Eac3to/Planned Future Features

These features are planned to implemented in the upcoming versions:


 * Blu-ray to Matroska muxing support

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Future eac3to Program Development-the Possible, Probable & Not Likely!

In addition to development of BluRay input as indicated in FAQ there are other possible areas of development for eac3to that have been requested from time to time:

'''3. Merging 6 separate FLACs to a 5.1 FLAC. Currently, eac3to doesn't do this, nor does FLAC.exe?'''

Merging 6 files to one is generally possible but it would cost me some programming time. Because of that I don't really have it on my ‘to do list’ right now, I'm sorry. I think there are more important things that I need to add first.

6. Removal of Pulldown and Interlaced Flags in eac3to?

The pulldown removal does save quite a bit of time for XBox 360 compatibility. I think that both the pulldown and interlaced flags need to be removed, so removing the pulldown flag is one step closer to BluRay compatibility. Or am I wrong here? For Blu-Ray compatibility the current solution is not good enough. But for Xbox 360 compatibility seemingly it is, right? I don't think I'll add interlaced flag removal. That seems to be really difficult/dangerous. A little bug and the whole video gets screwed.

'''7. (a)I like to see downmix option in eac3to..., but...why ProLogic II? Seems to be horrible for me?'''

(a) Because eac3to's main target is home cinema. And ProLogic II is the best choice we have for that purpose.

'''(b) Could you add a more flexible Downmix option like a independent volume change in every channel? Or minimum a sum of channels and an 8 or 9 db attenuate option (for all channels at same time for saturating mix avoid)?'''ie. Something like this: FL' = FL + C + LFE + SL FR' = FR + C + LFE + SR plus -9db (attenuate) for every single channel...or better...independent control volumes for such one! This part is important to avoid mix clipping. This is what I want. No rare downmixing like Prologic that sounds strange to my ears... I don't want to use SoundForge anymore for downmixing stuff...

(b) The programming of a different mixing matrix is not a big problem. But keeping the usage of eac3to as simple as possible is. Now offering a volume control for every single channel would require me to add at least 8 new parameters which would dramatically increase the size of the help text. If eac3to was a GUI it would be much easier to add such options without making things more complicated. But adding another 100 options to a console program really does damage ease of use. Because of that reason I'm trying to avoid adding shitloads of new options, unless it's really very important. So I'm sorry to say, but at this point in time I don't like the idea of adding a multitude of new options for one single user.

10. Any plans to add encoding to Dolby Digital EX in eac3to? 6.1 and/or 7.1 sources would be perfect for that because DD EX is able to perform up to 7.1 channels?

As far as I know there's no "external encoders" for that like SurCode or any other, only SoundForge but I do know extra (rear) channels are matriced, not discrete so maybe it is not too difficult to add to your (HQ, perfect and reliable) AC3 encoder?

I'm dependent on what the Aften AC3 decoder does. It currently does not support EX, as far as I know. Consequently eac3to can't support that, either. Unless someone can tell me how EX exactly works. If it's just some matricing on the original PCM data and setting a flag in the AC3 header then I could probably do it. But I don't know the dirty details.

You are correct. It is just matricing the original PCM and setting a couple flags. As for the matricing, I haven't looked into exactly how to do it. But here are the flags: AftenContext.meta.xbsi2e = 1; AftenContext.meta.dsurexmod = 2; Definitely, the 7th, Center surround channel in a 6.1 DD EX stream is matriced using both rear surround channels, and I'm also sure it is adding one to another CS= (LS + RS) x A That's because DD EX has to be compatible with AC3 5.1, which playback the CS on both LS and RS channels so it's an addition and not a subtraction. The "A" factor is unknown (by me) and also the flags.

Madshi: Thanks, Justin and K-rnivoro. Now I'd just need to figure out the correct matricing parameters. Also I'm wondering: (1) Would I need to apply a 90° phase shift? Because I don't have any code for that. (2) How to handle 7.1 input? Would it be correct to average the two back channels together and then handle the track just like a normal 6.1 track?

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