How can I make a DVD-A Disc? Experts Needed

I have some 24/96 .wav files I want to burn and create a DVD-A disc. How do I do this? What is the best software to use? Any help/advice is appreciated.

 

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

I just bought this for the same reason & it works great & it's easy to use.
You can try the free demo & it's $39.95 to buy.
It does 16/44 or 24/96 to DVD-R's.

I put the full early & late shows of a Dead show on 1 DVD-R in lossless, with text & a backgound image of a Stanley Mouse poster!

 

I was under the impression that this software would "downsample" 24/96 to 16/44. Thus the name audio DVD...as opposed to DVD-A which is of higher resolution. Am I incorrect on this? I want to keep my files 24/96.

 

I'm curious is there is anything akin to a standalone DVD-R/RW burner that
has 96/24 A/D convertors.

I make CDs using a Pioneer standalone burner. Basically its a stereo component
that I have connected to a tape loop.

I typically record "side 1" and "side 2" of a vinyl LP as two tracks on a CD-RW
and I then suck the two tracks into a computer and use Fuerio to divide the
songs into individual tracks - add "index 0" track marks" (if necessary) - and
then eventually burn to a CD-R.

I then erase the CD-RW and re-use it for another project.

I'd love to do something similar with DVDs - but I don't think I can.

Do any of the USB style 96/24 external soundcards actually give
96/24 performance ???

 

Oblio is probably the guy for this......Jon? Where is ya?

 

I've created regular DVD discs with high rez audio. There are some tutorials at videohelp.com.
I've also created a DVD-A disc with Wavelab. It's not easy but once you get the hang of it, it's not that bad.

 

There is an open source DVD-A authoring program. I don't know if it's good, but it's free: http://dvd-audio.sourceforge.net/

 

If you are sticking with 96/24 WAV files in stereo, go the Audio DVD Creator way. No loss of quality becuase 96/24 LPCM is part of the DVD-video specs.

You can also use WaveLab 5 to author to DVD-Audio proper, but your disks would only play in DVD-A compatible players.

Now, if you want to go the 5.1 96/24 LPCM way, then you must use WaveLab.

 

Look at DiscWelder Bronze

I have been using DiscWelder Bronze for several months. You can put all types of WAV files 16b/44.1k to 24b/192k onto a DVD-R and play it on a DVD-A player.

You must have a player capable of DVD-Audio.

Works great.

Got it over the net for $50-80 I think.

Dudeymon

 

The only difference is that "Audio DVD" stores the 24/96 files in a different place...IOW, in the Video folder (VIDEO_TS) instead of an audio folder (AUDIO_TS), so any DVD player can play the 24/96 tracks without downsampling (except older machines, I believe, which may downsample to 24/48). That way, you can still send someone your 24/96 disc and still have the ability to play it w/o needing DVD-A capabilities.

I haven't had time to try recording either format yet, though...

 

Yes, and when stored in the AUDIO_TS folder (for DVD-A) the names of the files, and probably their structure, is different.

Try it, nice sound... and very much compatible with most DVD players. I take 'em along with me to show my friends who do not have HiRez what they could get out of their home audio equipment with it. I also, do the same for 'handicapped' salesmen in audio stores. Have gotten a fuew converts that way.

 

I want this software!

Rudy...and others...thanks for the input. I'm going to burn my first DVD-A this evening of the Howie Day/Dave Matthews Band show I attended on Sat. The master is in this format, and I want to keep it this way

 

For the budget minded who want REAL software, discwelder bronze can be had for $60+ to it's list of $99. With this program, you can burn a real DVD-A, multichannel or stereo, and use 24/96, 24/48, or 24/192 stereo. There is no MLP encoding supported, so you are pretty much limited in length if you go 5.1 at 24/96. If you are interested in converting a quad reel or tape, then a 24/96 4.0 disc is possible and will fit nicely. With this program, there are no provisions for graphics display per track, etc.

For the more adventurous, there is Wavelab 5, which gives you much more flexibility, and more options. It's a little quirky to learn, as first you must create a montage before you create the DVD-A, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty cool.

The "freeware" programs have limitations (I have heard), but may do fine. YRMV.

Unless you have $400-$600 to spend on wavelab, I would suggest discwelder to start. It works, and it's pretty easy to use. Myself, I prefer wavelab, but I have an older version that I could upgrade, so the cost was not that much for me.

 

Are you saying with Disc Welder one can convert 2 channel 16 bit/44.1 khz CD material into high resolution multi-channel (or stereo) DVD-Audio? If so, is it easy and how have the results been? What stuff has anyone up-converted?

 

Why would you want to do this? You're not going to 'put back' the lost sound.

 

No, all discwelder does is make the DVD-A. It uses whatever you give it. If you like, you can create a DVD-A with 99 "lo-rez" tunes and have a long player! Guys with the Acura's do this with their MP3s.

You would need another program to upsample, although I do not know what benefit you would realize. However, if you generate wav files from LPs or Reels, and record them at 24/96 or so, you can create a "HiRez" disc that will play on a DVD-A player (only). This is strictly a DVD-A creation program. If you want to make a DAD (HiRez DVD-V), you'll need something else.

 

The only reason I asked is that a lot of excellent CD transports upsample the music to 24 bit 192 khz and realize a tremendous benefit. I would think, and perhaps I am wrong, that the same logic would apply here. We all have a lot of crappy sounding CD's too (remember the first Led Zep CD's with all that distortion?) and as a project, I'd be curious to see if it was cleaned up and upsampled what the results would be.

 

As far as I see it all the upsampling hoopla is a marketing ploy.

I upsampled 44.1/16 files of my music to 96/24 and made a DVD-A with them. In the begining I thought I had gotten more quality, but at the end of the day a real 96/24 file sounds quite different and I did not notice much if any change after the upsample.

BTW, with both WaveLab 5 and Audio DVD Creator you can create DVD-As in WaveLab that also have a DAD DVD-video part. You put the resulting DVD on a DVD-A compatible player and you will listen to the DVD-Audio part. You do so on a regular DVD-video player and you have access to the DAD part. Pretty cool!

The only limitations have to do with file lenght depending on the format of the files used on each part. Of course you cannot have 5.1 96/24 LPCM in the video part. But you can transform your files to DD5.1 with DVD Audio Creator IIRC.

 

And if you decide to go that route, you can use free or shareware software, if you don't mind using a bunch of different apps. No need to pay for software unless you need one-stop shopping. Like I said, there are tutorials at videohelp.com.

 

OK, I tried last night, to make a DVD-A using AudioDVD Creator. No luck. It created files (which I burned to DVD) but my DVD players would not play them. I noticed that this program does not create .ifo and .bup files. I assume this is why I had a problem. I may have to try WaveLab...which I have but don't really know how to use, or Discwelder. Can anyone provide a tutorial as to how to create a DVD-A disc using WaveLab...from 24/96 sourced .wav files?

 

KBanya, you must have done something wrong. I have made many DVDs with Audio DVD Creator and they all work prefectly.

First of all, consider that with this program you are not making a DVD-Audio, but a DVD-v that can play 96/24 stereo files.

Second, make sure that you have burned the VIDEO_TS file unto the DVDs root directory. If not, the DVD will surely not play.

I usually use the top option on the last step of the DVD creating process with Audio DVD Creator. It creates two folders on of which is a VIDEO_TS one. In this folder you should find all the .ifo and other related files created by the program.

I use NTI CD & DVD Maker to burn my DVDs and what I do is copy the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder created by Audio DVD Creator unto the VIDEO_TS folder the burning program creates before burning.

If the VIDEO_TS folder on your burned DVD is in any place but the root directory, your DVD will not play.

Oh, and do not put the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder in an AUDIO_TS one becuase these folders are only for true DVD-Audio. Whatever Audio DVD Creator generates should end up in a VIDEO_TS folder.

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you very much for the assistance!

What happened last night:

I used this program to do the "conversion", then after it was done, the 2 green progree bars just stayed in place and it appeared as if the program was not responding. I left it alone for a while, then aborted the program. I found the temp folder where the "temporary" files were located. I think I ran into a boo boo somewhere along the way. I'll have to give it another go.

 

The program should take some 12 minutes approximatley to create the .ifo and other files. (This is regular timing for a normal DVD).

 

I just tested this program out (Audio DVD Creator) - very nifty. I specified 96/24 stereo PCM, and got it to rip a CD as the source. I assume it did an upsampling, because I ended up with about 1.5 Gb worth of files in the VIDEO_TS folder. I burnt them to a DVD+RW and they played fine. The sound was good - the upsampling didn't make much difference (although on my first attempt I used an old mono source which probably wasn't the best for evaluating sound quality)... I will try some different music to see if i can spot differences between the CD and the upsampled version.

I am going to try creating a 96/24 disc with wav files created from an LP rip. I hadn't realised that the DVD-V spec allowed for hi-res PCM audio - I guess that's what DAD is...

SO would there be any different between a DVD-V with audion files as abaove and a DVD-A with files of the same resolution?

 

Paul forgetaboudit, I once spent a lot of time upsampling 44.1kHz/16bit WAV files of my own music to 96/24 and there was no real difference to hear. i concluded that you cannot get more information than what is there originally.

Now, another thing would be to record an LP at 96/24, provided you get the EQ RIAA curve right you shoud get a nice sounding result.

As to the difference between stereo 96/24 audio DVD files and their 96/24 DVD-A counterparts. There is none. The only esception is that many commercial DVD-As use MLP lossless compression whereas the audio DVD files are not compressed (and can also play in more players than the DVD-A format).

That said, if we were talking 5.1 then we would definitely have to speak solely about DVD-Audio and, soon probably, DSD as it seems to be coming to a computer near many of us.