DTS WAV playback broken from 0.9-u4 onwards

[Calibrator]

Hi Peter,

just noticed that the "crack" detection code you incorporated in version 0.9-u4 onwards is getting triggered when trying to playback a DTS encoded wav file.

In version -u4 it comes up with a "crack detect" error window and in version -u6 the error box reads "16 bit crack detect". There are also some numbers accompanying the text.

The same files worked fine in -u3.

If there isn't an easy way around detecting whether a wav contains DTS header or not, could a checkbox be added perhaps, to disable the "crack" detection code?

cheers,

Russ

[PeterSt]

Hahahaha ... some people ...

Yes, that would be logic. Never thought about it.
So what you're actually saying is that while I now at last got rid of all the file formats not playing, now I have to start recognize files which *should* not play, right ? You must be like the Australian Plague !

Well, I never looked into DTS headers so far, and maybe I shouldn't; I bet the next one you come up with is an MKV, right ? hehe

The checkbox option seems reasonable, indeed taking into account that more "just data" files could be in order.
But let me first try some other general means ...

[Calibrator]

Hi Peter

all is happiness in the land downunder once more  with the release of 0.9-u7

The little checkbox to disable the 'crack detect' code did the trick nicely. I'd forgotten how nice some of my surround albums are .... mmmmmm

Now ... to go see if I can create some loverly Matroska files to make your hair fall out again .. LOL!

CHEERS & BEERS from the land of plenty,

Russ

BTW .. I haven't had a chance to analyse the SQ difference ( if any ) of the change from -U6 to -U7 yet, but hope to find time in next few days or so.

[Calibrator]

Goedemorgen Peter,

sorry to be the bearer of bad news again, but DTS playback is problematic again in versions 0.9U-8 & 0.9U-10 ( didn't try 0.9U-9 ).

The problem lies in the DTS WAV's encoded at 24bit/48kHz. 16/44.1 ones play back OK.

With 0.9U-8 , playing back the 24/48 files results in stuttery breakup of the sound, even though my Sony processor shows itself locked on at 1536kbps and 48KHz as expected. I should also mention that the only way to get sound out at all on these files is to set Dac as 16 bit/44.1 in the settings. My normal setting of 24/96 ( or any of the other non-16 bit settings ) produce no sound at all.

With 0.9U-10, the stuttery breakup is gone, but the playback speed is now slow, and the processor confirms whats happening, as it now shows 1536kbps but at 44.1KHz. I can also have my DAC setting back to its normal 24/96 value.

Note that in each of the above versions I needed the 'crack detection' box ticked , and is to be expected, and also Vol slider is at zero, again, as to be expected.

If I'm the only one playing back these DTS encoded WAV's I'm happy to setup a shortcut to 0.9U-7 on my desktop just for these files if it's not possible to sort out the bug without affecting the other checks that are now being done, but it would be nice to have the player doing everything again.

BTW .. is ANYONE else playing back these DTS encoded WAV's ?

Thanks again Peter .. I know it must be difficult accommodating these files when you don't have a DTS decoder yourself hooked up.

Cheers,

Russ

PS. go Ferrari !!

[Calibrator]

Update:

I just tried 0.9U-9 and everything works fine for the DTS files in that version !

Hope this helps in nutting out where the problem lies.

Thanx again,

Russ

[PeterSt]

G'day there Russ,

I do have 44.1/16 DTS files, but I don't have any 24 bits. So that offered link would be much appreciated (PM please). BUT :
Since indeed I have no DTS receiver, how can I see it works properly ? If I can't see it on anything, then never mind the links.

Of course your latter information is VERY useful, so I hope I can do it with that. I'll try anyway. When I think I found the culprit, I'll upload a test version in here, so keep in touch !

PS: hahaha

[PeterSt]

I just tried 0.9U-9 and everything works fine for the DTS files in that version !

Are you sure that counts for 48/24 just the same ? (or 24 bits in general)

[PeterSt]

Btw, in any case, and from theory, it is better to try everything with the Mem checkbox checked. Did you try that ?

[PeterSt]

I think I found a way to check theoretically. So if you have those links please ...
The only one I have is 44.1/16 DTS. Nothing else ...

[Calibrator]

I just tried 0.9U-9 and everything works fine for the DTS files in that version !

Are you sure that counts for 48/24 just the same ? (or 24 bits in general)

yep ... both 16/44.1 and 24/48 DTS encoded WAV's play back fine. Exhibits the same playback functionality as 0.9U-7. ie. I have my DAC set at 24/96 in the settings, with 'crack detect' ticked and Vol at zero.

Also tried some 24/96 2 channel files and they worked fine also ( but haven't had time to see if the little 'click' still occurs at start of files .. but I think I read that will stil be the case )

Cheers,

Russ

[PeterSt]

The only one I have is 44.1/16 DTS. Nothing else ...

Sorry, found some 48/16 as well.

[Calibrator]

Btw, in any case, and from theory, it is better to try everything with the Mem checkbox checked. Did you try that ?

0.9U-9 --- Just tried it again having the 'mem' box ticked and everything played back fine just as it did when unticked ( which was how I was testing things before.

I also tried tried the 'mem' box ticked for version 0.9U-10 and it didn't help for that ie. still played slowly.


Russ

[PeterSt]

This one should work better. Indeed the Mem box doesn't help (as far as I can see).
I couldn't check 24 bit files.

[Calibrator]

This one should work better. Indeed the Mem box doesn't help (as far as I can see).
I couldn't check 24 bit files.

That new engine has restored correct 24/48 DTS encoded WAV playback with one small difference to how things occurred in 0.9U-9.

My DAC settings now need to be set at 16/44.1 instead of the 24/96 I normally have it set at. That would still be a nice to have situation rather than having to change back each time I want to play DTS files but its no real drama now.

Mem box ticked or unticked didn't seem to have any effect of these files either ie. both settings worked.

Thanks for ya quick response Peter 

Cheers,

Russ

[PeterSt]

That would still be a nice to have situation rather than having to change back each time I want to play DTS files but its no real drama now.

Yeah, but ... Apart from that I will make it work as should (being : it not being necessary to set the DAC to 44.1/16), does your receiver show that it's capturing 24 bits ? I hardly can imagine that, but I also can't imagine me making 16 bits of a 24 bit file and your DTS decoding still works ...

[Calibrator]

That would still be a nice to have situation rather than having to change back each time I want to play DTS files but its no real drama now.

Yeah, but ... Apart from that I will make it work as should (being : it not being necessary to set the DAC to 44.1/16), does your receiver show that it's capturing 24 bits ? I hardly can imagine that, but I also can't imagine me making 16 bits of a 24 bit file and your DTS decoding still works ...

When playing back DTS encoded files, my receiver only shows the total bit rate ( 1411 or 1536 kbps ) together with the frequency ( 44.1 or 48KHz ). When playing back under 0.9U-10 I was seeing 1536/44.1 rather than the expected 1536/48 which was confirmed by the slowing of the playback sound.

This new engine now shows 1536/48 as I normally would expect to see.

For 2 channel files my receiver shows the bits anywhere 16 and 24 together with sample frequency of anywhere between 44.1 and 96.

Russ

[PeterSt]

But can the 1536 be right with 24 bits ? I mean, it shows that too on 16 bit files. How can that be ?

[PeterSt]

Russ, I think something else is going on.

First, in the program I can't see what is wrong.
Second, the bit rate for an 48/24 should be 2304 (padded to 32 bits !!). It just is doing that ...

How this is related to DTS, including that before it worked, I don't know. But IMO when you set the DAC to 16 bits and it plays, you'd be playing with 16 bits. The other 8 are just cut.
Possibly before that just happened the same, but with DAC is set to 192/24 (etc.). I can't tell (without rather excessive back tracing).

In either case (DAC is 16 or DAC is 24) a normal 48/24 file (no DTS) just plays. And on this matter I can't see the difference with encapsulated DTS ...

[PeterSt]

Ok ...

I've downloaded an assumed 48/24 DTS, and the bit rate it shows is ... 1536.

Now, what do I miss ?
I think we all agree about a normal 44.1/16 having a bit rate of 1411. So, (1411 / 44100) * 48000 = 1536, right ? So where are the additional bits ?

Two wave editors show the same ... 48/16.

Please note this is not only about the bitrate, but also about the "words" forming a sample. This just says two bytes (16 bits) ...
So, if this is supposed to be 24 bits really, there's no way I can discern (I think).

What remains, is how did this play before then ?

??

[Calibrator]

hmmmm ... now you have me wondering and thinking !

The way I produce my DTS wav's is to extract the surround tracks ( normally from DVD-Audio discs ) using magic, and then split them into their individual 6 channel's, and then, if needed, convert down to 24/48 streams. These 6 channels then get fed into SurCode DVD DTS specifying 48KHz output format.

Now then, the 1536kbps that I'm seeing on my processor status indicates that its seeing a 32/48 stream ( 32 x 48 = 1536 ) which hopefully suggests that the input files that make up the DTS wav's were padded to 32 bit as part of the encoding process. A worse scenario would be that those 24 bit input channels are getting cut back to 16 bits but that wouldn't make sense.

So, my referring to my DTS files as 24/48 may not strictly be true if they are being padded/chopped somehow in the final encoding process.

I need more time to follow up on this one methinks.

Regardless, they still sound very nice

Cheers,

Russ

[PeterSt]

Hehe Russ, I know it's getting late out there, but I don't think it works like that. Look :

44.1 x 16 = 705.1 right ? but it should be 1411 ...

Besides, in your math of 32 x 48 = 1536, the fact that it's 24 bits isn't incorporated. And no, it is not 32 bits because we're talking about the INPUT, and then your math would be 24 x 48 = 1152. But in both cases you it seems to be allowed to simply it by means of multiplying by 2 (the actual math goes more complex).

Now, when it is most probable that you indeed cut the 24 bits to 16 during the process (of ripping - reauthoring), I think I can fairly say that before all worked because with the DAC set to more than 16 bits, it worked out to code processing 16 bits only anyway. It are these things which have changed (lately). Now :

What I explicitly applied for 44.1/16 best SQ, I have now done just the same for 48/16 and all of the other /16 sample rates (up to 192000). So, with the below XXEngine3 it all should work again for the DAC Is set to more than 16 bits. Please note that the playback code is exactly the same, and indeed you don't need to switch the DAC Is for that.

Obviously when this now all works, you have re-ripped your DTS 24 bits files, and now *they* don't work .
But I think they do ...

[Calibrator]

Hehe Russ, I know it's getting late out there,

... and all these numbers are going to ensure I stay awake for many more hours trying to digest it all ... LOL

But, the good news is, the latest engine you just posted works fine

I can have my DAC setting at any value and it still works as expected.

I really appreciate you working on this during your Sunday morning over there 

I hope nothing got broken in the existing coding in your quest to solve my problem.

A bit more surfing on DTS encoding then its off to  for me.

Cheers,

Russ

[PeterSt]

I hope nothing got broken in the existing coding in your quest to solve my problem.

Well, I hope the only thing which is broken here is the electronic filling out of tax forms (some other x million dutch will be doing today).
Guys, try doing it separate for you and your partner. Won't work anymore.