.

19 minutes ago, devoidzer0 said:

I'm looking to dip my toe into Atmos, but don't have a multi-speaker setup.  I have heard that Atmos can be experienced with normal headphones without any special speaker setups (I know it won't be the full experience, but I'm looking for at least a taste).  I've read lots of guides and found the Music Media Helper program on this site.  

Can someone tell me if I'm doing this right?  Here's my process.  First off, I've purchased the Dolby license through Dolby Access.  I have the "Dolby Atmos for Headphones" spatial sound option selected for my audio device in Windows 11. 

 

I'm using the Music Media Helper to decode the Atmos tracks from my Blu-ray audio MKVs to WAV, using "Stereo" for the output channel layout.  It's my understanding that this generates 2-channel files with Atmos metadata.  Now, since Dolby Atmos is enabled at the sound device level, can I use any media player to play back the files and get the Atmos effect?  I'm using VLC.  Is this right, or do I need to be using a special media player?  I am noticing a depth and separation that is not present in the stereo mixes, but I'm not sure if I'm getting the full or intended effect.        

I acquired the Dolby Reference Player, however it doesn't open WAV files (or MKV for that matter).  And I've heard multichannel players mentioned, such as JRiver and Audirvana.  Would these be preferable over VLC? 

 

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Hi @devoidzer0, it's actually much easier than you realize. 

If you've used MMH with Dolby Reference Player to decode the albums into stereo version WAV files, you are free to play them on any system that supports WAV files. You've already done the decoding, so don't need anything specific. Any media player app, DAC, phone, etc... will play the WAV files as intended. No need for the Dolby Access license etc...

Just play the stereo WAV files however you play all your other music. 

@joelha wrote about listening to stereo Atmos here as well

8 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Hi @devoidzer0, it's actually much easier than you realize. 

 

If you've used MMH with Dolby Reference Player to decode the albums into stereo version WAV files, you are free to play them on any system that supports WAV files. You've already done the decoding, so don't need anything specific. Any media player app, DAC, phone, etc... will play the WAV files as intended. No need for the Dolby Access license etc...

 

Just play the stereo WAV files however you play all your other music. 

 

@joelha wrote about listening to stereo Atmos here as well

 

 

Very interesting..  You're right, I turned off Atmos in my audio device settings, and it sounds pretty much exactly the same!  Guess I just wasted 12 bucks on a Dolby Access subscription.  Ah well, live and learn.  Thanks for the info!

And just a brief follow-up to my decoding.  I've now decoded around 20 albums without any additional issues, so I've very happy with this.  What a great thing it is to be able to decode to wav.  Thanks again!

If anyone can point me in the direction of where to acquire Dolby Reference Player, I would really appreciate it. The one place I found online looked too sketchy to even try. Please send me a DM if you know of an inside track.

https://www.google.com/search?q="drp-ac4-windows-x64-3.2.0"

@seeteeyou But what does Google return to you when you make that search? At least one of the links I get is just for the release notes as a document. Not for the software. The OP may need a link to where they can find the software. 

@new_media Are you all set already? Or still need help?