How to rip DVD Audio disks for conversion to CD?

[colbeck]

(I know this is a video group but the concept of ripping is the same...)
Does anyone know how to extract the audio tracks from DVD Audio disks (to convert to regular stereo CDs for use on my car CD deck). At the moment I know how to rip the compressed AC3 music tracks from my DVDA disks (used Smarttipper) but don't know how to get at the higher resolution DVDA tracks. Clearly I will need a program to downsample and reduce the resolution, but for now I don't even know how to get at the tracks.

I did a quick search on the web and was unable to come up with anything.

Thanks, ..Roger

rcolbeck@magma.ca

[AntnyMD]

The .VOB files in the AUDIO_TS folder on DVD-Audio disks may be essentially the same structure as the .VOB files in the VIDEO_TS folder, but I'm not sure. If there was a ripper that would let you browse to a folder, that would solve that little mystery (and would also let those people who own movies in the failed Circuit City Divx format copy those discs as well).

My thought, though, on your question is this: if you have downmix and downsample the higher resolution audio of DVD-Audio to stereo PCM, what do you see as the advantage of doing it (especially since its already quite easy to rip the Dolby Digital mix from the VIDEO_TS folder)?

[colbeck]

Thanks for your answer. I believe the advantage would be quality. I was surprised at how small the AC3 files were on the DVDA disk (~200M for 50mins of music). I presume this is because AC3 uses MPEG audio compression, and probably gives quality similar to MP3 files. This by nature is a lossy process, and when I expand (also requires conversion to 44KHz from 48KHz sampling) them back to WAV files it is not going to add any quality just nothing or extra noise. I, in fact, can hear that the quality is not very good (possibly worse than the original AC3 files but I have not tested this very thoroughly). On the other hand, the process of downsampling and truncating higher resolution files should provide quality equal to standard CDs.

..Roger

[AntnyMD]

The Dolby Digital mix on DVD-Audio discs is the exact same compression used in the Dolby Digital mixes on DVD-Video discs. What you give up in compression is dramatically outweighed by six discrete channels of audio.

Furthermore, the majority of DVD-Audio releases currently available only offer 5.1 mixes in the Dolby Digital format -- the high resolution DVD-Audio track is often just a stereo dupe of the CD release.

[colbeck]

boy this is becoming an argument! Extra channels are useless to me when I want to listen in the car which is stereo only. The ripped AC3 surround tracks converted to stereo do not sound very good to my ears. This is one due to the compression used, and two may be due to a poor program I am using to convert to WAV files. However, I would not expect something that is only 200M for 6 channels of 50min music to be that good.

I love my DVDA disks but simply don't want to have to buy another CD version for cases where I am not able to use my DVD(A) player.

You should listen to a DVD Audio, the sound is awesome, and much better than AC3 or standard CD. I do not believe you are correct in saying that the majority are copies of the standard stereo CD tracks. However, that is not the point here. I am simply asking if anyone knows how to rip the high resolution audio tracks so I can bring them down to CD quality for car and other stereo use.

Thx, ..Roger

[poopyhead]

hrm....i have a question. what's the point of having DVD audio disks (i'm assuming no video wutsoever)?

the quality on regular retail CDs is perfectly fine. can you actually notice a difference between the audio in retail CDs and retail DVDs?

the only reason i can think of having audio DVDs is to fit a shitload of songs on a DVD disc...but that must be expensive cuz i'm guessing you can fit as least 5-10 times as many songs as a regular CD.

[colbeck]

DVD Audio provides even better stereo quality than CD (for those audiophiles who can notice the difference) by using a higher sampling rate and resolution.


DVD Audio can also provide very good surround sound by encoding all the channels with high resolution. Reasonable surround sound can also be provided with Dolby Digital or DTS (if you use all the bandwidth for the music not for video), but these (e.g DTS Audio CDs) never seemed to catch on.


I have been quite impressed with the sound quality of DVD Audio (and my home sound system costs maybe around $1500, not the $10K audiophile thing) but we will see if it ever penetrates the mass market.


There is very little video on DVDA disks (maybe one music video or static images of liner notes).


Yes I would think DVD Audio could also be used for putting more CDs on one DVDA, but I don't think anyone is looking at using it for that.


Anyway, we digress from the topic of this forum.


..Roger

[AntnyMD]

Santa brought me the DVD-Audio disk of RIDING WITH THE KING by B.B. King and Eric Clapton. I threw this disc into the DVD-ROM so I could get a look at the size of the DVD-Audio audio object files (the music files in the AUDIO_TS folder). There were four or five .AOB files, each a gigabyte per file! Theres no way to fit more audio than a regular CD -- the high resolution audio of the DVD-Audio format surely prevents, say, having an entire box set on one DVD-Audio disk in DVD-Audio format.

To contrast, the entire song cycle in the Dolby Digital 5.1 format (found in the VIDEO_TS folder) was contained in 1 .VOB file.

I dont think any rippers for .AOB files exist. Current rippers might decode them if such rippers allowed you to browse a DVD disk. I just had a thought: are those .AOB file encrypted? You might just be able to copy/paste them from within Explorer, and demux them.