DTS tagging for Kodi

[wazowazo]

I have a DVD with a DTS 24/96 audio track. I use Kodi as my media center, and I try to convert all my audio file formats to Flac. However, converting DTS to flac seems to produce very large files.
When I use DVD audio extractor to extract the .dts file, it is 1gb.
If I convert it to Flac 24/48, it is 2.9gb
If I convert it to Flac 24/96, it is 4.8gb.
I understand that DTS is lossy, but it makes little sense to have a 4.8gb file when the original is 1gb.
Am my missing something?

Another option would be to keep the .dts file. Kodi can play it fine, but I can't seem to tag it (so it's not in the Kodi library). I read somewhere that you can put .dts files inside an .mkv wrapper and then tag it, but I would need info on how to do this. Keeping the original .dts file would be ok for me if I could tag it.

Thanks for any help!

 

[M-K]

Use a CUE file along with your DTS. I do this for my DTS CDs.

I can't remember if I ever tagged DTS files directly in the past. May be mp3tag could do this.
Anyway, you could do it like gapless playing Atmos files. Those use a single MKA file plus a CUE. Alls tags are in the CUE. Put a folder.jpg with the cover in the same directory.

CUE files can be generated by using Garry's superb MMH (music media helper) tool.

 

[wazowazo]

Thanks I will try this with the CUE file

 

[wazowazo]

Use a CUE file along with your DTS. I do this for my DTS CDs.

I can't remember if I ever tagged DTS files directly in the past. May be mp3tag could do this.
Anyway, you could do it like gapless playing Atmos files. Those use a single MKA file plus a CUE. Alls tags are in the CUE. Put a folder.jpg with the cover in the same directory.

CUE files can be generated by using Garry's superb MMH (music media helper) tool.

I could generate a CUE file, but something is still missing. I use mkvtoolnix to convert the .dts to a .mka file. I change the CUE file to target the mka file. Kodi doesn't see the file and doesn't add it to the library. I also tried putting the .cue file inside the mka file but that doesn't work either. Maybe I am missing a step?

 

[wazowazo]

Nevermind I found how to make the .CUE file correctly. The only default compared to a (larger) flac file is that I can't put replaygain info.

 

[M-K]

When you rip a DTS-CD automatically the CUE is generated. I used Exact Audio Copy for this.
From DVDs or similar sources it's different. The times in the CUE files should look like: 35:24:13. Not 35:24:139.
Sometimes I've to edit the CUE manually then.

MKA is of course one possibility.

I thought of a file.dts + file.cue and folder.jpg. Then you have to edit the CUE file like this:
...
FILE "file.dts" WAVE
...
could work too.

What I don't know is if you have to install the ffmpeg tools. I've them installed.

But you made it anyway.

 

[Albert Dagger]

Use a CUE file along with your DTS. I do this for my DTS CDs.

I can't remember if I ever tagged DTS files directly in the past. May be mp3tag could do this.
Anyway, you could do it like gapless playing Atmos files. Those use a single MKA file plus a CUE. Alls tags are in the CUE. Put a folder.jpg with the cover in the same directory.

CUE files can be generated by using Garry's superb MMH (music media helper) tool.

Yes, but you need to adjust the Cue sheet created by MMH with MKA files. It’s simple, just convert the milliseconds to frames and the tracks will start/end at the correct time stamp.

 

[M-K]

It’s simple, just convert the milliseconds to frames

Can you give me a formula for calculation?

 

[Albert Dagger]

Can you give me a formula for calculation?

It depends on the file sample rate. You can check SPF = Samples per Frame using “MediaInfo”. Audio Framerate * SPF = Sample Rate

I hope this makes sense. I don’t personally use a formula and I tend to round up the numbers. In most DVDs and BR discs, cue sheets are not precise anyway.

 

[wazowazo]

Thanks for the answers!

To make the .cue file, I used DVD audio extractor, using the "CD image and cue file" option. I kept the .cue file and deleted the cd image file. Since I also use DVD audio extractor to make the .dts extraction, all the info is already there and the files match perfectly. I just have to edit the .cue file to change the filename to .dts. It would be practical if DVD audio extractor could make a .cue file automatically when it demuxes a .dts file (should be a simple implementation since it can write the file for the cd image option).

I also tried to make a version with separate files for each track, edited the .cue file according to what I saw here, but Kodi doesn't recognize the .cue file for a divided album. I prefer to divide my albums in separate files for each song, but I could not manage this.

Also, even tought there is a "DATE" tag in the .cue file, Kodi doesn't recognize it and puts "0000" as the year in it's library. Lastly, Kodi doesn't seem to be able to count the duration of the last track. I understand that probably few people use .dts files with .cue files in Kodi, so the integration is sub-optimal.

 

[M-K]

You can add for example at the beginning:
REM GENRE "Art Rock"
REM DATE 2023
REM COMMENT "4824, 5.1 DTS"

 

[wazowazo]

You can add for example at the beginning:
REM GENRE "Art Rock"
REM DATE 2023
REM COMMENT "4824, 5.1 DTS"

Hum seems if you put the year between quotation marks (REM DATE "2023"), Kodi will not read it properly. However, if you don't use the quotation marks (REM DATE 2023), Kodi will register correctly.

Thanks M-K!

 

[himey]

I try to convert all my audio file formats to Flac.

Audiomuxer has an option to wrap a DTS file within a FLAC so you can tag it as a normal FLAC file. The file size stays consistent.

If you ever do shuffle play with a mixture of FLAC PCM and DTS, you might want to make sure it doesn't choke Kodi. In my case it did, so I converted it from DTS to FLAC, despite the larger file size. Storage is cheap, and DTS is my least popular format.