markshan
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
If you are going to convert, why not just adjust the files at that point rather than using RG?
Not streaming - dedicated PC
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Jim the Oldbie
My right elbow hurts.
I'm converting to FLAC, but not decoding the dts. This gives better tag support, while retaining the smaller file size.
I've been converting DTS /AC3 to FLAC for years (for tagging purposes) using the DTS/AC3-->SPDIFWAV option of audiouxer. It puts the lossy data in a WAV wrapper, which can then take FLAC conversion/tagging.
What is 'dts44'?
And if you were decoding, it probably would still make sense to calculate and store RG values if your other files have them.
Jim the Oldbie
My right elbow hurts.
Good question, and I was gonna try one of these files in JRiver just to see if it was a Foobar exclusive thing, but, like, totally forgot, heh.
Jim the Oldbie
My right elbow hurts.
Yup. ReplayGain tags can also be created & used here, is what I was saying.
I thought that was a way to describe what comes off of a dts audio CD - I'm probably using the wrong term.
But if you're saying f2k now has this as a conversion option -- putting raw DTS data in a .wav wrapper -- that's interesting.
Jim the Oldbie
My right elbow hurts.
Yup, it'll even make it into a FLAC in one step. Note that I'm only talking about 44K dts CD stuff here (whatever it's called, heh).
markshan
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Oh, I see. In my head FLACs are shrunken WAVs, but that's my hangup. What you say makes perfect sense now. Thanks.
markshan
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
I knew what you meant.
Jim the Oldbie
My right elbow hurts.
Sorry for not being clearer. Just to summarize: By "smaller file size" above, I was mostly referring to the encoded, 2-channel dts vs the multichannel decoded files. (There's likely also some savings when going from encoded dts-wav to dts-flac, but probably not the usual amount, since noise doesn't compress well.)
Oh. '44K dts CD' (Officially: 'DTS Music Disc') is already basically 'DTS in a WAV wrapper'. It's not standard raw DTS, it already 'looks like' PCM to a FLAC encoder. That's why the f2k conversion to FLAC works in this case.
As for file size savings with FLAC for such DTS files, there aren't any. It's already a lossy file. If anything the file size gets marginally bigger if tags are added.
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markshan
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
MP3s are lossy. If you transcode a 320 MP3 to 128, it will most certainly get smaller. I'm not saying you aren't right, frankly I don't know, but that explanation, if correct, is flawed.
I never said a lossy file could't be made smaller by making it *lossier*.
But FLAC , of course, is lossless, so it can't make a file smaller that way.
With FLAC you have two issues. One, it only works on PCM (wav) sources , so you can't directly encode a DTS file to FLAC. Either you have to decode DTS to PCM first, then re-compress it with FLAC, or you have to 'trick' FLAC into thinking the file is a PCM .wav file (even of the audio data aren't).
Two, lossy encoding (DTS included) have already shrunk the original PCM .wav audio file size more than even the most aggressive FLAC (-v 8) can.
So, if you decode DTS to PCM (which inflates the file size) then losslessly re-compress with FLAC, you aren't going to get it down to a smaller size than the original, far more drastic loss incurred by the initial PCM-->DTS encoding.
Alternately , if you do the 'trick' I do (wrap DTS data with WAV indicator data) then (AIUI) there's really nothing for FLAC to compress, except that WAV header data, so the size change is marginal (and if you add tag data to the FLAC file, you are slightly increasing file size).
For a fact, every such conversion I can recall looking at, over a span of years now, has always been as large or larger than the original DTS file.
Jim the Oldbie
My right elbow hurts.
That's what I thought you were talking about in that post way back there; sorry for the misunderstanding.
markshan
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Well, not only did my friend send the SSDs and the HDMI video card, he decided he couldn't be buggered to pull them so he sent the whole computer. It's an nMEDIAPC case with the two hard drives, 8G ram, a yet undetermined CPU and MOBO, and a dual antenna WiFi card. He tells me it's good to go, but I won't have a chance to hook it to a monitor until tomorrow. Not only will this be more than adequate for playing surround FLACs, I suspect when the kids move out and we cut the cord, I'll be able to add a tuner card and use this in place of the DVR in the cable box.
Plus the case is wicked cool, made to look at home in a rack full of HiFi gear. Pic from the internet...
Jim the Oldbie
My right elbow hurts.
Damn, I think that's the nicest-looking PC I've ever seen. (Makes mine look kind of post-apocalyptic.)
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