LOTR audio on 13 cd's to DVD

"Normal CD player audio" is uncompressed PCM, 16bit / 44.1kHz / stereo. This is only supported by DVD-Audio (which is not supported by many standalone players - and can only be created with software that costs 99$ or more (Discwelder). If you want a DVD that plays the music on any DVD-player you have to decode + resample to 16 (or 24) bit/ 48kHz / stereo .wav files 1st (use foobar2000 or besweet for this). Then you have to author a DVD-V using this audio files as audio stream and still pictures / low bitrate video stream.

A very easy sollution is DVD+Audio Creator, but there's only a limited trial version available for what you want to do.

The same can be done with free authoring software like IfoEdit AFAIK. For details you should read / ask in appropriate afterdawn sub-forum (some DVD authoring related) and/or at doom9 (I've seen plenty of threads about this topic there, probably there's a FAQ/guide too somewhere).

 

Tigre, good to see you. Long time, no gab.

I'm glad you mentioned the DVD+Audio 14-day trial thingee. I have it (but haven't installed it yet).

The trial version will, currently, only transfer standard red book-type wave files (44.1/16) to proper DVD-Audio standard(s). If one wants to forego a bit of quality, it even, apparently, offers compression, allowing as much as 45 (!) hours of audio on a single DVD-R, according to their web page. (Kinda defeats the Hi-Res aspect, but still...) I need your help.

I remember when we were all racking our brains trying to find a method to cram a whole bunch of high quality music cds onto a properly-mastered DVD-R Audio disc. This DVD+Audio program looks as though it will do the trick.

Trouble is, the trial version will only allow for 8 music tracks, maximum. (A maximum of 2 Folders with up to 4 tracks in each). That's not very much, but of course, this is only a trial version.

The good thing is, I don't believe there is any restriction of track length. The red book wave files can be as long as you want.

My question: Is there any way to rip a music cd as a *single* wave file instead of individual tracks? OR, do you know of any way to join the individually-ripped songs into a single wave?

This way, I figure you could get 8 *albums* onto the DVD-Audio disc. (Instead of just 8 *songs*). Each song "track" would in actual fact, be the whole album. (Two folders of 4 albums each).

No, I wouldn't be able to select between individual songs on the finished DVD-Audio disc, but I *would* be able to use the remote control to select between individual albums. Cool !

As it turns out, depending on individual album length, I think 8 music cds would just about fit nicely on a single dvd blank, without any compression.

I looked for a utility here in the A/D software section that might join individual waves, but couldn't find anything specific. Maybe there is a cd-ripper that will do this in one go, I don't know. (I'm using the program 'Exact Audio Copy' right now).

Any ideas?

Thank You !! -- Mike --

 

Yes. Exact Audio Copy: "Copy image" or "Copy Range"

Yes. Foobar2000's Diskwriter: Put songs in correct order on playlist (highlight + drag) -> highlight all -> rightclick -> Convert -> Run conversion (single file output)
SOX (free commandline wave editor -> sourceforge) can do the same.

I regard upsampling CD audio to 96kHz and/or 24bit for creating DVD-V + LPCM audio as waste of space. Using foobar2000 + noiseshaped dither for resampling (or any other resampler using SSRC like Besweet), 48kHz/16bit should be good enough. As I've said before, creating DVD-V with 48kHz/16bit LPCM audio can be done with free software and without the limitations DVD+Audio Creator trial version has got. I don't have a DVD burner or a standalone DVD player, so I haven't looked into this so far and can't give any further advice.

BTW: DVD+Audio creator doesn't burn DVDs, it creates the files (ifo, vob etc.) on a HDD folder. Maybe it's possible to modify these files with other software to get menu entries to jump directly to tracks or similar.

 

Oh boy! Do * I * ever feel dumb!

I just don't know *what* I could have been thinking!

For some strange reason (probably wishful thinking) I actually thought that this program would create limited use (but genuine) DVDAudio discs, but I just re-checked their web page, and it does indeed say, not to confuse "DVD+Audio with DVD Audio, which requires a special player." (Duhhhhhh......)

<here - kick me>

NONETHELESS...... (I'm going to give it a twirl anyway).

And thanks a lot for the tip, tigre, about Exact Audio Copy. I had the answer sitting right here under my nose all along! I just hadn't noticed or used that particular function before. I shall make some whole-album-single-wave-file rips today. Much obliged!

You don't have a DVD player? (Really?) I take it then, that you're not much of a movie fan? I think you can buy set top dvd players these days, for around 10 cents or something. <gg>

And no dvd burner? Hmmm..... Well, you might be better off in that regard, because the new dual-layer dvd burners are just about sitting on our doorsteps. If for some reason my current dvd burner were to poop out, I would wait to get one of the new dual-layer ones. (Perhaps 2 months or less before they will be available).

Thanks again, tigre for your help !

-- Mike --

 

I have a DVD drive in my (silent) PC, a video card with TV out and a good 5.1 soundcard - so I've got one of the best DVD players out there I'm just not limted to DVD-V or DVD-A format in case I want to use DVD-R for storage. I could e.g. use lossless compression (~ 300MB/CD) and put 15 CDs on one DVD-R :B

I like watching movies and often rent DVDs. Mostly I rent them, rip to XviD + HE-AAC (1 or 2 CD rips) in matroska container and return the DVDs. So I can watch them later without having to worry about when the video store's open. If I like a movie very much, I burn it to CD-R, otherwise I delete it. Generally it doesn't make sense IMO to watch a move more than once or even to buy a DVD.

I don't believe in (re-)writable optical media. They die too quickly and I can't be arsed to check all burned CDs/DVDs regularly for errors. I use CD-R(W)s as "(ab)use and throw away when broken" media e.g. for use with my car CD (mp3) player, but for long term storage I prefer using HDDs. The next drive I'll buy will be a reasonably priced DVD burner though.
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_X_X_X_X_X_[small]AFTERDAWN FORUM RULES: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2487[/small]

 

Hmmmmm.. that's quite a philosophy, Tigre, not entirely unheard of, but somewhat unique nonetheless.

Your preferred method of "long term" archiving (saving to HDD) is an accident waiting to happen, you know that, don't you? Wait for a system failure; hdd failure, an irrecoverable system crash, bla bla bla..... goodbye data. Downloads, rips, whatever. The more you have saved, the more you will lose.

The only *safe* place for anything you wish to really keep is on optical media. Nice and safe and sound. Recoverable. Instantly accessible.

I once had this very conversation with Ken Pohlmann of 'Sound And Vision' magazine. (via email). I responded to his article, "Bits To Go, Hold the Plastic', in the Dec 2003 issue. Many of his University Students (he is a professor as well as a magazine journalist) feel the same way as you do.

"Disposable bits" are what some people prefer (pay-per-view; self-expiring DRM-crippled music files, etc.), but not me. I can see you're one of those forward-looking 'Convergence' kind of gents, but since I'm an old fuddy duddy set in my ways, I prefer to have the shiny little platters neatly tucked away on the shelf where I know they're safe.

Don't believe in RW media? Oh! It seems that would be ideal for you. (Yeah, they _are_ somewhat unreliable, but tigre, write-once stuff is *so* cheep these days, and is 99.999% reliable. Yeah, I know, some data isn't worth the plastic it's saved on, so I just don't save that particular stuff.

Anyway, I did what you said, and got perfect one-album rips with Exact Audio Copy. But my experience with DVD+Audio trial version was terrible.

It was virtually impossible to get what albums, titles, and tracks I wanted to appear in their proper place(s). You have to keep bouncing back-&-forth between screens (Volume\Album\Artist\Song) which is not hard to do, but once I selected what I wanted, those selections would tend to "disappear", and I'd have to re-re-re select over and over again.

The interface is pretty, but buggy. I even took their advice and "prepared" the proper naming conventions ahead of time, as they suggested, which if the program is working correctly, should import into itself without manual intervention. Specifically:

Made a Folder. Name it as the artist. i.e., "<Beatles>"
Into this folder make an album folder, i.e., "<Abbey Road">". Into that folder save your cd-wave files as long names with a 2-digit number in front of them, i.e., "01-Come Together.wav"; "02-The Sun King.wav"; "03-Here Comes The Sun.wav", etc. etc.

c:\The Beatles\Abbey Road\01-Come Together.wav (etc.)

But this system didn't work very well. There are checkboxes next to eack track, that once selected, tended to UNselect themselves at will.

Also, there are no menus on the final, burned dvd discs. You can't "navigate" through any selections with your remote control. Track names didn't even show up on my dvd player (much as .mp3 names would normally appear).

I had hoped that the program would at least, if not allow me to show a single .jpg or .gif image for each album, would at least allow me to select between track names. (Why bother to *name* the files anything more than 01, 02, 03, 04 .... if their TYPED names won't appear?

The screen was entirely black and the dvds acted like regular music cds.

I agree: Using anything above 48kHz/16-bit PCM is a waste of space for converting ordinary red book music to minimal dvd-video standard, *despite* the rosy optimism the authors predict. I used 96/24, and it sounded absolutely the same as the music cds. You can't 'improve' on something that isn't there to begin with.

I deleted the program.

Thanks for your help, tigre ! -- Mike --

 

About HDD long term storage: I'm not talking about mounting 10 HDDs into my PCs and waiting until the 1st dies... I'm talking about using removable HDDs (e.g. externally connected using Firewire->IDE adapter) for backup. When filled with data, these HDDs are completely disconnected and stored at some dry, cool place.

I've made my own experience with dying CD-R and CD-RW media and I know about the experience of people I trust. Since 4x, 8x, 12x etc. media start to produce read errors after between 1 and 5 years of storage under decent conditions (and even if it was only 10% of media it's insecure, but in fact it's much more), I don't see a reason why I should trust today's fast (re)writable CD or DVD media, which are available (and probably produced) much cheaper then slow media were 5 years ago. The idea to create multiple backups of each CD I burn on different media to minimize the risk doesn't sound very good to me either.

 

Siber:

Thank you! Yes! For now, that is indeed what I was attempting to do. I will do a websearch shortly for 'Audio DVD Creator" by vso, to see if it will do what DVD+Audio could not/would not do.

Tigre:

Removeable HDD. Well, *that* makes a huge difference! (You neglected to mention that).

I could live with that idea, ok.

About failing media - it is, unfortunately, true that some cdr's screw up after a while.

I made some music cds for my dad some years ago, (my dad is almost 90 years old, and is 100% un-computer-savvy.) A short time ago, he noticed terrible distortion on some of his music. And some of his discs simply refused to be recognized.

"No problem", I said to myself, "I'll just rip the files back onto the HDD, and reburn them".

It was a 'no-go'. Unrecoverable read errors.

These were early, generic, no-name discs from (Taiwan I believe), that worked perfectly in the beginning. So yeah, some cdrs do fail.

Haven't had any of my first-generation dvd-r's fail yet, though. (Perhaps it's too early to tell).

I too, don't believe in high-speed burning. Even though I may have a 4x-speed blank, I always burn it at 1x speed just to minimize the chance of errors. (Occassionally I'll burn a rewriteable dvd at 2x, if I'm just making a test disc). So far, no problem.

No, I'm not into high speed burning. I figure, if something is worth keeping, it's worth it to take the time (you only have to do it once) to make the copy *correctly*. -- Klingy --

 

<Update> - Siber:

Could not find "Audio DVD Creator" at official vso website:

http://www.vso-software.fr/products_english.htm

However, went to www.dvdr-digest.com and they pointed me to a program of the same name at:

http://www.audio-dvd-creator.com

The product description seems identical to the program I just tried out. Hope it's not the same software with a different interface. (The interface IS very pretty though).

Just downloaded trial-version and made 7-page printout of online tutorial. Will let you know how I made out, asap.

Thank You !

-- Klingy --

 

Hahahaha!!

Not to worry, Siber! <g> I have moments like that all the time, only in my case I think they call them "60's flashbacks'.

Yep, I do indeed have the proggie made by Goland.

WoW! FINALLY ! A program that DOES what it promises to do! I am [bold]quite pleased![/bold]

Some time ago, many of us were bouncing the idea around, "How can we get a bunch of music cds onto a dvd that will play in any ordinary player?" Preferably without expensive software. After all, a dvd player has all that capability built right in anyway. But I don't think any of us really came up with a foolproof solution, and the idea just sort of got put on the back shelf.

THIS THING WORKS! In just about every area where the (other) program I tried either failed or was as buggy as hell (DVD+Audio), this program shines !!!!

You have two options for conversion - PCM 48kHz, 16 bit (my choice), or AC3 at 192 kbps. With the latter, the authors say you can squish about 45 hours onto a single dvd. (I believe them). But I opted for the PCM conversion - six hours-worth of perfectly-good cd-quality music is fine. I think that value was chosen wisely, because, as tigre will agree, for ordinary red-book cd audio, I think anything above that is overkill. (96kHz/24-bit would not sound any better).

The interface was a piece of cake - no mucking about - straightforward and easy. It isn't necessary to name your ripped wave files to anything descriptive - a simple 01.wav, 02.wav, 03.wav ... is all you need.

There were a couple of things I would like to have seen. More on this in a moment.

I found it amazing that this program also has a) a built-in cd ripper, and b) a built-in burning engine. But since I'm so familiar with doing these things manually, I chose to rip with 'Exact Audio Copy', and burn externally with Nero. The program outputs a perfectly good set of VOBS, ready for burning.

To my ears, the sound quality was identical to the original. What we wind up with, is in fact a sort of "Super CD". So far, just as a test, I put the first 6 Led Zeppelin albums (cds) onto a single dvd, and on another, I put 10 (TEN) Vinyl LPs that I had created earlier. Both dvd discs sound wonderful! The dvd of the vinyl records has 79 tracks ("chapters") and runs for 6 hours, 15 mins.

As mentioned, I *did* find some limitations. For one thing, outside of a single graphic which appears upon disc-insertion, (and remains throughout disc play), there is no provision for any additional graphic. For example, I would have liked to have a small picture of the album cover appear whenever that particular album was playing. (Pics of albums are easily found and downloadable).

In fact, there is NO menuing system at all. You cannot choose, via your remote control, any particular album - you have to "work up to it" by repeatedly pressing the >> Next button on your remote control, until you get there - a bit tedious if you want to hear the 8th track of the last album, some 6 hours into the disc.

Also, and this is not nice at all, on both my dvd players - a Sony and a Pioneer - the Fast Forward and Fast Rewind buttons would not work as they do with ordinary music cds. I believe this to be a serious shortcoming. The only thing we can use is the >> Next and << Previous buttons.

Since there is no menu system available, I chose to modify the one, single graphic that we *are* allowed. (You can use the supplied, default graphic, or substitute one of your own). In my case, I loaded-in the default graphic, and super-imposed the Album Titles (text) with the program "Photo Deluxe". At least that way, all album names appear on the opening screen. The program lets you easily browse for a picture if you don't want to use the built-in one. You just have to make sure that the pic is 704 x 480 pixels for NTSC, or 704 x 576 pixels for PAL.

These two limitation are pretty severe in my opinion, but there is no denying it - the program is a BREEZE to use, the sound quality is outstanding (no 'grittyness' or artifacts), and the various screens are about the most user-friendly I have seen in a long time.

It's well-worth the $40 US asked.

I will have to try the AC3 compression format next, but I gotta tell ya, since we can only (apparently) use the 'Next' and 'Previous' buttons, can you imagine how many button pushes we'll have to make to get to a track some 44 or 45 hours away? <gg>

Thank You Siber, for pointing this program out! You have solved the 'how-to-put-cds-onto-a-dvd' dilemma!

-- Mike --

 

I resisted as long as I could. Been here for two years now. I was "ok" for a while, but one day - not sure how they managed it - they 'snagged' me hook-line-&-sinker. Rotten buggers. My medication helps, tho.

Siber, it is with regret that I can no longer recommend this program to anyone. HOW I wish I didn't have to say that!

I've done a LOT more testing, and found what is, for me, an unacceptable limitation:

It occurs after Chapter (track) #98.

As you know, this program treats every music track as a "chapter". These chapters (songs) are individually selectable, albeit in a round-about way, with your remote control's 'Next' and 'Previous' buttons. THAT is the sum control that this program will allow you.

But what happens to track # 99 and beyond?

A built-in limitation of the dvd video-format in general, is that it can access NO more than 99 chapters. (I have never seen a commercial video DVD that exceeds 99 chapters). But when we're talking about 6-hour's-worth of cd-music audio, it is very *easy* to exceed 99 tracks.

I just compiled the entire Beatles' discography on two DVDs. In both cases, the track count exceeded 99 titles.

When you get to track # 99, ALL THE REMAINING TRACKS are lumped together, no matter how many, as a single track! If you are *supremely* patient, your songs will all 'come up' eventually, but only in linear-play fashion. (You have to wait for them.)

Each of my Beatles' dvds have about 120+ songs on them, rendering the last couple of dozen songs as UNSELECTABLE, individually.

It's bad enough that we may have only ONE graphic image appear throughout the entire disc play. It's bad enough that we are unable to use the remote control's 'Up' and 'Down' buttons to select between individual Albums. It's bad enough that the Fast Forward and Fast Rewind buttons are inoperable.

But the killer blow is that, beyond 99 tracks, you cannot select anything. Yes, the tracks are there but .....

About the only real use I can see for this program, is if you want or need uninterrupted, continuous, long-term playback. (Perhaps as background music for a commercial business or something).

What A Sin! The audio quality is excellent, and the program is SO easy to use!

What particularly irks me, is that Goland software (sold in the USA by 'Element 5 Inc.'), makes no mention of this unacceptable limitation. In truth, it makes no mention of *any* limitations at all.

And it seems like a sad joke for them to say (on their official website), "Put thousands of MP3 files on one DVD", when, if you HAD 1000 songs to burn, you would not be able to directly select the last 901 of them! I simply cannot imagine waiting 20, 30, 40 hours for my particular track to 'roll around'.

Sadly, Siber, despite the advances in dvd-audio which appears to be coming around, DVD-Video/Audio authoring software is still in it's infancy.

This program works as advertised, but it is very primitive in it's execution.

Ahhhrrgggghhhhhh !!!!!!!!

 

YowsA! Helloooooo.....Ireland !!!

(Sorry I didn't get to respond sooner. Apologies)

Yep, as Siber mentioned, I have already thrashed this program out as much as I'm willing to. (Not going to spend any more time on it).

It works, but there are unacceptable limitations I can't live with. (Although.......)

I *did* make Glass (Glenn) a ten-vinyl-lp dvd-audio disc, and the opening screen is an actual screen-shot of Denny's board, and I put in small pics of all ten album covers. (No, you won't see the message I posted - I deleted it immediately - it was only "UP" long enough to get the screen shot - and I wanted to 'surprise' him).

Shhhhh! Don't say anything to him, though - I don't know when (or even if) I shall be sending him the disc.

BTW everyone, Ireland is a dear friend of mine. It isn't often we get to see the moniker "DVDXCopy Chief Moderator" in the reg'lar forums here at A/D. He and I go back a long way.

Notice the "Chief" part? He ain't no reg'lar, stick-in-the-mud everyday kinda Mod, he's a 'Chief' Mod. I think he gets paid hunnerds and hunnerds of dollars every month. (Maybe even thousands). Since he outranks me (he has more stripes on his shoulder than I do), I actually have to be [bold]nice[/bold] to him and stuff. (You know, call him "Sir" and say, "Hey Thanks" a whole lot), or else he can get rait 'ornery.

Thanks For Popping In, Ireland!

(notice how i slipped another 'thanks' in there?)



Siber - I guess it was impossible for you (or any of us) to know in advance, the limitations this program carries, before you purchased it.

What are your thoughts on the program?