Music Media Helper (Tools for Multichannel Audio & Music Videos)

[AYanguas]

Does MMH allow disabling dialnorm on decoding somewhere, or should I just check the dialnorm value manually for each file and compensate with the channel gain setting?

@HomerJAU may answer to this, but I don't think so.
I remember reading in avsforum that when dialnorm metadata is removed (or set to the value that does not affect) with other tools, the resultant file is not anymore decoded in Atmos by any player. Suggesting there is another place in the file, or checksum, that should also be changed.

Yes, you have the channel gain setting to play with. Also the individual channels volume level change in another MMH part.

 

[alek2702]

@HomerJAU may answer to this, but I don't think so.
I remember reading in avsforum that when dialnorm metadata is removed (or set to the value that does not affect) with other tools, the resultant file is not anymore decoded in Atmos by any player. Suggesting there is another place in the file, or checksum, that should also be changed.

Yes, you have the channel gain setting to play with. Also the individual channels volume level change in another MMH part.

That's right, seems like forcing a different dialnorm value with other software crashes MMH's conversion as well.

For now, I've been checking the dialnorm value manually and compensating to 31dB with the channel gain where applicable.
Not a bad idea for a future release perhaps?

 

[RvdW]

Strange? In the new version the wav to mlp decoding is not working properly on my pc.
The mlp file has the same size as the wav file.
Help is appreciated....

 

[himey]

I've just checked and it does seem to affect the WAV output of the MMH Atmos helper

Curious what made you come to this conclusion?

 

[alek2702]

Curious what made you come to this conclusion?

The resulting output WAV files clearly varied in volume in parallel with the dialnorm value in the original e-ac3's, so I'm guessing it's not overridden.

Only after compensating the difference from 31 to whatever dB the dialnorm was set in the original files (this varied from file to file) with the channel gain, was the output consistent.

 

[marpow]

@HomerJAU Hi Garry, we talked a bit ago about my trouble with MMH and the JRiver side car. Just wanted to let you know, I ripped a few Atmos and 5.1 Blu Rays this week and all was perfect. I think I just got a little rusty. My MMH is all up to date.
Thanks for all as usual.

 

[himey]

The resulting output WAV files clearly varied in volume in parallel with the dialnorm value in the original e-ac3's, so I'm guessing it's not overridden.

Only after compensating the difference from 31 to whatever dB the dialnorm was set in the original files (this varied from file to file) with the channel gain, was the output consistent.

Thanks. I ran into that issue but I didn't know what it was. How do I get the value from the original file?

 

[alek2702]

Thanks. I ran into that issue but I didn't know what it was. How do I get the value from the original file?

I use MediaInfo for this- just load up the original file, enable Debug -> Advanced mode, go to View -> Tree or Text and scroll down for the dialnorm values.

IIRC, -31dB means there's no attenuation done by the receiver (or MMH in this case), so I just compensate to that with the channel gain.

Here's an example of a file that needed 13dB to match other stuff. Would be great if MMH could do this automatically

 

[HomerJAU]

Why would you do that, besides to experiment ?

Change weak volume levels and/or boost individual channels that are too quiet.

The objects "dissapear" when decoding to fixed multichannel WAV.

The objects don’t disappear. They are decoded and sent to the appropriate output channels selected for the decode. The DRP decoder deals with objects exactly the same way your AVR decoder deals with objects. Nothing I’d ‘lost’. Objects are converted to pcm and sent to amplifier channels.

 

[HomerJAU]

Strange? In the new version the wav to mlp decoding is not working properly on my pc.
The mlp file has the same size as the wav file.
Help is appreciated....

Can you provide more information please?

 

[alek2702]

@HomerJAU, could you please let me know if I'm right in assuming the 7.1.x and 9.1.x channel layouts of the MMH Atmos Decoder are decoded as-is, and retain the Atmos side/rear channel order? Thanks!

 

[HomerJAU]

I’ve not tested by using one of the official Dolby Atmos channel test files, but since the decoding is done by the Dolby Reference Player I assume the output is in Dolby order, sides before rears.

I’m about to leave home for the day and will confirm later when I get home as I have the official Dolby Atmos channel tests from their Atmos Demo BD.

 

[alek2702]

I’ve not tested by using one of the official Dolby Atmos channel test files, but since the decoding is done by the Dolby Reference Player I assume the output is in Dolby order, sides before rears.

I’m about to leave home for the day and will confirm later when I get home as I have the official Dolby Atmos channel tests from their Atmos Demo BD.

Thanks! That's what I gathered from my tests as well.
Couldn't use the official channel test files I had though, as they'd just freeze halfway through decoding.. The 9.1.6 one would, at least.

 

[RvdW]

Can you provide more information please?

In the previous versions of MMH i could convert multichannelwav to MLP for use on DVDA.
The file shrinked for about 20%. That is not happening now....

 

[AYanguas]

The objects don’t disappear. They are decoded and sent to the appropriate output channels selected for the decode. The DRP decoder deals with objects exactly the same way your AVR decoder deals with objects. Nothing I’d ‘lost’. Objects are converted to pcm and sent to amplifier channels.

I wanted to express that the objects will not longer be available as such (sound content and metadata) after the encoding back to Dolby Atmos, because the decoded interleaved WAV files would not have that metadata. Of course, all Atmos sound content (Atmos bed channels + Objects) will be in the corresponding channels.

So, a different Dolby Atmos file (with different channels/objects) will result after the decoding/encoding process. But it will sound the same, with the same content in the same channels/speakers.

Am I right?

 

[dabl]

Re: the typical downloaded atmos e-ac3 file playback problem for tracks with drastic dialnorm differences I had this crazy idea, which would only be useful for AVRs that could respond to IP based volume change commands like most modern Denon/Marantz:

The advantage is it wouldn't require re-encoding of the files.

Scan the files with mediainfo and get it to write out the dialnorm values to text file. There is a command line version that could in theory do this, however last I looked dialnorm was not something that it looked at/for so it may be that a request to add that would be necessary. It seems like the dev doesn't really update the CLI version anymore.

With simple text files containing the dialnorm values and a player with some kind of API it could in theory be possible to have it see when a drastic change in value came along and take that trigger to send out an IP command to the AVR for a volume change using the REST API, ex:

Turn volume up/down
http://{IP}:8080/goform/formiPhoneAppDirect.xml?MVUP

Set volume to 50
http://{IP}:8080/goform/formiPhoneAppDirect.xml?MV50

There is some discussion of the above here

Obviously a kludge/hack and non-trivial to develop.

Right now I use this app with my iPhone/Ipad and Denon AVR to manually quickly change volumes which is of course a pain but better than nothing I guess?

 

[AYanguas]

From this article: Dialling down dialnorm - Connected Magazine

“””
The DialNorm feature is designed to automatically adjust the volume control so that as to maintain the proper dialogue level while compressing loud effects.
“””

If the above sentence is right and the AVR process de DialNorm in that way, what would be the result of “….while compressing loud effects”?

Could it be not only a general Master Volume reduction, but an additional “compression” of the louder parts that would result in a distorted/corrected sound?

Leaving aside the quality of DD+, could the DialNorm process make the sound even worse, because an additional compression and not only a linear volume level decrease?

 

[dabl]

Just another data point and discussed in another thread here before but it is actually possible to turn off the DialNorm processing feature of a Denon/Marantz AVR. The problem is, it has to be done via the GUI while a track is playing and when the next track comes along it gets reset. If it were possible to subvert that in some way that might be another plan of attack.

 

[HomerJAU]

In the previous versions of MMH i could convert multichannelwav to MLP for use on DVDA.
The file shrinked for about 20%. That is not happening now....

Fixed in today's MMH update (below)

 

[HomerJAU]

Music Media Helper 6.4.7 Released:

Version 6.4.7 (March 12 2023)
-------------
Fixes:
Extract Audio from MKV tool: Converting to MLP failed for input files: FLAC and WAV - fixed
One component still used .NET 4 Framework (not .NET 6) - fixed (used to find user's default download folder for updates)