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[Health Nut]

Just wondering how to take advantage of DVD-R storage space.  I'd like to quit making CD-R's and make DVD-R's of my music instead.  I have absolutely ZERO interest in lossy compression (MP3, etc..)  I simply want to use DVD-R to make music samplers for my car and home from my APE compressed music collection.  

I see absolutely no reason whatsoever that I could not burn a wav file to a DVD-R blank and simply play it from my home or car DVD player...  So can someone tell me how to do this?

Thanks,

Chris

[Rizlaw]

Just wondering how to take advantage of DVD-R storage space.  I'd like to quit making CD-R's and make DVD-R's of my music instead.  I have absolutely ZERO interest in lossy compression (MP3, etc..)

I see absolutely no reason whatsoever that I could not burn a wav file to a DVD-R blank and simply play it from my home or car DVD player...  So can someone tell me how to do this?

Health Nut,

Apologies in advance if you already know any of what I am about to say.

There are a few things you should take into account: (1) when you rip "cda" files from a music CD to your HDD, the files ripped to your HDD are called "wav" files. According to your post, you have converted all of your "wav" files to "Ape" lossless. When you want to burn a blank CD-R, Media Center converts the APE file to WAV and then burns the WAV to the CD-R as a "CDA" music file. WAV and CDA are identical except for the filename extensions.

This is why the music CD you bought in the store and the CD-R mixes you create on a blank CD-R both wind up with the identical ".cda" format files. That's why DVD/CD players can play music CD-R's as if they were the original CD.

HOWEVER, (there's always a "however")

since you want to burn your music to DVD-R and play it as such, there is a problem. To my knowledge, DVD's don't use or understand the CD music format (CDA) to store music files. As far as I know, MC isn't designed to burn music to DVD-R in the correct DVD-R music format.

When you insert a burned DVD-R disc in you dvd player (home or car) it expects to read music or video data as either "DVD Video" (VOB files) or "DVD Audio" (AOB files = MPEG-2, LPCM, AC3, DTS, DVD-A {(24/96 hi-rez audio}). These dvd formats are not compatible with CD audio. While your home/car dvd player, will no doubt, play CD-R's with music, I don't think it can play DVD-R's with "cda" type files.

This in no way prevents you from burning your WAV/APE files to DVD-R for safekeeping using Nero 5.5 or 6 and burning the DVD-R as a data disc.

I'm sure, that if I am wrong about this, now that I have posted it, someone with more knowledge will correct me.

[Health Nut]

Let me say that

1) There should be an easy workaround.
2) This should be a high priority... If you think people want to store as many MP3's as possible on a DVD-R, well, think of how many people want to store CD quality music on DVD-R and need the space even more.  

We already know that DVD players can play both CD Audio and DVD formats... so it is just a matter of getting the DVD player to simply be able to see the wav header and play it accordingly... it seems so obvious... and if this is a problem, I cannot imagine this staying a problem for very long... it is too much desired!  Please give me more feedback on this issue!

Thanks!

Chris

[Matt]

so it is just a matter of getting the DVD player to simply be able to see the wav header and play it accordingly... it seems so obvious... and if this is a problem, I cannot imagine this staying a problem for very long... it is too much desired

That's the hitch.

It'd be great if DVD audio was just uncompressed WAV's or else a very simple, free source, patent free lossless compression scheme.

The technology would be simple enough, but I don't think the industry will embrace anything without DRM and encryption.

[Health Nut]

I'm not talking about MLP or such... You mean they somehow purposefully not let the DVD player read wav files if on DVD-R media?  Makes no sense because PCM exists fine on DVD...

You mean when I stick in a DVD-R with burned wav files on it, the DVD player won't read it similar to a CD?  Something doesn't make sense it you can't do this.... Obviously PCM tracks exist on DVD's... so is this simply a matter of resampling to 48 kHz?  I've heard that you simply have to resample to 48 Khz... although I don;t understand why one would have to resample either... then I heard that resampling is not an audiophile thing to so... whatever: I'm going to get to the bottom of this one way or another because I would love to make DVD-R samplers of my CD collection...  I just spent another $175.00 on CD's this past few days, and only 2-4 songs are ever any good... samplers are a must in the car, and DVD-R makes to much sense for this.  

If there is software out there that will allow me to do this, I would appreciate a private email if that is what the hold up is... I'm sick of copyprotection issues hurting honest people simply trying to enjoy and rightfully use their bought and paid for music collection!!!

[Rizlaw]

We already know that DVD players can play both CD Audio and DVD formats... so it is just a matter of getting the DVD player to simply be able to see the wav header and play it accordingly... it seems so obvious...

Again, I am no authority on the subject, but what you believe to be a simple problem to solve runs up against the DVD Forums' established standards concerning how a dvd can be authored. What you want is non-standard for dvd. The firmware/hardware in the dvd player is simply not designed to read and playback, as music, straight WAV files burned to dvd-r discs. J River would have to modify MC to convert the WAV files into AOB or VOB container files, which as a mentioned before, can hold several different types of audio like LCPM (normally 2 channel stereo), AC3, DTS, mpeg-2 or dvd-a.

It can be done, but I don't think the J River crew has this high on their list of feature additions for MC10; though it sure would be nice to have.


 

[Health Nut]

A wave file is nothing other than a header for a PCM track, and PCM is part of the DVD spec...  

Something doesn't sound right because this should be a non-issue and there are most definitely people out there ripping their CD collection to DVD-R... makes to much sense... I would consider this a huge priority... how could it not be!

[Rizlaw]

Something doesn't sound right because this should be a non-issue and there are most definitely people out there ripping their CD collection to DVD-R

I don't personally know of anyone ripping cd wave files to dvd-r and being able to play the wave's on dvd-r. I do know that you can put mp3's on dvd-r and most newer dvd players will see and play back the mp3 files because they have firmware that recognizes mp3 audio on dvd-r discs. I think this is what you may be referring to.

I see that Matt has already told you, more or less, that J River won't be doing anything along these lines anytime soon.

I have been looking for something to do what you want, but I haven't found it yet either as freeware or shareware.  You might want to try looking up www.dvdrhelp.com or www.doom9.org for more info.

Good luck.

[Health Nut]

Thanks, any help would be appreciated... I can only imagine this will absolutely, positively increase in demand as more and more people buy DVD-R/W !!!  Not to mention they are just about included with all compuers these days...

[Nolonemo]

As far as I know, the problem is with the DVD spec - the standard for what is "legal" to put on a DVD disk.  The DVD spec does support PCM, but only as part of a mpeg video stream.  The NTSC DVD spec states that an PCM or AC3 audio stream must be present.  However, most NTSC DVD players sold these days can also decode mp3 audio - again if it's part of the video stream.  Note that audio DVD is yet a different spec, that's why ordinary DVD players won't play back DVD Audio disks.

There probably is a way that you could do what you want, and that is to treat your audio files as a soundtrack to a (blank) video file that's encoded at a very low bitrate in order not to take up a lot of space on the DVD.  You could even set up a menu system to point to the different albums.

Since you can create a legal mpeg video stream that can be authored to a DVD by encoding video with an with an empty audio stream, it might even be able to author mpeg video by multiplexing the audio stream with a blank video stream.  I don't know the answer to that.

In any event, there's much more to it than burning files on a DVD as with data, you must use a DVD authoring program to create a file structure the player can read - just as what happens when you burn an audio CD, although the audio burning progams make the process transparent, so it just looks like you're dragging and dropping files - but of course there is much more going on.

If you really want to explore doing this, I suggest you post your question on one of the forums at dvdhelp.com.  The people there are very knowledgable and helpful, they can give you answers if anyone can.

[Lasse_Lus]

maybe something like this.... http://www.dvdrhelp.com/forum/userguides/193049.php

L.Lus

[Health Nut]

Awesome... thanks!!!

Just read it and it makes sense... not sure if upsampling from 44.1 to 48 Khz is degratory in terms of CD audio quality?

[PhatPhreddy]

While I do understand there are technical hurdles, you can also put me in the camp of people that thinks the ability to burn multiple WAV files to a DVDR in 'audio' not 'data' format is very very desirable...

MC should be able to see the media descripter file on the DVDR and if selecting music burn encode the WAV files to LPCM @ 48 khz with a blank MPEG video (if required).

I have seen this requested on almost every forum where people have just bought a DVD burner.

I know its not simple but under 'long term goals' its another area where MC could lead the pack.

[Health Nut]

Phat Phreddy in the house!

On another note, I passed this topic on to the surround sound list which contains all the prominent recording engineers, physics/acoustics experts, etc...

Handling music at 44.1 or 48 kHz is a delicate task. That's why there is so much difference between CD players (besides their analog output stages of course). Different players have different impulse responses for their anti-aliasing filters, and some impulse responses sound better than others. Similar impulse responses are involved in the 44.1 -> 48 kHz conversion. And just like you probably won't play back CDs on a $39 discman when you desire the highest quality, you should also be careful in choosing the software that does the resampling.

Playing 44.1 kHz by first converting to 48 kHz and then feeding it to a high-end DAC can have a quality very close to playing the 44.1 kHz directly, as long as you use a high-end sample rate conversion to go to 48 kHz.

If you would be able to upsample from 44.1 kHz to 96 kHz and store that on DVD, you would be in an even better situation. Then the software resampling is the only step that is really critical.

[Nolonemo]

I think there might be an even easier method than outlined in the tutorial on dvdrhelp.com linked earlier in the thread.  There are a lot of programs out there that will let you burn a slideshow with soundtrack to a DVD.  If you created a one-slide show (say your cover art) and added all your wav. files as the soundtrack (you have to set the slide duration to the soundtrack), you'd end up with a playable DVD.  These programs are typically $50 to $90.  Note that some progams, for example Ulead's DVD workshop have a may duration of 999 seconds for each slide, so that wouldn't work for you.  On the other hand, XTAShow has an option to automatically set the slide duration to the audio length and didn't seem to gag at the 1 hour 20 minute audio file I dragged into it.   Some programs will let you skip to the next slide with the next chapter button on the remote, in those you could have  a separate slide for every audio track so you could move back and forth.  I think a limit of 99 slides per show is pretty standard, probably something to do with the DVD spec, but you can have multiple shows on the same disc with a menu up front.  Virtually all of these programs are available for trial download.

Another option would be to use a DVD authoring program like Sony's DVD Architect, which I believe has an option specifically for creating music DVDs.  However, at present, DVDA is only available blundled with Vegas Video, an outstanding video editing program that costs in the range of $600 or so.

Hope this helps some.