New owner here, also new to multichannel audio in the car. We all know how expensive DTS CD's and DVD audios are. Well, I have several DVD-VIDEO of concerts and music videos and of course they don't play in the car. I have a DVD of videos of Michael Jackson that are just awesome in my home theater in 5.1 sound. I know there is a way to rip the audio from those DVD's, but how to we convert those to DTS wav files that can burned as a regular CD that will play on the RL. I know this will work, I have a few burned DTS CD's and they read like regular CD's to a computer or CD player but it requires the DTS decoder. So lets find software to do the Dolby or DTS conversion from DVD-video to wav DTS multichannel and we will have more to listen to in the car. BTW, PM me if you have an interest in obtaining some conversions already that do work.

 

This is out of my league... I stick to iPhone and streaming music.

Here are some threads I found via search:
https://acurazine.com/forums/search....archid=9068423

Hope they help:
https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-rl-audio-bluetooth-electronics-navigation-90/burning-dvd-721105/
https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-rl-audio-bluetooth-electronics-navigation-90/burn-dvd-your-rl-498127/
https://acurazine.com/forums/2g-rl-audio-bluetooth-electronics-navigation-90/my-favorite-dvd-dts-selections-497964/

 

Thanks, I searched and didn't find anything. Yeah, there's lots to listen to via other sources, but streaming audio is not exactly high resolution audio, although it does sound better than some of the XM stations, which are too low bit rate for this quality of a stereo.

 

OK, I did it. I sucessfully took one of my DVD's of Fleetwood Mac which had 5.1 Dolby Digital audio and used dvdaudio extractor to rip it to 6 separate wav files for the 6 channels (using free trial, it cost $30) and then running the 6 files through a DTS encoder (surcode) to make DTS wav files that are burned to a CD-R with nero or other burning software as an audio CD. It worked! Beautiful multichannel audio in my RL. The problem is that while dvd audio extractor is a reasonable $30, surcode DTS encoder is $250, so it's not worth it for a home user. But the method works, and was easy for someone used to ripping and all the different formats. I am going to convert all my DVD's with music. If I could just find Michael Jackson Scream. That had the best multichannel music I ever heard!

 

So for your MJ needs, couldn't you use that last DVD that came out and theoretically rip the music from there and make a CD for the car?

 

Yeah, I guess. I moved so some stuff got lost. I have so much stuff I don't even know what I have. The other night I was scouring youtube for Chris Farley videos, and I just found out I had the "best of" DVD of him the whole time! I think the MJ one I had was History, because I search Amazon for what I remember and I can't find it.

 

Gotcha... I picked this one up at walmart pretty cheap.

 

That's the movie they made about him after he died, very entertaining, but not a music DVD. I am converting the Dangerous DVD now. The problem with MJ DVD videos is that is videos are LLOOONNNNGGGG and are mini movies that are terrific when viewed but don't translate well to audio only. So I am going to have to see what I can do. I might be able to start the DTS encode at a specific time, because that option is there, and hopefully the track synchonization will stay perfect, because the DTS encode does so from 6 separate wav files, one for each channel.

On another note, I just finished converting my Fleetwood Mac conecert, The Dance to 2 DTS CD's and it worked great, sounds terrific, just like in my media room. Oh and Queen Greatest hits DTS CD is amazing as well!

 

OK, second experiment worked. After ripping MJ long videos to 6 wav files, I listened to the left or right channel in windows media player and decided exactly where I wanted my track to begin and end, then typed those values into the begin and end field in SurCode DTS encoder. And I found out something else. I don't have to burn a CD and go to my car to test the DTS wav anymore. VLC player will play it as long as you have AC3 filter installed. Yippee! I have tons of high quality multichannel content and more if I buy more music DVD-VIDEO discs and convert them. Can't wait to hear Electric Light Orchestra in concert in the RL. Lovin this car!

 

I'm interested in trying something like this as well. Did you find that the audio fit on CD-Rs without having to compress the audio? Also, how can you be sure that the 5.1 is really working properly? Since you're using CDs instead of the DVDs that the Bose is expecting, isn't it possible that what you're hearing is the CenterPoint processing on only the stereo channels? I'd be curious what would happen if you made a CD that has only one channel playing at a time, for 5-10 seconds each, and see whether the behavior is what you'd expect out of the speakers in the car.

Sure would be handy to be able to make these disks. It's a shame that market never took off.

 

It is working properly and audio fit is not a problem. You are confusing 2 formats. DVD-AUDIO and DTS CD are two different formats. DTS CD's are natively a CD in redbook audio format that the DTS decoder recognizes and decodes. It was made this way way back when so the discs would play in any CD player with a digital output connected to a DTS decoder. I am hearing discrete multichannel audio, there is no mistaking it. Plus, my converts from DVD-video, I am familiar with. It is not centerpoint, that only works with standard CD's for some reason. Shame it won't work with XM or mp3's. I like it on concert stereo audio. With this method I am doing, you can take the many nice multichannel DVD-video discs with nice music, and convert them to DTS-CD, and enjoy them in this car.

 

Thanks for clearing that up. I just got my RL and didn't realize it could decode DTS. Does the nav screen show anything special for DTS CDs like the golden "DVD" when you're playing a DVD-A?

 

Yes, the disc is labeled, DTS, so you know it recognizes the special bitstream. I should add that time fit does become an issue sometimes like I am working on my ELO ZOOM dvd. It's simply a matter of minutes on the CD-R just like if you were recording regular redbook audio. (Keep in mind that to the computer and burning softrware, you ARE recording ordinary redbook audio) So the solution is to use 2 discs if it runs over, or just delete a few lesser liked songs which is what I normally do.

I am having good luck with this except with my Michael Jackson stuff, which on older recordings has the levels set too low. I am wondering if I can load the WAV files (BEFORE ENCODING TO DTS) for each of the 6 tracks into either audacity or Ableton Live(love this software, and edit each track in tandem, correcting for levels and really, doing whatever I want with them. Then I can listen with my studio monitors until it sounds like the others as far as levels and frequency balance goes. It will be a lot of work doing it for EACH song, but I like messing with music and audio. But who has the time with all these hobbies!?! I'm headed out later today to go fly my little planes, so the RL will have to wait!

I had a thought, I can now create multichannel music with Ableton Live and route each channel to a separate WAV output and then encode to DTS like we are doing. Ahh, the ideas! Too bad my body needs sleep and I have to work. If you don't know what Ableton live is, and you like playing with digital music, check this. You can get an Akai APC 40 for about $300 and it comes with a lite version of this very expensive software. That's what I use.

 

OK, I did more work on this today. I converted my ELO ZOOM concert DVD and it plays good with correct levels. I decided to try and tackle one track from Michael Jackson that was giving me a problem of being too quiet, requiring full volume knob just to listen at a moderate level. The track was Bille Jean. Since I am already using DVD audio extractor to convert the 5.1 channels into 6 separate mono wav files. I decided to install Audacity, which I have used before. It's a great free audio editing program for those of you who did not know. I have to use the file>import>audio function and select each of the 6 tracks and it laid them side by side and I could hear them played all at once in sync or click the solo button on a single track to hear it by itself. Of course it played back in mono, not a problem but more on that later. I then used the effects>amplify function on what appeared to be the loudest track, usually L or R. Then it gives a default value to bring peak value to 0db. Go with this then select each other track and click repeat amplify so that each channel gets amplified by the same amount. DO NOT select allow clipping. You will see the waveforms on the screen get fatter. Now you select Export selection to export each track individually to a new file and then you can use the surcode DTS encoder to make your DTS wav's. Worked perfect.

Now, you may have to do some experimentation. The idea is not to amplify so much that you get clipping. Do not be tempted to turn the sub channel up. The level meters should never see any red on playback. This would be very bad for your Acura audio system.
I was able to get nice playback through my studio monitor headphones hooked up to my computer by using the pan controls on each track. track 1 pan left, two pan right, 3 and 4 which is the center and sub stay in the middle of course. And 5 and 6 go left and right respectively, these are the surround channels. NOW, when I did this I was able to get accurate playback through my headphones, but then when I tried to export after messing with the balance (pan) control, it saved the wav as stereo, which the surcode DTS encoder did not like. So you can do this and tweak, but then you have to start all over again and set the levels to what worked and then export without touching the pan controls before the export.

I'm sorry if this is a bit over many of you guy's heads, but I know someday somebody will be searching for DVD-A and DTS discs and will come accross this thread, so I thought I would share my experience.