Can one rip Atmos discs?

[Ninecats]

I am currently looking around for an Atmos AVR, thought I’d start ripping before I got the player but are different players handling this differently? I thought once there is the Atmos and DTS X codecs it should be fine?

Anyway, I tried to load these into Kodi but they weren’t visible, will try remux into m4a (that can be done using MMH?)

 

[HomerJAU]

Anyway, I tried to load these into Kodi but they weren’t visible, will try remux into m4a (that can be done using MMH?)

Yes. Use Extract Audio from MKV tool and select m4a as the output. Tag them just like you do for FLAC and Kodi will load them and play the Atmos stream via pass-through. If your AVR can play TrueHD then you’ll get 7.1 output with all the music info

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Yes. Use Extract Audio from MKV tool and select m4a as the output. Tag them just like you do for FLAC and Kodi will load them and play the Atmos stream via pass-through. If your AVR can play TrueHD then you’ll get 7.1 output with all the music info

Out of interest... Has anyone here tried adding chapters to .m4a files?

 

[Ninecats]

Yes. Use Extract Audio from MKV tool and select m4a as the output. Tag them just like you do for FLAC and Kodi will load them and play the Atmos stream via pass-through. If your AVR can play TrueHD then you’ll get 7.1 output with all the music info

Aye thanks, my current AVR does TrueHD and supports 7.1, so that should work, but as far as ”true object” based listening I better fix that Atmos ready AVR already!

Is this m4a-output the ”real” atmos mix and not just plain 7.1 so to speak (even though my current AVR can’t do more than classic 7.1 currently)?

 

[himey]

Is this m4a-output the ”real” atmos mix and not just plain 7.1 so to speak

If you ripped the correct track from the disc it will be real. The Atmos receiver will use metadata to pull the various objects (sounds) from the 7.1 and move them to the overhead speakers, depending on the layout setting (7.1.4, 5.1.2 ect.). Without the Atmos receiver, the object sounds remain in the floor speakers.

 

[marpow]

Aye thanks, my current AVR does TrueHD and supports 7.1, so that should work, but as far as ”true object” based listeting I better fix that Atmos ready AVR already!

Is this m4a-output the ”real” atmos mix and not just plain 7.1 so to speak (even though my current AVR can’t do more than classic 7.1 currently)?

I am an expert at ripping Blu Rays, using MKV and MMH, stereo, 5.1, 4.0, Atmos, video, chapters, whatever a Blu Ray contains.
If you would like PM me and I will help you.

 

[HomerJAU]

Out of interest... Has anyone here tried adding chapters to .m4a files?

I haven’t. I don’t know whether .m4a files support chapters but mp4 can. (Both are mpeg media containers).

But since mp4 is for videos I doubt there is any media player that understands an mp4 album has multiple tracks (as in songs). But having said that, Kodi and other players can use a cue file targeting an MP4 and then display the cue as individual tracks (songs). I use this trick to play concert videos in the Kodi music (audio) library. The concerts show up as albums under each Artist and the concert displays as individual songs so I can play the entire concert or individually choose a track (song). JRiver supports this also.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

I haven’t. I don’t know whether .m4a files support chapters but mp4 can. (Both are mpeg media containers).

Indeed, the .mp4 container certainly can support chapter navigation. And has done since the MPEG-4 Standards were conceived more than 20 years ago

But since mp4 is for videos I doubt there is any media player that understands an mp4 album has multiple tracks (as in songs).

Both VLC player and MPC-BE (Media Player Classic) can support .m4a files with chapters. Sadly my LG television and OPPO players can't. But all my now defunct 'Nero Digital' approved hardware playback devices and Sigma Designs RealMagic XCard could. So could some of my Xtreamer hardware playback devices.

But having said that, Kodi and other players can use a cue file targeting an MP4 and then display the cue as individual tracks (songs). I use this trick to play concert videos in the Kodi music (audio) library. The concerts show up as albums under each Artist and the concert displays as individual songs so I can play the entire concert or individually choose a track (song). JRiver supports this also.

As it's many years since I've tried making and playing .m4a (and .mp4) files with chapters, I'm interested to know how far things have progressed or (more likely) regressed in this regard.

Anyway here's a link to a 76MB (zipped) '6-ch LC-AAC with chapters' .m4a test file.

And, if people want to create their own .m4a files with chapters, it's possible to do this using FFmpeg. You just need an .mka file with chapters and remux them to .m4a using the following command-line: ffmpeg -i input.mka -c copy output.m4a. I only learned about this method a few days ago, so I don't know how stable the muxes are compared to the previous methods of muxing.

Cheers

 

[Ninecats]

I am an expert at ripping Blu Rays, using MKV and MMH, stereo, 5.1, 4.0, Atmos, video, chapters, whatever a Blu Ray contains.
If you would like PM me and I will help you.

Thanks, been using MMH for quite some time but Atmos was new for me, but will get back if neede, and thanks @HomerJAU and @himey for explanations!

 

[HomerJAU]

@SeeMoreDigital Music Medua Helper can create and edit chapters in mp4 files, including cut and paste of a text list of tracks/chaoters.

I never realised anyone would want to use chapters in m4a files, I can add that to the MMH Chapter Editor tool in an update. Now you can just rename m4a to mp4 to use the tool then rename back to m4a on completion.

M4A is my preferred container for Atmos since it tags easily. It’s come along way since it’s aac days!

I was planning to convert all my concert videos from MKV to MP4 so than can be tagged but I’ve not got there yet. For Kodi users tagging allows the files to be added to its Music Library (audio database) as opposed to its Music Video Library, which has pretty clunky Interface.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

But MKV tags easily too? Do ya mean there's more software support for MP4 tags, @HomerJAU?

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

I never realised anyone would want to use chapters in m4a files, I can add that to the MMH Chapter Editor tool in an update. Now you can just rename m4a to mp4 to use the tool then rename back to m4a on completion.

M4A is my preferred container for Atmos since it tags easily. It’s come along way since it’s aac days!

Indeed it has... I remember testing NeroDigital software when their developers wanted to add Dolby Digital support to the .mp4 container as a private stream.

I was planning to convert all my concert videos from MKV to MP4 so than can be tagged but I’ve not got there yet. For Kodi users tagging allows the files to be added to its Music Library (audio database) as opposed to its Music Video Library, which has pretty clunky Interface.

Have you tried playing my '6-ch LC-AAC with chapters' .m4a test file using Kodi... Does it recognise the chapters? If it doesn't then the entire exercise is pretty pointless!

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

But MKV tags easily too? Do ya mean there's more software support for MP4 tags, @HomerJAU?

Out of interest... What tags are you guys adding/amending?

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

Out of interest... What tags are you guys adding/amending?

I tag the normal tags I tag when tagging music...err...metadata like high-resolution album art, title, artists (in multiple artists tags), album, year, etc.

You have a lot of flexibility when tagging. I tend to never use databases alone: I always modify what the database gives me with common sense, how I want it to fit in my library, and what the actual data should be.

I personally use MP3Tag for all my FLAC, DSD, and MKV files. It does what I want it to without messing up.

 

[HomerJAU]

Out of interest... What tags are you guys adding/amending?

Kodi wants the usual Artist, Title, Track, Album, AlbumArtist, Date, Genre, Remarks and could use Disc and DiscSubTitle to split up a multidisc releases in its UI (each disc is listed separately under the Album or release.

I can use DiscSubTitle to display multiple versions of the same album. Example:

When viewing Dark Side of the Moon , I could see: (the DiscSubTitle tag can be anything)
Atmos Mix (Steven Wilson)
Quad Mix (Alan Parsons)
5.1 Mix

Of if it were a single multi disk release like John Lennon's Gimme Some Truth where all 3 disks (Blu-ray and 2 x CDs) would show when viewing that album (release) in the Kodi UI.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

I tag the normal tags I tag when tagging music...err...metadata like high-resolution album art, title, artists (in multiple artists tags), album, year, etc.

You have a lot of flexibility when tagging. I tend to never use databases alone: I always modify what the database gives me with common sense, how I want it to fit in my library, and what the actual data should be.

I personally use MP3Tag for all my FLAC, DSD, and MKV files. It does what I want it to without messing up.

Lol... We have the same processes in all regards!

I've been an MP3Tag user since it first can out some 15 years ago and it gets better and better. More-so since images in mkv/mka are now supported.

That being said, as I primarily use my OPPO players, they read the album info from a .cue sheet file. Album art has to be placed within the same folder as the audio and cue sheet file.

 

[par4ken]

That being said, as I primarily use my OPPO players, they read the album info from a .cue sheet file. Album art has to be placed within the same folder as the audio and cue sheet file.

That helps to explain why the displaying of album art is so wonky via the Opps. Ideally the art should be displayed from the tag information of each track!

I prefer to rip everything to individual tracks which cause problems with gapless playback. I see the single file with cue sheet as a work around.

Does anyone else have the problem of the art "folder" file being turned into a hidden file? A work around for that would be to call it something else like "cover" but I don't want no hidden files added anywhere!

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

That helps to explain why the displaying of album art is so wonky via the Opps. Ideally the art should be displayed from the tag information of each track!

I prefer to rip everything to individual tracks which cause problems with gapless playback. I see the single file with cue sheet as a work around.

Does anyone else have the problem of the art "folder" file being turned into a hidden file? A work around for that would be to call it something else like "cover" but I don't want no hidden files added anywhere!

Actually ideally the cover art should be in a separate file in the directory. This prevents data duplication, especially with larger, higher quality art. It tends to be older devices that don't support cover.png files, not the newer ones.

Again gapless playback is a device issue. I don't have problems on PC and mobile.

I'll be damned if I had to embed 40MB TIFFs in every song.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

...Ideally the art should be displayed from the tag information of each track!

Sadly it's only possible to have a different image for each track if you embed the album art within individual audio files...

That being said, even though it's possible to mux multiple different images within an audio stream, I've never found a software or hardware player that's been able to identify them.

Here's an example of 7No different images within one stream: -

General
Complete name                            : d:\SeeMoreDigital\Desktop\Abbey Road [flac in .flac]\Abbey Road.flac
Format                                   : FLAC
Format/Info                              : Free Lossless Audio Codec
File size                                : 252 MiB
Duration                                 : 12 min 40 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 2 778 kb/s
Album                                    : Abbey Road [2019]
Performer                                : Beatles, The
Genre                                    : Rock
Recorded date                            : 1969
Cover                                    : Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes
Cover type                               : Cover (front) / Cover (front) / Cover (front) / Cover (front) / Cover (front) / Cover (front) / Cover (front)
Cover MIME                               : image/jpeg / image/jpeg / image/jpeg / image/jpeg / image/jpeg / image/jpeg / image/jpeg

Or this: -

General
Complete name                            : d:\SeeMoreDigital\Desktop\Abbey Road [aac in .m4a]\Abbey Road.m4a
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Apple audio with iTunes info
Codec ID                                 : M4A  (M4A /isom/iso2)
File size                                : 80.2 MiB
Duration                                 : 12 min 40 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant
Overall bit rate                         : 885 kb/s
Album                                    : Abbey Road [2019]
Performer                                : Beatles, The
Genre                                    : Rock
Recorded date                            : 1969
Writing application                      : Lavf60.16.100
Cover                                    : Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes

Cheers

 

[par4ken]

Actually ideally the cover art should be in a separate file in the directory. This prevents data duplication, especially with larger, higher quality art. It tends to be older devices that don't support cover.png files, not the newer ones.

Again gapless playback is a device issue. I don't have problems on PC and mobile.

I'll be damned if I had to embed 40MB TIFFs in every song.

A couple of points, I always like to embed the artwork into each individual file, why not? I don't care about the data duplication. That way when you make a playlist from multiple albums and each track will (should) play with the proper artwork. Most file formats allow the embedding of the artwork.

Most programs like to call the artwork "folder". While you shouldn't need a separate file "folder" if you already have the artwork embedded I like to have it there as well.

No problem playing files via the computer using Foobar, except for one minor annoyance in that not all the metadata shows, ie when I add my own special fields.

Steaming to the Oppo, I have given up for now at least. I found that I needed to have WMP or JR River enabled. The problem is that programs like WMP and JR River replace the "folder" file with a hidden version as well as add another smaller copy called small art. I do not want (I refuse to) let that to happen! At times the artwork itself was even changed! In all cases the embedded artwork was still there.

Streaming doesn't work gaplessly unless the album is done as a single file with cue sheet. As well the BDP-103 worked far better streaming than the older BDP-95 which is fraught with many problems. It is even described as an experimental feature in the BDP-95 manual!