I have a high end stereo and I do not want surround sound. I play “audio only” lossless stereo files, like FLAC. I would love to get some video added to that, now that I added a TV. For example, a video with a band playing music.
Does this exist? How do you get it? What is the file type?
If it does not exist, what is the best stereo sound I can get with video? Like what bitrate and compression, or other quality parameters?
Any audio format can be used with video if the encoder wishes it. I have a certain set of videos with Apple Lossless for audio. Generally FLAC would be the normal format used for highest audio quality using a non-commercial format. PCM could be used but most people would see no reason to waste disk space from uncompressed audio when lossless codecs exist.
What is file type? How do I find it? Do you have to buy it from iTunes, or are there other sources for that?
I think I figured it out somewhat. Most audio standards for video have a lot of latitude in audio for number of channels and quality. So you just have to check the specs for each purchase, and if they don’t give the specs, then odds are low it is good for me.
It seems I can buy Blu-ray music video with Dolby TrueHD which can be lossless surround and lossless stereo. Some with both. And DTS-HD Master Audio can do it, but my LG TV does not support DTS.
This link talks about it https://www.soundandvision.com/content/100-best-blu-ray-discs-best-concertmusic-video
They were MKV files, and it was dumb. They didn’t play back properly in the Kodi Plex Add-On on my Fire Stick and just caused stuttering. The person who made the files should have just used FLAC instead. I don’t know what the original audio format was on the disc, probably just Dolby Digital, but possibly PCM.
The audio format in digital files can freely be re encoded to something else, no reason it has to stay the same format as what was on the optical disc the program came from. Dolby Digital often gets re-encoded to either AAC or FLAC because AAC is more efficient than AC3 for compression, and FLAC is variable bitrate so you even with no quality loss you can reduce size throwing out empty bandwidth used for simpler/silent spots in audio.
Which audio codec can be used to play losslessly depends mainly on your Plex client type.
Many Plex clients support PCM audio (in stereo). Which is what is often used on music-centric DVD and Bluray releases.
Unfortunately, newer Blurays favor the proprietary DTS-HD MA (or one of the other DTS varieties.) for its surround sound support.
If your Plex doesn’t have support for this codec, you might have to go and find a client device which does.
If you want the maximum compatibility, go with a nVidia Shield, which can decode most of these formats to 2.0 or 5.1 PCM. Which you then can forward through a HDMI cable to your AVR or soundbar. (all AVR with HDMI inputs do support PCM).
Better AVRs do also come with their own surround sound decoders (with the newer and more expensive models providing support for more different codecs).
The nVidia Shield can optionally “bitstream” the audio streams in these audio formats unchanged to the AVR and leave the decoding of the audio to the AVR.
(The Apple TV on the other hand can do that only with some basic audio formats, though it might have improved a bit with the latest model.)
Practically any of these audio formats can be muxed into a MKV file. So you can’t discern what is inside a file just by looking at its filename extension.
I recommend you to add this to your software toolbox: MediaInfo
To Add:
If there are any plans to downmix multi-channel to stereo without equipment designed specifically for that purpose - change plans. Dialog buried under sound effects is no fun at all.
Maintain and use the original audio track(s). By any means necessary.
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