SurroundByUs.com

I have a copy of a DTS audio album which contains two files: one in ISO format which is more than 2 GB, and a 5 KB MDS file. I cannot find any program anywhere which will open the files, let alone burn a DVD which can be played on a regular DVD player (I have tried ImgBurn, Nero Burning Station ROM, Ashampoo, DVD Decrypter, and several others).

A friend suggested this site, so here I am. I read through the PDF manual and installed everything suggested and I am still totally stuck, as I cannot open either the ISO and/or MDS file.

I know it will take several steps to get to the point where I can burn a DVD which will play on my DVD (which, needless to say, is hooked into an amplifier with a DTS decoder), but I can't even figure out how to get to Step 1.

Can somebody please talk me through this? Many thanks!

All best for 2012,

Rex

What is the format of the DTS album?

If it is AVCHD it can only be played in a BluRay player or in a software player that supports AVCHD, such as Total Media Player, after you have mounted the iso as a drive using software like Daemon Tools Lite, or direct from the burned disk.

I'll assume it's not a DVD audio, because that would be MLP not DTS.

If it's DVD video you shouldn't have any problem burning and playing it in a DVD player.

FYI AVCHD is a format that is in the same structure as a BluRay video disc, but can be smaller and burned on a regular DVD. Again, you still need a BluRay player to play the burned disc.

Thank you for your quick reply.

The source materials is indeed in AVCHD format. However...

I was told the following:

"The AVCHD & Blu-ray disk image contains lossless audio compressed (losslessly) to DTS-HD. Actually DTS-HD audio in this case contains 2 separate data streams; 1 lossless and 1 "core" lossy dts stream.

"If you do not have a Blu spam player and wish to make a DVD that can be played on a standard DVD player you need to extract the "lossy" core stream.

"The program I pointed you to, AudioMuxer, is free and is capable of extracting the core DTS stream, which can be used to make an audio DVD.

"When you install AudioMuxer it will download and install several other free programs that it needs to do it's work. None of these will harm your computer and are necessary. Also the Net Framework 4 from MS will need to be installed on the pc if you don't already have it installed.
(AudioMuxer was written with NET Framework)

"AudioMuxer is basically a user friendly "front end" for several free tools.

"On the same site where you download AudioMuxer, there is also a guide in .pdf format for the workings of "the program that you should save and read.

"This thread on the surroundbyus forum will have a link for installing AudioMuxer as well as a link for the guide.

"Give it a shot and if you get bogged down then post a message in the thread at the forum and ask for help."

So that's the reason for my post. What my friend says sounds quite logical, and the program looks easy enough to use, but I just can't seem to get started. Any advice?

Again, Many thanks!

Rex

P.S. Have I mentioned that I am a complete and utter computer idiot?

Do you have Virtual Clonedrive installed? http://www.slysoft.com/en/virtual-clonedrive.html You need this to mount the disc first (the ISO). After that you can navigate the disc and extract the audio.

Reason you need to mount it, instead of burning it to a DVD is because of the fact that the burned DVD will have a Blu-Ray structure, which can not be read by the standard ROM drives found in most PC's.

Hope you are on Windows 7 though, because if you're still on XP this step can be problematic. There are a number of people who can't get it to work at all. It's because of the driver that's needed for the mounting of Blu-ray discs, which is standard in Win7, but not in XP.

Good luck.

Hi Blake.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Unfortunately, all three of my laptops are on Windows XP (but the download seemed to go OK).

I took your advice and installed (and read all the supporting data for) Elaborate Bytes/Virtual Clone Dive and now have a cow icon upon which I can click. Unfortunately, when I right-double-click (as per the manual), I don't get the same menu as in the manual: missing is the option for "Virtual Clone Drive" and the arrow leading to "Mount" (or "Unmount") What I basically get are a bunch of options to create or archive the files as .rar files (which is useless; I tried it for the hell of it and just got a .rar that then reopened to the original .iso file), or burn with Nero (which we know doesn't work for this kind of audio file). When I open the program in my main C Drive I get all of the above plus 10 .exe files which I am reticent to open (or should I?) and some other files with extensions which I've never heard of before.

I downloaded AviSynth 2.5, too, but am not sure why I need it or if I have to do anything with it.

Have I mentioned to you that I am a total computer idiot?

Incidentally, I want to convert just this one file, so I am not about to purchase any professional programs to help: I really want to (and have been assured that I can) do it all for free.

OK: If you have the patience to deal with me, I would greatly appreciate your advice on The Next Step.

By the way, I live in Europe and it's almost 3:30 a.m here, so I will probably hit the sheets soon (and anxiously get up in a few hours to see if there is a reply).

Many, many thanks,

Rex

PS Hey - If I mailed you a DVD with the raw data - the ISO and MDS files on it, do you have the stuff to convert it to a DTS DVD? I'd be more than happy to trade something from my collection of over 7,000 CDs and 1,500 DVDs going back to French silent movies from the 1920s.

Have you installed the program as 'administrator'? It says on the download page you need to do that.

After proper instal you ought to see a small CD icon in your taskbar (bottom right), right clicking on that icon should give you settings/options where you can set the number of virtual drives etc.

If you don't see that icon, something else is up.

Welcome to the forum, Rex.
Let me back up a little and clarify what the .mds file is for.
When someone uses ImgBurn to create an ISO file, the program also creates the .mds file.
When the ISO and .mds file are in the same directory, and ImgBurn is installed on the pc, you can double click the .mds file and ImgBurn knows to open up the ISO file and prepare to burn it to disk. In the case of the AVCHD ISO, the disk you will need to burn on will most likely be a normal DVD5 (4.7GB) or a DVD9 (a double layer 8.5GB disk).
The .mds file is not necessary, just a convenience that tells ImgBurn information about the ISO file.

If you have installed AudioMuxer, it will download and install the AVIsynth program as well as it needs it to do some functions.
If you are having trouble installing a Virtual drive, there are others that are free that you can try, such as Daemon Tools (free version) or DVDFab Virtual drive (what I use and seems to be trouble free).
When you have the virtual drive software installed, you simply "mount" the ISO and the computer will see it as a separate hard drive, and you can view the contents of the ISO.

I'm on Windows 7 but I used to run this on XP SP3. Not sure if any additional drivers are needed for XP. But by all means make sure you are running XP with Service Pack 3 installed.

Dear River,

Yes, I am running Service Pack 3 on Windows XP.

I installed DVDFab Virtual Drive (and uninstalled the one with the cow icon), but when I "mount" the .iso file, it sends it to the E file on my computer, and when I click on it there it tells me that Microsoft doesn't support this format. However, when I right click on "copy disc," it opens Nero's Blu-ray Disc Copy function (!). Well, it's going to be another day (tomorrow - I am out of blank discs!) to see if I can get this thing to work!

Many thanks for all of your suggestions. You've been most generous.

A prosperous 2012 to you!

Rex

Well hang in there. We all have to learn sometime.