Audio to CD or DVD?

[KLouis22]

I often capture/convert analog audio (cassette, LP, etc.) using s/w to a Wav file and then burn as an Audio CD not a Data CD. These CDs will play fine in any device I have and I'm satisfied with the results.

A friend asked me if one could burn this to a DVD rather than a CD. I said maybe, but questioned why one would use a DVD for an audio burn, because it would only play in DVD players, I think, and not in any CD players. Is this true?

Question is: Can it be done, and if so, for what purpose besides 4.7GB vs 700MB capacity? And if possible and DVD has any advantage over the CD, are files needed and process to burn the DVD same as doing the CD? Is audio only on a DVD have any practical use?

Are DVDs and CDs equal in archive stability/longevity?

[mpack]

it would only play in DVD players, I think, and not in any CD players. Is this true?

Yes, it would not play in an audio CD player, only in (some) DVD players. Also the DVD player might require that it be authored as a DVD, though some modern DVD players recognize data DVDs containing MP3 files. Even these may have restrictions on sample rate etc.

Question is: Can it be done, and if so, for what purpose besides 4.7GB vs 700MB capacity?

The only purpose is the higher capacity, which allows more tracks (one DVD gives enough music for an entire party and/or better quality for each track (higher sample rate, more bits per sample). However many adults can't really hear the quality difference.

[jman98]

mpack's answer is correct, but to elaborate further, you cannot burn Audio CD format to a DVD disc. You can burn MP3 or WAV files or some other format to a DVD disc as a data disc, but that is all. No program will let you burn a DVD disc as an audio CD.

It is difficult to say if CDs and DVDs are equal in archive stability and longevity. The best answer I can give is "Maybe, but it depends on the brands you are talking about". High quality brands such as Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden (you'll have to mail order those) should have the best archival properties. There are definitely more low quality DVD blanks out there than CD-R blanks in my experience.

[KLouis22]

Thank you both. OK, so burning MP3 or WAV to DVD as data disc is necessary just to make things work, but only so it will play in DVD player, still won't play in CD player?

Sounds like there ISN'T a real practical application for making music on a DVD and doing so is somewhat harder than a CD, agree? Other than the size issue?

I've noted many agree with that Verbatim and TY conclusion and won't use others. Are TDK, Maxell, Sony inferior? I mostly use TDK, not sure what the 'higher quality' brands would improve? I have also read higher purple color/intensity of working side is higher quality? TDK is such compared to Max and Sony or any other discs I've seen. Haven't bought and so haven't seen how purple the V and TY discs are. If that's even true?

[guns1inger]

You can author a DVD that has very little video content (perhaps just album covers or even black video and nothing else) and many hours of audio. This will be playable is all DVD players (well, as playable as any other self-authored DVD).

DVD Lab Pro has a feature for this type of DVD, and there are others as well.

[jman98]

DVDs can NEVER be read by CD audio only players because the CD player does not have the right laser, nor does it understand the disc type.

It's not necessarily harder to put music on a data DVD than to make a CD audio.

TDK and Sony used to sell high quality discs in the USA in the past. Some Sony discs sold in Europe (not sure about the USA) were actually made by Taiyo Yuden. Now in North America pretty much everybody just sells cheaply made crap by the lowest cost, worst quality manufacturers. Even Verbatim is cutting corners with some of their media, but you can still find the good ones if you look in the right places.

The story about the purple color indicating quality is a complete lie. While there is some variation in dye color and dye types for CD-R, only one dye works for DVD+/-R and everybody uses it. Verbatim claims to add some stabilizers to it when they use it and this may or may not make their DVDs last longer. But the color of their DVDs looks the same as everybody else.

[KLouis22]

Will burning a DVD data disc of MP3 or WAV files also be playable in all DVD players?

What burn program for this? I have Roxio Creator LE and DVD LE, DVDShrink, DVD Decrypter, Imgburn, Nero.

[AlanHK]

Will burning a DVD data disc of MP3 or WAV files also be playable in all DVD players?

Not guaranteed. Most however seem to support MP3.

The "correct" format would be DVD audio (that's why most DVDs have the AUDIO_TS folder). But the tools for making these are rather esoteric. See DVD audio Tools if you really want to do that.

A good alternative is to use high rate AC3 (or wave, if you prefer) and mux with a minimal video.

GuiforDVDAuthor can make such a DVD -- click "Insert" and select "Audio titleset" and it will build single frame mpegs with audio from your AC3 or wave audio. See details here.

These will play on any DVD player and show a playlist menu.

[mpack]

A good alternative is to use high rate AC3 (or wave, if you prefer) and mux with a minimal video.

You don't even need to do that. A soundtrack (AC3 or wave - wave gives best quality) can be accompanied by a still image, so you don't need to have video eating up disk space, and you don't need to mess with a muxer separately. This uses the slideshow feature of the DVD spec (essentially uses the same internal mechanism as menus). A decent prosumer DVD authoring app will let you create these. Gunslinger has already recommended one. The next chapter / prev chapter buttons on the remote will work just like the next/prev track buttons on a CD player.

Note that this is NOT a data DVD, this is an ordinary DVD thats accepted by any DVD player (assuming it handles DVD-/+R disks at all).

Data DVDs with a list of MP3 tracks is a newer feature, not necessarily supported by all DVD players. I've never done one of these so can't comment on what the limitations might be.

[AlanHK]

A good alternative is to use high rate AC3 (or wave, if you prefer) and mux with a minimal video.

You don't even need to do that. A soundtrack (AC3 or wave - wave gives best quality) can be accompanied by a still image, so you don't need to have video eating up disk space

I doubt a single frame MPEG "eats up" much more more disk space than a single image.

[mpack]

I doubt a single frame MPEG "eats up" much more more disk space than a single image.

Eh? A still image on a DVD is a single frame MPEG-2. Besides, your previous suggestion said "minimal video", not "single image". AFAIK the video which accompanies the soundtrack would have to have enough frames at a supported frame rate to cover the same duration as the soundtrack (I may be wrong about that, it's a long time since I tried it). If so then the bitrate of this video stream would have to be high enough to produce an acceptable quality album cover or whatever. The slideshow method doesn't have these problems, and it's a built in feature of any semi-decent DVD authoring app - it requires no special external preparation of the assets, you just need 48kHz wave files and a still JPEG or BMP to go along with each track.

On the other hand, a video could do nice things like provide a media player -like visualization of the audio. Maybe use subtitles too, to provide track info.

[AlanHK]

I doubt a single frame MPEG "eats up" much more more disk space than a single image.

Eh? A still image on a DVD is a single frame MPEG-2. Besides, your previous suggestion said "minimal video", not "single image".

How much more minimal can you get?

AFAIK the video which accompanies the soundtrack would have to have enough frames at a supported frame rate to cover the same duration as the soundtrack (I may be wrong about that, it's a long time since I tried it).

I don't know what the spec says, but in practice, when I've done it, not necessary.

[mpack]

I don't know what the spec says, but in practice, when I've done it, not necessary.

"when I've done it"? What tools did you use when you did it? And what structure did you use for the DVD?

When I did it, I did the whole thing as one title set. Each music track was one chapter, chapter length of course dictated by the length of the music track. The DVD authoring software let me drop in a still image on the video timeline, one at each chapter mark. The DVD spec allows for a still image with a hold time (ie. slideshow feature) which could be made the same as the music length.

Now if I dropped in video clips (of whatever length) instead of stills it would mean there was gaps on the video timeline between chapters. Did your muxer cope with this and still play the complete music track? - Or did you use another technique entirely?

[AlanHK]

I don't know what the spec says, but in practice, when I've done it, not necessary.

"when I've done it"? What tools did you use when you did it? And what structure did you use for the DVD?

GfD, making standard video DVD (i.e. VIDEO_TS with VOBs).
Sometimes the audio track of a video is several seconds longer than the video. I just see a black screen (perhaps the final frame?) until the audio runs out. Otherwise, to deliberately make an audio DVD, GfD's "audio titleset", which is actually also a video DVD in structure.

I had a look at DVD slideshow GUI, which can export to a GfD file, so I assume it uses the same method.

I don't know if the method you describe is really different, or just a different interface that ends up the same structure.

[mpack]

Sometimes the audio track of a video is several seconds longer than the video.

Yes, I've seen that. I'm just curious as to how your authoring tool deals with gaps or "holes" in the video stream. I would have expected problems, or else it is doing something else entirely (eg. not chapters but multiple VTS).

[AlanHK]

Sometimes the audio track of a video is several seconds longer than the video.

Yes, I've seen that. I'm just curious as to how your authoring tool deals with gaps or "holes" in the video stream. I would have expected problems, or else it is doing something else entirely (eg. not chapters but multiple VTS).

I'm afraid I haven't looked at the low level file structure.

I don't make many audio discs, mostly I would just dump them as MP3 files on a data disk.

However, recently I've wanted to combine a soundtrack album with a video feature, so I've converted them to AC3 and used GfD's audio titleset.

This for instance, given a folder of AC3 audio, totalling 154 MB, put them into a single VOB with chapters for each track, of 174 MB.