Freeware DVD-Audio Tools !

[andydd]

Ive had a DVD-Audio player for some time and always wanted to make a DVD-Audio disc but the software has been very rare and rather pricey.

But I was browsing the web and came across..

http://dvd-audio.sourceforge.net/

It has a simple freeware tool called Dvda-author.exe that can produce a DVD-Audio disc with only 2 command tool lines.

Tried it last night and burnt the resulting .iso image with Nero and it worked fine.

I used Goldwave to rip a CD and I saved the resulting .wav files as 96Khz and 24-bit before running Dvda-author.

Its worth checking out if you have a DVD-Audio player at home and are interested in creating your own DVd-Audio discs.

[Sylvain]

Ive had a DVD-Audio player for some time and always wanted to make a DVD-Audio disc but the software has been very rare and rather pricey.

I'd like to do the same thing but was wondering if you could fit more tracks on a DVD-Audio than you could on a CD (my player does not handle MP3s but handles DVD-Audios ).

Can you tell me about that Andy? Thanks.

[andydd]

I think so yes. it would all depend on the sampling rate you choose. (Cd is 44.1 khz) and DVD audio can be 48,96 and higher. Its all about the maths so you need to go look at some sites that explain it in a bit more detail. But generally I think if you use a lowish sampling rate and use only 2-channel audio then a DVD Audio disc can hold more than a CD.

[Sylvain]

Thanks Andy. If the source is a CD, there would be no advantage to copy tracks to a DVD-A at any higher rate than 44.1 (stereo only). Given the 4.7GB capacity of the DVD, I would have expected to be able to fit more tracks on the DVD-A than on a CD but then am not familiar with the DVD-A format. I guess I will have to experiment...

[greymalkin]

if you are just wanting to be able to listen to music through your dvd player your best bet would be to convert the mp3's to AC3...it would be pointless to bloat a mp3 to a dvd audio file, which takes up a very large amount of space.

mp3 dvd's are pretty cool...since you can keep your mp3's at a high bitrate and still have hundreds and hundreds of songs on there.

[Cornucopia]

As the DVD-Audio spec also incorporates the CD bitrate, sample rate, resolution, and number of channels, you could easily just to a rip of CD tracks to wave, and then process a bunch of them with that app to create a "super-sized" CD. No file savings, but no quality loss either (as mp3/ac3/aac would probably do). This could give you a disc with up to 7 hours, 20-plus minutes on a regular single-layer DVD-R.
Of course, higher resolution/samplerate/#channels will bring this number down.
Also, using unconverted mp3/aac/ac3, while being somewhat compatible with the "drm-protected" part of the recent revision to the DVD-Audio spec, isn't going to be playable by many legacy DVD-Audio players (and probably not DVD-Video players unless they're encoded into the standard VOB files or using a raw ISOfile-capable system like MPG/DIVX/JPG/MP3/WMA players)

HTH,

Scott

[Jester700]

If a DVD player can't play MP3 but can play CD wav files, you may want to leave them as wavs instead of creating AC3s, depending on your pickiness with audio. Re-compressing can make the sound deteriorate quickly, and you still get 7 hrs worth of audio on a DVD with the wavs.

[Sylvain]

if you are just wanting to be able to listen to music through your dvd player your best bet would be to convert the mp3's to AC3...it would be pointless to bloat a mp3 to a dvd audio file, which takes up a very large amount of space.

mp3 dvd's are pretty cool...since you can keep your mp3's at a high bitrate and still have hundreds and hundreds of songs on there.

Actually, my goal is to fit more tracks on a single media given that the player only reads CDs and DVD-Audios (other than DVD-Videos of course).

[Sylvain]

... you could easily just to a rip of CD tracks to wave, and then process a bunch of them with that app to create a "super-sized" CD. ... This could give you a disc with up to 7 hours, 20-plus minutes on a regular single-layer DVD-R.

That's exactly what I would like to achieve Scott: a "super-sized" CD.

... isn't going to be playable by many legacy DVD-Audio players ...

Well, it might be worthwhile wasting a DVD-R to give that a try.

Thanks.

[Sylvain]

If a DVD player can't play MP3 but can play CD wav files, you may want to leave them as wavs instead of creating AC3s, depending on your pickiness with audio. Re-compressing can make the sound deteriorate quickly, and you still get 7 hrs worth of audio on a DVD with the wavs.

As per my answer to Cornucopia above, that would be great if it worked. I suspect the player will only read the DVD-A (and DVD-V) formats though... Thanks.