Atmos vs 5.1

[Owen Smith]

I've been using it for over 15 years. Since first came out... I know!

I've been using Windows for well over 15 years, but I know little about its internals. I know people who have been driving for decades and know nothing about how cars work.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

I've been using Windows for well over 15 years, but I know little about its internals. I know people who have been driving for decades and know nothing about how cars work.

With respect that's a very poor analogy, Windows is not just an OS, it offers a huge amount of functionality. Cars incorporate thousands of different technologies and engineering challenges. The tyre technology alone is mind blowing!

Essentially MakeMKV is a re-muxer that also offers disc decryption. It looks at the streams on a DVD or Blu-ray, it decrypts the streams, it de-muxes the streams and it re-muxes the streams into the .mkv container. It does not offer any encoding functionality. It's why it's easy to use.

Other re-muxing softwares such as MKVtoolmix and TSmuxer don't offer any encoding functionality either!

That being said, if you don't believe somebody who's been using it for over 15 years, I suggest you visit the MakeMKV website, read through their documentation and use their software.

 

[barfle]

Would it be possible to encode 7.1.4 Atmos, 1kHz at each of the 11 locations in turn (.1 not needed) and then report where each of these 11 locations ends up appearing in the Dolby Digital 5.1 downmix (using the downmix defaults)?


Kirk Bayne

As I understand Atmos (imperfectly), the overheads are not channel-based, so although it would be possible to locate an object so it coincided with a speaker location, it would come out different for different installations. I’ll find out more once I get my new hardware in and read the manuals (I hope).

 

[LuvMyQuad]

And how do you know that? Is that what the documentation says, or have you looked at the source code? Not disputing what you say, just asking for your source.

Edit: thinking about it, if MakeMKV can pull a stereo, 5.1 or 7.1 track out of a bunch of TrueHD substreams that rely on and cross reference each other, it must be doing some level of TrueHD decoding to understand all that substream information.

So you think Dolby would license a software decoder to an enterprise that specializes in decrypting and ripping copyrighted material from DVDs and blurays. And in addition, makeMKV pays for this decoding capability and then gives it away freely.

Either the TrueHD streams do not "rely on and cross reference each other" or there is some kind of script embedded in the streams themselves that facilitates thier reconstruction. My guess is the former.

Another question. If the 5.1 AC3 stream in the TrueHD stream is meant to provide compatability for older systems that predate all this processing magic, how is that stream constructed? That 5.1 AC3 stream will play over an optical digital connection into equipment with no advanced Atmos or TrueHD decoding of any kind. Equipment that is 25 years old!