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[RD James]

A guide to ripping DVD Audio discs using free tools.


Step 1. Determine that you actually have a DVD-A disc.

DVD-Audio discs are a special format of disc that contains audio-only tracks, encoded using Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP).
MLP requires a special decoder, which is not supported by Media Center or most other players.
 
To determine whether the disc you are trying to rip is DVD-A, or a regular DVD video disc, open its AUDIO_TS folder.
If there is no AUDIO_TS folder, or the AUDIO_TS folder is empty, it's not a DVD-A disc.
 
If it's a DVD-A disc it will look something like this:


If it is a DVD-A disc, continue with this guide.
If it is not a DVD-A disc, you want this guide for ripping Music DVDs to audio tracks: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,119957.0.html


Step 2. Installing and configuring the software.

After confirming that it is a DVD-A disc, you need to download the required software.
You will need Foobar2000: http://www.foobar2000.org/download
And the DVD-A decoder component: https://sourceforge.net/projects/dvdadecoder/files/foo_input_dvda/

With Foobar2000 installed, open it and go to File > Preferences > Components, and install the DVD-A decoder component from there.
With the DVD-A decoder installed, open the preferences window again and navigate to Tools > DVD-Audio.
I recommend that you enable the "do not load stereo downmixes" option. If you only want to rip stereo tracks, you can set that as well.



Step 3. Rip the disc.

File > Add Files > AUDIO_TS.IFO will add the DVD-A tracks to the playlist in Foobar2000.
Depending on the disc, there may not be much if any metadata - the disc I used as a test imported like this:


Tracks are named in their encoded format:

• Lf-Rf-Ls-Rs 24/48000 + C-LFE 24/48000 are multichannel 24-bit 48kHz tracks.
• L-R 24/96000 are stereo 24-bit 96kHz tracks.

Select the tracks you want to rip, right-click the selection and use Convert > [..]
Select FLAC as the Output Format, with the output bit depth set to "Auto" and dither set to "lossy sources only".

Foobar2000 should convert your DVD-A tracks to FLAC, ready to be imported to Media Center and tagged.

[auroraaudio]

Hi.  Thanks for the very nice instructions since finding info online to rip dvd-audio discs is difficult, to say the least.

I followed your instructions and everything worked fine until I initiated the convert process.  The following Converter Status Report presented itself:

11 out of 11 tracks converted with major problems.

Source: "D:\AUDIO_TS\AUDIO_TS.IFO" / index: 65793
  Decoder produced garbage at 0:00.011
Source: "D:\AUDIO_TS\AUDIO_TS.IFO" / index: 65794
  Decoder produced garbage at 0:00.011
Source: "D:\AUDIO_TS\AUDIO_TS.IFO" / index: 65795
  Decoder produced garbage at 0:00.010
Source: "D:\AUDIO_TS\AUDIO_TS.IFO" / index: 65796
  Decoder produced garbage at 0:00.010
Source: "D:\AUDIO_TS\AUDIO_TS.IFO" / index: 65797
  Decoder produced garbage at 0:00.006
Source: "D:\AUDIO_TS\AUDIO_TS.IFO" / index: 65798
  Decoder produced garbage at 0:00.010
Source: "D:\AUDIO_TS\AUDIO_TS.IFO" / index: 65799
  Decoder produced garbage at 0:00.007
Source: "D:\AUDIO_TS\AUDIO_TS.IFO" / index: 65800
  Decoder produced garbage at 0:00.002
Source: "D:\AUDIO_TS\AUDIO_TS.IFO" / index: 65801
  Decoder produced garbage at 0:00.010
Source: "D:\AUDIO_TS\AUDIO_TS.IFO" / index: 65802
  Decoder produced garbage at 0:00.007
Source: "D:\AUDIO_TS\AUDIO_TS.IFO" / index: 65803
  Decoder produced garbage at 0:00.026

Do have any suggestions as to what might have gone wrong?

Thanks.

[cupboy]

I got the same result. Anyone ever figure out how to make it work?

[RangerOne]

I got the same result. Anyone ever figure out how to make it work?

I tried the guide and had the same problem. Just found out that converting the tracks one by one works, it doesn't if you do a multiple selection for batch-converting.

[rthurlow61]

I have a question.  I had foobar around, updated it, added the MLP component, and ripped my first DVD-Audio.  Good times!

But the directory and file names are dog crap, and I wish I had some help fixing them.  I snagged mp3tag and managed to find
the metadata for my disk (Fleetwood Mac Rumours), but I am not sure how to get it to help me.  It can add metadata tags, but
is there any way it can also rename the files to match the metadata?

Edited to add: I found the Convert -> Tag-Filename feature. Except for the Musicbrainz always getting the stereo and 5.1 backwards in the tags, I'm happy.

Thanks,
Rob T