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AC3/DTS audio on non-AC3/DTS system...

Hello.

I'm running ATV OS 3.0.1 and recently I've been ripping my DVD/BR collection into iTunes. When I rip my DVD/BR discs, I include AC3/DTS audio. Right now I don't have a AC3/DTS speaker system, but since I plan to in the future, I figured it would be best to rip that way. I'm just using the analog stereo cables (right/left) from the ATV to my TV and assume there's some downconverting built into the ATV to handle this?

Anyway, the problem I'm having is that the voices when people speak are usually really hard to hear, while the rest of the sound (music, FX, etc.) is way loud. So, we end up cranking the volume when we can't hear people talking, then the next scene is some action scene and the volume is crazy loud.

Does anyone know what might be wrong/a possible solution?

Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks,
k.

20" Intel iMac 2.16 Ghz, 12" PowerBook G4 1.33 Ghz, Power Mac G4 667 Mhz, Mac OS X (10.5.6), Xserves (Early 2009, Early 2008, G5), Mac Pro

Posted on Nov 12, 2009 7:19 AM

Reply
16 replies

Nov 12, 2009 7:56 AM in response to kristin.

in the case of home movies on DVDs with AC-3 tracks... if you use a tool like handbrake (free) you can include more than one audio track... it is always best to include a stereo AAC and a AC-3 pass thru track so that you have an audio track to play in the case of when you are not using a system that can decode AC-3 (like in iTunes on your computer). appleTV cannot decode AC-3 and downsample it, it simply passes it on to the receiver for decoding.. if you don't include the stereo track and only an AC-3 pass thru audio track you will simply get silence.

Nov 12, 2009 8:22 AM in response to kristin.

just to be clear... commercial DVDs are copy protected and so the act of ripping a commercial DVD necessitates breaking that copy protection. talking about anything that involves ripping commercial DVDs on this site is not allowed since in the states (where this site is, it is illegal.. not illegal in canada though)

we can talk about the audio in your DVDs of "home movies" though..

so you must have a stereo or maybe a multichannel AAC track in your files... can you confirm what sort of tracks you have in your movies?

if you aren't already, i'd strongly suggest you switch to handbrake for your rips.. it's the simplest solution and very straight forward.. you just pick the appleTV profile, pick your audio tracks and press go.. it just works.. and as i said before alway include an AAC stereo and an AC-3 pass thru and you're good to go..

what software are you using?

Message was edited by: tmartine

Nov 12, 2009 11:08 AM in response to tmartine

Sorry, let me clarify, for the sake of these boards. These are home movies I'm ripping, not commercial. Since I assume I'm dealing with AAC stereo (since I'm getting sound and I don't have a system capable of AC-3) we can ignore DTS and maybe WC will go away.

So — back to the issue, which I'll now consider a stereo issue. I'm using handbrake to rip my home movies, using one of the ATV presets. When I'm speaking in my home movies, my voice is low in the mix (it's not this way when I watch my home movie from the DVD I burned myself at home).

Any idea's why this would be?

Regards,
Kristin.

Nov 12, 2009 11:20 AM in response to kristin.

kristin. wrote:
Sorry, let me clarify, for the sake of these boards. These are home movies I'm ripping, not commercial. Since I assume I'm dealing with AAC stereo (since I'm getting sound and I don't have a system capable of AC-3) we can ignore DTS and maybe WC will go away.

So — back to the issue, which I'll now consider a stereo issue. I'm using handbrake to rip my home movies, using one of the ATV presets. When I'm speaking in my home movies, my voice is low in the mix (it's not this way when I watch my home movie from the DVD I burned myself at home).

Any idea's why this would be?


you need to confirm what audio is on the actual DVD itself (as you created the DVDs yourself it shouldn't be hard to find out).

to be honest, from your explanation of the issue, it doesn't sound like stereo.
it sounds like either DD5.1 or DTS (which makes sense as you said you were ripping your DVD/BR content).

Nov 12, 2009 11:25 AM in response to kristin.

kristin. wrote:
Sorry, let me clarify, for the sake of these boards. These are home movies I'm ripping, not commercial. Since I assume I'm dealing with AAC stereo (since I'm getting sound and I don't have a system capable of AC-3) we can ignore DTS and maybe WC will go away.


i'm sure you will want sir winston on board, as he is very knowledgeable when it comes to TV matters

So — back to the issue, which I'll now consider a stereo issue. I'm using handbrake to rip my home movies, using one of the ATV presets. When I'm speaking in my home movies, my voice is low in the mix (it's not this way when I watch my home movie from the DVD I burned myself at home).

Any idea's why this would be?


i have similar experiences when playing movies through my TV alone (via HDMI). however, once audio goes via optical to my surround receiver, the output is just as it's supposed to be.

my guess is is you won't know until you get that speaker system. AFAIK, the TV is able to pass whatever audio it is receiving through via optical.

please correct me if i'm wrong !

Nov 12, 2009 12:55 PM in response to kristin.

can you describe your system in detail.. i.e. you have appleTV connected to what, with what connectors?

it actually kinda sounds like... maybe the centre channel (which has most vocals) is missing... either from the encode (multi-channel --> stereo is screwed up) or some how your system is doing the decode, but doing it incorrectly and eliminating the centre channel..

it might be helpful for you to describe your set up in more detail... and also what the settings that you uses in handbrake are in detail as well..

Dec 28, 2009 7:32 PM in response to Chenks

I've been having a heck of a time getting Dolby Digital 5.1 to work from my AppleTV over HDMI (though the video works fine). Unless I use an optical cable to carry the audio it seems to only see the stereo audio track. It's would be only an annoyance to run the extra cable, except that I have a lot of devices in my home theater, and using up the optical input needlessly causes other problems for me.

Are you certain that DD5.1 is passed through over HDMI? My reasonably expensive / new / feature-packed home theater receiver seems convinced that it gets only stereo via HDMI with this device. (My PS3 and other devices happily send DD5.1 and other more exotic surround sound formats via HDMI, it's just the AppleTV that seems to misbehave).

AC3/DTS audio on non-AC3/DTS system...

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