DFF to DSF conversion

[bogi]

For example foobar2000 and JRiver are also able to associate metadata with DFFs, not only Roon. DFFs tagged in foobar2000 are recognized by HQplayer, I tried that. I don't use other audio players but many of them may support some form of DFF metadata. So I wouldn't see DFF metadata support as a special Roon's advantage.

 

Tagging DFFs is possible only in a nonstandard way, it is not supported by DFF format standard. Some players attach metadata to DFF files (foobar does so), others don't change DFF files but write metadata into tool specific music library database.

 

Advantage of DSF is that tagging is part of DSF format standard, so compatibility with other SW is guaranteed, metadata is transferred together with DSF files.

 

If you are using one of the players with DFF metadata support, you don't need to do anything today, at least not urgently. But that state is not futureproof. After some years you may want to use your music content in other player. Deleting SACD ISOs after conversion to DFF means deleting offline metadata contained in these ISOs. Then you may need to do format conversion and to use some online service to tag your DSD content properly.

 

Tools like Sonore ISO2DSD or my ISO2DSF (both using 3rd party tools) are able to transfer metadata from SACD ISO files for free without need to use online services and embed metadata to DSFs in a standard way. There is no better way to handle DSD metadata.

[bogi]

Hi Giorgio,

 

if you aren't using English edition of Windows OS, then I know one fix.

 

In AddContextMenuItem.bat substitute the line

whoami /groups | findstr /b /c:"Mandatory Label\High Mandatory Level" > nul

with this one:

whoami /groups | findstr /b /c:"S-1-16-12288" > nul

 

[bogi]

Correction of my previous post - note it is without the /b switch:

 

In AddContextMenuItem.bat substitute the line

whoami /groups | findstr /c:"Mandatory Label\High Mandatory Level" > nul

with this one:

whoami /groups | findstr /c:"S-1-16-12288" > nul

 

I tested it just now, that works on my PC and most probably works also on non English Windows.

[bogi]

21 hours ago, Edmond said:

Hi Bogi, thanks for your suggestion, but no way. The format convertion doesn't work. I'm using the Italian version of W10 64bit.

Must I put dff2dsf files into a special directory (like c:\dff2dsf\)? Or is it ininfluent? At the moment the files are saved onto my desktop, into a DFF2DSF folder...

 

Thanks for your patience.

 

Giorgio

 

I didn't test it with Desktop folder. I would suggest you to try some shorter path like c:\dff2dsf you suggested.

 

My folder d:\tools\DFF2DSF looks like on the attached picture.

I have too less information to be able to reproduce your issue.

[bogi]

Edmond, is your account able to run a program as Administrator?

You could try to open Command Prompt window as Administrator, then navigate to your DFF2DSF folder and then run AddContextMenu.bat, for example:

 

cd /d d:\tools\DFF2DSF

AddContextMenuItem.bat

[bogi]

dff2dsf from Signalyst accepts only DFF files with uncompressed DSD content. It doesn't accept compressed (DST) content.

 

foobar2000 and Jriver Media Center accept DFF files in compressed DST format, but HQPlayer not. The tool dff2dsf from Signalyst doesn't make any decompression of DST content - it simply converts uncompressed DSD content from DFF file format to DSF file format. DSF files always contain uncompressed DSD content. AFAIK no tool to decompress DST content of DFF files is available.

 

To solve your issue you need to re-extract files from your SACD ISO. You have to extract ISO to uncompressed DFF files or directly to extract ISO to DSF files. You don't need to do it as 2 step operation - at first to extract DFF files from ISO with one tool and then to convert them to DSF with another tool. You can obtain DSF files from SACD ISO in a single tool. You can choose Sonore ISO2DSD or my ISO2DSF.

[bogi]

Win10 is OK, I'm using it too.

Check the picture if your folder looks the same. Maybe such picture is missing in the installation PDF.

[bogi]

On 1/12/2018 at 7:40 PM, Alan Melco said:

Is there a way to point to either a full Album all in dff or even better a whole folder of dff orphans stripped from the main collection??

 

You can inspire yourself with this post: https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/21178-how-do-you-store-dff-untagged-files/?do=findComment&comment=446443

 

Just substitute .ISO file type with .DFF and iso2dsf.exe with dff2dsf.exe.