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  1. Member
    Join Date
    May 2006
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    Netherlands
    Search Comp PM
    Hello,

    For those that are interested I will give a brief explanation on how to make an audio-only DVD
    containing up to 50 albums. That's equivelant to about 600 songs or about 45 hours of music.

    The "great trick" behind it all, is that we don't use the audio-only or video-titles but menues
    to play the songs. The DVD standard limits the number of video-titles (or audio-only-titles) to
    99. On the other hand under dvd-lab pro you can have up to 250 menues in a VTS. Given that you
    can have 99 VTS-files that gives us over 24000 menues. So in theory we could put over 24000
    (although very short) songs on the dvd. One advantage of this method is, that we don't need to
    code any vm-commands.


    I've tried several approaches before this one.

    the first attempt : Using one audio-only-title for each song. This limited the whole to 99 songs.

    The second attempt: Making one audio-file per album (album-title) and then setting chapter-points
    at the beginneing of each song. This approach had the disadvantage that if you selected a song
    from the album-menu, the background attached to the album-title would only be displayed when the
    first song was selected. I got around this by using a dummy menu. An explantion of this method
    can be found on the forums at puremotion.com.


    Preparation:

    - Rip your cd's so that you have an mp3-file for each song. These have a samplerate of 44.1 khz.
    - Convert them to mp3-files with a samplerate of 48 khz (the required sample-rate for DVD).
    - Convert the 48khz mp3-files into ac3-files.

    Personaly I used Freerip for ripping the CD's and Mediacoder for the conversion from 44,1 khz to

    48khz and the conversion to ac3-files. (resampling to 48khz and conversion to ac3 in one go
    crashed mediacoder, that's why I did it in two steps.(Mediacoder has a batch-modus).
    Both programs are freely available for download on the net.


    Collect a whole lot of images, that you wish to use for backgrounds. A search on the net under
    wallpapers gives you many sites. You could also search google for images.
    Once you have those, you convert them into png-images of size 720x540 (for standard 4:3).
    I used Easy graphic converter 1.2 (freely available).


    Before we start, I do assume some knwoledge of dvd-lab (pro).
    You might also want to check out this tutorial: https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=287574



    Setting up the dvd.


    In my project there were 3 major performers and a various-group. I placed each performer into
    it's own VTS.


    First I created a main-menu (VMG1) that would contain a button to link to a menu for each
    performer. For each major performer I created 1 or 2 to menues (performer-menues) with a
    thumbnail layout of their albums (maximum of 9 per menu)

    Note: The main-menu and the Performer-menues are in the VMG-Domain.







    For each album there would be a separate menu displaying a larger version of the album-cover and
    all the titles of the album (album-menu). Each title would jump to the specified song.




    Overal View for one Performer:




    Note: As you will notice, I used a bridge to link to the album-menues from the performer-menu,

    because from a VMG-menue you can only link to the VTS-root. If you want, you can put the
    performer-menues into the VTS-Domain. Then you would not need the bridges.
    The same applies for the VM-command next to the menu. This is used to return to the
    performer-menue from the album-menues. If they are all in the VTS-Domain, this VM-command is not
    needed.


    Per album we add a menu for each song.




    For each song we can set a different background. We can add the album-title and the songtitle.
    And you add the ac3-songfile to the audio-track of the menu.

    Since the next-chapter-button does not work on a menu, I added a button (below right) that we
    will use to link to the next songmenu. I set the attributes so that it doesnt show on screen.
    to do so Set the button-visibility to "invisible all".


    NB. Instead of using a button, you could also use the songtext as the link to the next songmenu.




    As you can see I used the component-tool to group the songs per album. This helps in keeping a
    good overview.

    For each songmenu we will also set the UOP's (right click on the songmenu and select UOPs and

    settings)





    All we have left to do is add all the links.

    - Draw menu-links from the songmenues to the album-menu.
    - Draw menu-links from the album-menues to the performer-menue
    - Draw menu-links from the performer-menues to the main-menu.
    - Draw mormal links from one songmenu to the next. So that when a song ends, the next song

    Note when using menu-links: Menu-links are part of the abstraction-layer in dvd-lab pro. In the background DVD-lab pro creates a shadow-menu in the VTS. Every menu-link is diverted to this shadow-menu that contains vm-code for linking to the correct menu. Because the pre-section for vm-commands is limited to 128, the number of menu-links within a VTS is limited as well. So I would advise to spread your albums and consequently songs over several VTS, limiting the number of menu-songs within a VTS to about 70. This still gives you potentially 6930 songs to put on the DVD.
    If you exceed the limit of 128 pre-commands, you will get a warning during compilation.


    begins.
    - Draw button-links from the album-menu to the songmenu.
    - Draw button-links from the button on the songmenu to the next songmenu.
    Note: Because it is the only button on the songmenu, pressing "ok" or "enter" on your remote
    will skip to the next song.

    - Draw button-links from the performer-menu to the album-menues
    - Draw button-links from the main-menu to the performer-menues


    Note: In order to get from the last song in a VTS to the first song in the next VTS, you have to

    use a bridge.

    Finally, Because there has to be a movie-title (or audio-title) in each VTS, we will add one to
    each VTS. These titles are simple never executed.
    I used a small (5 seconds) video-m2v-file that I made with CCE, but you could also use an
    audio-only-title with a few seconds of music.





    I hope this helps in any way.

    A small tip for using random playlists:
    The random playlist is, as I suspect, primarly a fibonacci-series of numbers with a modulo based on the random-seed (In case of the random-playlist this is the number of titles in the playlist). Because this number is usually not that high, randomisation is not that good.
    By using a larger seed for the randomise, we can get a better randomisation.

    A simple way of creating a better random playlist is by using the counter-list and adding a small piece of vm-code tot the pre-section.
    Both the random-list and the counter-list use GPRM14 to set the number for the next song. We will make use of this.

    A random-list generates the following code:
    GPRM11= 110 (is the node-number)
    GPRM12 = GPRM14 (save the last value)
    GPRM14 rnd x (randomise where x = number of titles)
    if (GPRM14 == GPRM12) LINKPGCN nnn (was it the same as last time, then try again)
    if (GPRM14 == 1) LINKPGCN 3 (first title from playlist)
    if (GPRM14 == 1) LINKPGCN 4 (second title from playlist)

    and so on for all titles in the playlist.



    The counter-list is somewhat simpler.

    GPRM14 += 1 (add 1 to GPRM14)
    if (GPRM14 == 1) LINKPGCN 3 (first title from playlist)
    if (GPRM14 == 1) LINKPGCN 4 (second title from playlist)
    and so on for all titles in the playlist.

    If we change the value of GPRM14 based on a random-function before this bit of code is executed we will have created our own improved random-list.

    The code itself is simple:

    GPRM0 = n (n = the number of titles in the playlist)
    GPRM14 rnd 48358 (random but using a higher seed)
    GPRM14 %= GPRM0 (remainder of random-number divided by number of titles)
    if (GPRM14 == GPRM1) Goto 1 (same as last time)
    GPRM1 = GPRM14 (save the last value)

    The remainder will always be in the range of zeroes to number-of titles - 1.
    the GPRM14 += 1 of the counterlist will make that 1 to number-of-titles.

    Since you can only have a maximum of 128 vm-commands, there is a limit to the number of titles in a random or counter-list. As a solution, you can spread your songs over 2 or more counterlists. You add a link from counterlist 1 to counterlist 2 etc. In the pre-section of the second, third... counterlist you will have to decrease GPRM14 with the number of titles in the previous list, by adding GPRM14 -= nn.

    If f.e you have 300 songs, you can spread them over 4 or 5 counterlists. If they are in different VTS, you can make a counterlist per VTS and link those by using a bridge.



    Greetings,

    Kardargo
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  2. Член BJ_M's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2002
    Location
    Canada
    Search Comp PM
    something seems to be missing at the end of your guide ..


    also (great guide btw) , why rip to mp3 and then to ac3 ? why not just either straight to ac3 (if you had vegas for example) or wav to ac3 ?
    "Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems." - Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
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  3. Member
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Netherlands
    Search Comp PM
    Hello,

    If you have the tools to rip and convert to 48khz ac3 straight from the cd, then you can do that.

    I used freerip, that can only extract either to wav, mp3 or ogg-vobis.
    For the conversion from 44.1 khz to 48khz I first used cool-edit, but that took ages to convert a file. Besweet was used for the ac3-conversion, but the resulting ac3-sound was a bit disappointing. So after some searching of the internet, I found MEDIACODER, which is a nice little tool, that can be used to convert between many formats. It uses ffmpeg for ac3-conversion. It is still in development, so there can be some stability-issues. F.i. when doing a conversion from 44.1 khz mp3 to 48khz ac3 in one go it crashed. But conversion from 44.1 khz mp3 to 48khz PCM and then from PCM to ac3 worked perfectly and gave a good quality sound. It was also
    faster than cooledit and besweet.


    The last bit was meant as a teaser. I've ammended it in the meantime.

    dvd-lab pro has a random-list, but it's randomness leaves a lot to be desired. So I've made a bit of vm-coding that gives a better randomizing result. I'm still improving on it by trying to combine it with a counter-list.
    As soon as the results are in I will post a small how-to.

    Greetings,

    Kardargo


    If you do not see the light at the end of the tunnel, you should take off your sunglasses.
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  4. Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    United States
    Search Comp PM
    https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Audio_DVD_Creator I think you should really check this out, is listed at $40, I registered on the website for updates and emails and within 24 hours I got a coupon for 20% discount. Didn't get any more messages after that and no spam. This is a full, cool program, it has the limitation of no random lists, but within 10-12 minutes you can really put 50 CDs, or just 25 if you choose 5.1 Dolby Encoder. Not to mention that you can use it for any audio file or stream to encode in 5.1 and use the file for something else.
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  5. Banned
    Join Date
    Aug 2002
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    beautiful
    Search Comp PM
    No no no, going the mp3 route is a mistake, a horrible music castration IMHO.
    What would be the point to rip crispy CDs to low quality high-compression MP3s, and then 'uplift' them back to higher quality AC3? :O
    Might as well keep those MP3s and burn them to DVDR as is...
    You can use i.e. EAC or CDeX (freebies) to dump CDs straight to WAV, and then encode them to AC3, preserving sound quality as much as possible that way; also, IIRC, EAC and CDX allow for use of external plugins too - thus i.e. you could dump them to WAVs upsampled to 48kHz.

    I cant wait what will you come up with randomization

    The magical "99" is no problem, as I explained that in my "audio-dvd-video" guide.
    Each asset can have 99 chapters, so if you rip each entire CD as a single asset (and then chapter them according to songs) you will achieve possibility of having 99 albums with 99 songs in each album (99*99=9801 songs); thats more than DL-DVDR can hold, even if theyre very short, so this shouldn't be the problem.

    Oh, and congratulation on your nice guide
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  6. Member
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
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    Search Comp PM
    I have updated the post and added a remark about the use of menu-links. I've also added a little explanation on how to improve the random-list.

    The remark about the menu-links:

    Note when using menu-links: Menu-links are part of the abstraction-layer in dvd-lab pro. In the background DVD-lab pro creates a shadow-menu in the VTS. Every menu-link is diverted to this shadow-menu that contains vm-code for linking to the correct menu. Because the pre-section for vm-commands is limited to 128, the number of menu-links within a VTS is limited as well. So I would advise to spread your albums and consequently songs over several VTS, limiting the number of menu-songs within a VTS to about 70. This still gives you potentially 6930 songs to put on the DVD.


    Greetings,

    Kardargo
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