Rip Blu-ray to Plex with Dolby TrueHD Audio

Date September 19, 2016 Author Catherine Category Blu-ray Tips, Plex

TrueHD is Dobly’s successor to AC3. This codec is lossless and supports 8 channels. It is often found in Blu-ray/HD-DVD. If you want to rip Blu-ray to Plex streaming with Dolby TrueHD audio, high end equipment will be needed to get native TrueHD support such as Samsung Smart Hub and Western Digital Live TV. In addition, another issue is that you can rip Blu-ray keeping Dolby TrueHD audio for Plex cause not all Blu-ray Ripping tools can supports to rip Blu-ray to Dolby TrueHD audio.

Usually, if you want to keep Blu-ray Dolby TrueHD audio for Plex pass-through, MKV is the best container to choose. MKV enables you to rip a Blu-Ray giving you a 1080p video and also where available HD audio either Dolby TrueHD or DTS-MA in the same MKV file. So when you are searching for a Blu-ray Ripper that can help you rip Blu-ray to Plex with Dolby TrueHD audio, you should check if the Blu-ray Ripper can rip Blu-ray to lossless MKV.

In my experience, although there are many Blu-ray ripping tools in the market, few of them can output lossless/uncompressed MKV from Blu-ray. With luck, I found Pavtube ByteCopy can achieve it. This Blu-ray Decrypter can decyrpt Blu-ray AACS, BD+, UOP, up to MKB v61 Blu-ray keeping Dolby TrueHD audio for Plex pass-through. As we know, Blu-ray comes with lossless audio quality in mainly three lossless audio codecs: PCM, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA. Only if your Blu-ray contains the HD audio, Pavtube ByteCopy can preserve them when ripping Blu-ray to lossless MKV not just for Plex, also for Apple TV, WD TV, TV, etc.

Pavtube ByteCopy also can rip Blu-ray and DVD to MP4/MOV/AVI with multiple video and audio tracks with 5.1/7.1 channels without losing the wonderful audio while backup a Blu-ray movie to PMS. What’s more, Pavtube ByteCopy can directly extract HD audio from Blu-ray and DVD video discs. It can extract FLAC, WMA, MP3, etc from Blu-ray and DVD.

Download and Install:

Pavtube ByteCopy Trial version: A trial is free but functional-restricted. Lossless output can be used 3 times only. You may download a trial and see how it works.

Pavtube ByteCopy Retail version: A full version is offered at $42.

How to Keep Dolby TrueHD audio when Ripping Blu-ray to PMS?

Step 1. Add Blu-ray movies

Insert Blu-ray Disc into your external or internal BD drive and launch the Blu-ray Ripping program. Click “disc” button to import Blu-ray movies for converting/copying.

Step 2. Choose output format keeping Dolby TrueHD audio

To pass-through original Dolby TrueHD audio for Blu-ray movie ripping to Plex, just select “Lossless/encoded multi-track MKV (* mkv)” from “Multi-track Video” quality in “Format” box. Make sure the original BD disc does contain Dolby TrueHD audio, otherwise you still can’t get Dolby TrueHD audio saved.

Note: There is a “Settings” option, which allows you to make adjustments on your audio, video, subtitles. It’s worth mentioning that, by default, all audio & subtitles tracks in a source file are checked to be saved in the MKV container, if there are some tracks you don’t like, you can click Settings button and go to Multi-task Settings window to uncheck and remove them under Audio tab and Subtitle tab. In Audio Channels box, you can choose to keep Stereo, 5.1, 7.1 channel (You should make sure your Blu-ray has 5.1 or 7.1 sound)

Step 3. Start ripping Blu-ray with Dolby TrueHD audio

Before start conversion, select subtitles you want keep with the output video from the option. Then, hit the big Convert button, it will start converting Blu-ray movies to lossless mkv videos with the original Dolby TrueHD audio saved. That’s it! Your Blu-ray video will now be encoded and a few hours later you will have a great high definition video file with preferred TrueHD audio passthrough through Plex.

You May Interested in: Plex Issues and Solutions

Audio Formats Plex Direct Play/Pass-Through

There is no single digital format for audio, there are many. The most common are:

• MP3: Only carries 2 channels and is relatively low bitrate. Not that common for new releases.
• AAC: The closest thing we can get to a universal standard these days. The drawback with AAC is that while it can carry 6 channel sound, not many receivers handle it and it’s not designed for it. (It’s telling that Apple—the champion of AAC—doesn’t even support AAC as a raw format in their products.)
• Dolby Digital / AC3: The most common multi-channel format. It handles at most 6 channels (5.1) and is supported natively by almost anything. However, it’s relatively low bitrate so it might not give the best fidelity. Most TV shows have AC3 tracks.
• DTS: Most common for movies, handles 6 channels at most, and is pretty universally supported in mid-range equipment and up. Low end equipment usually does not support DTS natively since there are licensing fees involved. The AppleTV, for example, supports AC3 but not DTS.
• TrueHD: TrueHD is Dobly’s successor to AC3. This codec is lossless and supports 8 channels. High end equipment is needed to get native TrueHD support.
• DTS-MA: The successor to DTS. It is backwards compatible with DTS. DTS-MA is lossless and supports 8 channels.
• Others that you can run into but are not common: Vorbis, FLAC. Both supports multiple channels, but few receivers natively support them, even though at least FLAC is on the rise.

For your reference – What audio codecs will Blu-ray support?

Linear PCM (LPCM) – up to 8 channels of uncompressed audio. (mandatory)

Dolby Digital (DD) – format used for DVDs, 5.1-channel surround sound. (mandatory)

Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) – extension of Dolby Digital, 7.1-channel surround sound. (optional)

Dolby TrueHD – lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio. (optional)

DTS Digital Surround – format used for DVDs, 5.1-channel surround sound. (mandatory)

DTS-HD High Resolution Audio – extension of DTS, 7.1-channel surround sound. (optional)

DTS-HD Master Audio – lossless encoding of up to 8 channels of audio. (optional)