Having trouble with surround audio

General Discussions
1

Hi,

I’ve been using Plex for years but have only just got into surround audio so I’m going back through and re-ripping movies that have 5.1.

I’m finding that I’m only getting stereo out of my rips and I don’t understand why.

I’ve got a dvd loaded into Handbrake and it shows the audio as having three tracks…

0: Unknown (AC3) (2ch)
0: Unknown (AC3) (5.1ch)
0: Unknown (DTS) (5.1ch)

All of them show ‘AAC (core audio) as the codec and the two surround tracks show Dolby Pro Logic II in mixdown.

Should the mixdown be set to 5.1?

I’m leaving sample rate as auto and bit rate I’m setting to the maximum shown which is 320.

I’m using the Super HQ 1080p Surround preset and I’m ripping from a MacBook to a networked hard drive mounted on Raspberry Pi that’s hosts the Plex server and I usually watch movies via Apple TV with a Denon AV receiver.

Is it the mixdown that’s the problem? …and am I using appropriate settings for my setup?

Thanks,
Darren

2

Choose AC3 Passthru or DTS Passthru instead of AAC. It will copy the audio track instead of transcoding it to AAC.

Screenshot (521)

3

Thanks - I’m giving that a go now.

I’ll report back in 5.5hrs :sweat_smile:

4

Yeah, Handbrake can take time when transcoding video… :slight_smile:

You can encode just a few minutes of the file. It makes testing easier. Change Range from Chapters to Seconds and pick the desired start/stop times. You can also change the Encoder Preset and Quality settings to faster options. The video may look quite terrible, but if you’re just testing how audio sounds that doesn’t matter.

If you haven’t already, take a look at MakeMKV. It rips the media from the disc unaltered (it does not transcode like Handbrake). The files are larger and at a higher bitrate compared to using Handbrake, but that’s because they’re a straight copy from the disc. The upside is it runs much faster. The limiting factor is the speed of your optical drive. You can always run the MKV file through Handbrake later if desired.

5

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