How to grab DVD-Audio? Options

[KikeG]

I'll invite you round my house and we can do blind tests for hours

For such a test, you would need the exact same program material in both CD and SACD/DVD-A. Can you assure you have it? I mean, some tested hybrid SACDs have been verified to have different mastering in the CD and in the SACD layers.

It would be easier to record the analog output of a SACD/DVD-A with a good soundcard, convert it to 44.1/16, and burn a CD with it. Differences, if audible (could be, at least due to intermodulation effects of high-frequency content in SACD/DVD-A), would be most likely quite subtle.

Also, for such a test, proper level-matching (<0.1dB, using a pure tone and a voltmeter or soundcard) should be carried out.

To mods: I think it would be a good idea to split this offtopic discussion from the main one.

This post has been edited by KikeG: Oct 27 2005, 15:39

[twistedddx]

heh yea it is two seperate topics.. but oh well such as the natural behaviour of all forums..

No I cant be sure the material between the formats are on an equal playing field. What I do have to test with is:
1)NIN - TDS DE (remastered cd + 2/5.1 sacd), dual disc(cd+2/5.1(24/48)dvd-a+2/5.1dolby), the original TDS cd release

the clear cut winner for me and many others I have done blind tests with, **on my setup** the sacd kills the dvd-a hands down for both 2 and 5.1. But the dvd-a is ofcourse not fullrate to accomodate the dolby and dvd-v content. and the remastered cd is behind the dvd-a.. the difference between the original and remastered cd is neglible but you can tell it at certain points(less distortion, greater dynamics, clearer vocals), but its not such a big deal. Btw all points were stated as "that sounds less distorted" and "the vocals during the opening of hurt are far far better" along with "its the background noises that are clear as a bell that make this one better"
From memory not a sole said while the cd version was playing that it sounded as good or better. Noone knew what they were listening to but always picked sacd as best, dvd-a as 2nd, cd as last.

2)NIN - With Teeth dualdisc
cd
2(24/96) 5.1(24/48) dvd-a
2/5.1dolby
dvd-a beats cd version.. never listened to the dolby ever

3)porcupine tree - deadwing (seperate cd and dvd-a release)
cd

5.1(24/48)dvd-a (or dts)
2(24/48) PCM
no comparable playback

4)porcupine tree - in absentia (seperate cd and dvd-a release)
cd

5.1(24/48)dvd-a (or dts)
2(16/48) PCM
no comparable playback

As I said, im keen for blind tests with people a lil higher than my mates
but our results so far point to sacd > dvd-a > cd on my setup on the releases I have.

This post has been edited by twistedddx: Oct 29 2005, 04:57

[precisionist]

As far as I understand it, your tests only prove that the various versions have different mixing/mastering.

[twistedddx]

perhaps. but ur testing(i mean you utter lack of testing and simple words) show that you havent tested

most important is the fact that a cd version was released, then remastered and also released in higher formats which exceeded the cd formats version, whether due to pure better mastering or not the sacd version ended up being better than any other version released, if it requires a buzz word sacd for it to be mastered correctly, so be it, the music is better than when it was released as cd (10 years ago, then remastered this year)

This post has been edited by twistedddx: Oct 29 2005, 19:48

[precisionist]

I'm sorry if my English is too simple for you but my philosophy and experience surely aren't.
And yes, you're right. I don't even have SACD/DVD-A equipment and can't test. But I've done A LOT of comparisons original CD release vs. remastered CD release (yes, blind tests) and this strongly suggests that audible differences in CD vs. DVD-A/SACD originate from mixing/mastering.
And the question "What sounds better ?" can't be answered by blind tests, only "Does it sound different ?". It's a matter of opinion then. Keep in mind that the remastered version can't contain anything more than the original that isn't artificial.
Usually (on CDs at least) remastered versions aren't remasters, they're full remixes and new-style masters anyway.

[twistedddx]

I agree that perhaps its not the format thats making it sound better, but maybe its because they are on these formats sound engineers get told to get it right and to spend more time on it than usually is done on a ordinary cd. If thats the case and making formats makes people care more im all for it.

remasters of "current" gear(the cd in question is only 10 years old) im assuming is actually going back to the original masters before it was mixed originally and retooled from there. Prior to the conversion to cd etc etc, but I could be horrible wrong

[Fallen Angel]

Hi guys,

Has anybody checked out "DVD Audio Solo"? ( http://www.cirlinca.com ). I downloaded the trial and upsampled a CD, but it sounded like sh*t. A lot of noise, this means lack of filtering, no?

Cheers
AL

[Aja]

I apologize if this question has been answered already, but this thread is 12 pages long and I couldn't understand most of it.

I want to rip a DVD-A disc to STEREO only.

I have an M-Audio 24/96 soundcard, and the DVD I'm trying to rip (Frank Zappa's Quadiophiliac) has a high fidelity stereo track (24bit/96kHz).

I played the DVD with WMP9, opened up Goldwave, set it to record the output of my soundcard, and grabbed the disc in realtime as one large wave file. I'm guessing that WMP9 does not support 24/96 playback. Is there any way to confirm if the file is actually high-fidelity?

If it isn't are there any media players that support hi-resolution playback? Is realtime recording of a DVD-A disc an acceptable method for good quality?

[johnd]

I apologize if this question has been answered already, but this thread is 12 pages long and I couldn't understand most of it.

I want to rip a DVD-A disc to STEREO only.

I have an M-Audio 24/96 soundcard, and the DVD I'm trying to rip (Frank Zappa's Quadiophiliac) has a high fidelity stereo track (24bit/96kHz).

I played the DVD with WMP9, opened up Goldwave, set it to record the output of my soundcard, and grabbed the disc in realtime as one large wave file.  I'm guessing that WMP9 does not support 24/96 playback.  Is there any way to confirm if the file is actually high-fidelity?

If it isn't are there any media players that support hi-resolution playback?  Is realtime recording of a DVD-A disc an acceptable method for good quality?

Aja,

This is what I do to get stereo tracks from DVD-Audio or DualDisc.
I have WinDVD 6 (bought before they removed the DVD-Audio playback capability) and a Juli@ sound card made by ESI (http://www.esi-pro.com/viewProduct.php?pid=43&page=1).
The ESI sound cards have a special driver which includes something called DirectWire. ESI acquired Audiotrack so now the newer MAYA (http://www.audiotrak.net/maya44mk2.htm) cards have DirectWire as well.
DirectWire is capable of redirecting the digital output form a software player (WinDVD) to the input of a software recorder (Wave Lab, SoundForge etc…) without ever passing through the analog part of the audio card.
So I playback the DVD-Audio/DualDisc via WinDVD and I record it with Wave Lab. The result is one big file containing all the tracks which I have to cut in as many tracks as necessary. It’s a time consuming process but I don’t mind.
Unfortunately without WinDVD 6 and such a card nothing can be done except going the analog way. Also WinDVD 6 will downsample 24/192 to 24/96. It’s a same as I have 3 or 4 DVD-Audios that have 24/192 stereo tracks. I know for sure that this is true because the Juli@ control panel displays the incoming sample rate. The WinDVD setup is for analog stereo and you have to use DirectSound as audio renderer as Waveout will only output at 48 KHz. You might also have to set the latency of the audio card maybe above 512 samples as I get clicks with any lower values.
I compress the wave files to WavPack lossless and I store them on my server from where I play them back on my HTPC in the living room and the one in the bedroom. I use Meedio as front end and BASS 2.2 as playing engine with the ASIO drivers.
This to me is also a legitimate recording as I don’t crack the encryption in any way and I use legal software and hardware available on the market.
Hope this helps.

[Aja]

I don't have that software, though I might be able to find something that works in a similar manner (it's called Virtual Audio Cable, and I think I have an older, free version kicking around somewhere).

Thanks for the advice, though!

[Borisz]

The process of ripping DVD Audio requires a set of tools released by a guy names Maxima, it can bypass the encryption and watermarking and extract the MLP compressed tracks via WinDVD.

It's a lengthy process but it can do 1:1 copies unlike any kind of direct recording.

[TCM]

hi,

i successfully extracted an .mlp file from a set of .aob files with dvdaexplorer and decoded the .mlp to a multichannel .wav file using a software called digion audio pro 2 without resorting to windvd hacks. just fyi

[Borisz]

hi,

i successfully extracted an .mlp file from a set of .aob files with dvdaexplorer and decoded the .mlp to a multichannel .wav file using a software called digion audio pro 2 without resorting to windvd hacks. just fyi

Compare it to the file you get with ppcm extractor. You'll see that the decoded MLP stream is shorter by a few thousand or so samples. Enough to mess up albums in which the audio flows from one track to another - appearantly DVDAexplorer isn't perfect for whatever reason.

[TCM]

hi,

i successfully extracted an .mlp file from a set of .aob files with dvdaexplorer and decoded the .mlp to a multichannel .wav file using a software called digion audio pro 2 without resorting to windvd hacks. just fyi

Compare it to the file you get with ppcm extractor. You'll see that the decoded MLP stream is shorter by a few thousand or so samples. Enough to mess up albums in which the audio flows from one track to another - appearantly DVDAexplorer isn't perfect for whatever reason.

unfortunately, this doesn't even work for me. is there any mastering tool or otherwise that can get .mlp files out of .aob files except dvdaexplorer?

edit: btw, i noticed the following: the size that dvdaexplorer reports as "original size" for one mlp track is exactly what i get as a file size when i extract that track. actually, the size of the decoded wav file is 376105108 bytes and dvdaexplorer reports 376104960 for that track as "original size". however, inspecting the wav file shows a header, then lots of zero bytes until byte 167456 (including header) where sample data seems to start.

does dvdaexplorer mangle the first bytes of the mlp track so the decoder fails silently and replaces them with zeroes or what's going on here?

This post has been edited by TCM: Nov 24 2005, 11:37

[colorfinger]

Hi,

I have a question. I have a DVDA disc and it is CPPM protected (It has DVDAUDIO.MKB). However whenever I try to run either DVDARipper or PPCMRipper, the programs blink in and out...

I have the files extracted to the WINDVD folder...

Could you help me out?

What steps do I need to do after that (Sort of confused with the HowTo.txt)

Thank you

[Greywolf]

I have a DVD-Audio iso that i've burned and mounted with d-tools. The video portion of the disc works perfectly any way I've tried. With my supposed "universal" player, it tries to play the DVD-Audio, appears to be working fine, but no sound actually comes out. Also, it shows "B.S.P" in the display, but no "browsable still pictures" show up. I'm able to press Title/Group 3 and arrive at the video portion of the disc with the dolby digital 5.1 which works fine. At first I was satisfied with the dolby digital but after finding this thread I became very interested in trying to do something with the 3 gigs of audio wasting away.

So I download WinDVD 7, apparently a version before they disabled DVD-Audio, but it crashes upon trying to play the DVD-Audio portion the burned disc or mounted iso. I proceed to try versions 5 and 6 with the same results. Sometimes I'll get some high pitched squeals and clicks for a few seconds before it crashes. This is the error code:

Faulting application windvd.exe, version 6.0.6.42, faulting module gpiproxy.dll, version 6.0.6.42, fault address 0x00155526.

I've tried searching google for gpiproxy.dll and DVD-Audio problems, but found nothing related to my specific problem of just DVD-Audio crashing. With WinDVD I'm able to play everything but the 2 groups of high-fi DVD-Audio. When I run DVDAripper, it appears to be ripping fine according to the dos window, although it gives application fault in windvd.exe at the very end of the process. I'm assuming the DVDaripper isn't actually working for me as I'm unable to play the DVD-Audio portion with WinDVD. PPCM ripper of course does not work either, it creates a few very small .wav files before crashing. I've burned a bunch of tests on a DVD-RW after trying DVDAripper but none of them seem to work. I'm not positive but I thought DVDAripper was supposed to remove the CPPM protection, but when trying to play the "decrypted" .AOB files or a DVD using them with PowerDVD I get a CPPM error still.

I wish I knew for sure if I would have this problem with every DVD-Audio disc but unfortunately I no longer own any, just this one backup. I'm curious if its just because its not the orignal DVD, a watermark or CPPM perhaps causes it to crash. Perhaps WinDVD crashes for the same reason my universal player won't play it, whatever that reason may be, and my only hope is to do something with mlp files.

I've tried switching from my onboard Realtek card to my Soundblaster Live 5.1, made no difference. I'm sorry for the lengthy post, I'll end it here suppose. If anyone has any clue as to why I may not be able to play this disc with WinDVD, please let me know.

Update: I found the DVDARipper does appear to do something, in DVDAExplorer, it says copying: freely, instead of copying: restricted. I obtained discwelder and was hoping that would be the solution to my problem, however it shows the duration of the files to be 00:00:00, and a burned disc of the .mlp files does not work. I'm assuming its like i said, DVDARipper is doing something but not completely working due to WinDVD's problems. Looks like I can only wonder if DigiOnAudio2 would do the trick...

Another update: I created a test DVD-Audio using a wav I created from an mp3. It worked fine in WinDVD and my universal player. So it's most likely just the disc(NIN-With Teeth BTW) and I'll have to let it be. Once again I'm sorry for the rediculously long first post.

Specs: WinXP Pro on P4 2.4, 1GB PC3200 RAM, Radeon 9800 Pro, SoundBlaster Live 5.1, 4 speakers and sub

This post has been edited by Greywolf: Nov 29 2005, 18:40

[rasth]

I wish I knew for sure if I would have this problem with every DVD-Audio disc but unfortunately I no longer own any, just this one backup. I'm curious if its just because its not the orignal DVD, a watermark or CPPM perhaps causes it to crash. Perhaps WinDVD crashes for the same reason my universal player won't play it, whatever that reason may be, and my only hope is to do something with mlp files.

Sorry, you can't do anything with it now. You can't make an ISO copy of DVD_Audio and still use it for anything but a coaster... The encryption checks to see if it is the original disc. WinDVD and the universal player are crashing because it's a copy.

DVDAripper/ DVDAexplorer/ PPCMripper must be run on the original disc if it has CPPM protection (It has DVDAUDIO.MKB in the TS_AUDIO directory).

[tommypeters]

I'm starting to wonder about watermarks. I wonder what'll happen if I re-watermark the watermarked audio. (I do have access to the Verance embedder.) This may cause an audible change, though I don't think we're going to be able to get rid of the watermark without screwing with the audio. The whole Verance thing is unfortunate.

There will still be a watermark. so re-watermark it will not help.

It would be interesting though, if you could make some minute-long samples and upload somewhere. One with no sound at all, then some sine waves: 1000Hz, 1200Hz, 1350Hz, 1500Hz and 2000Hz. Then some white, pink and brown noise, and some music...

[foshelan]

When ripping your DVD discs, we can always save the files separately as videos and audios, the last one can always be transformed as: MP3 types and some loseless types such as ogg or AC3.
So I think maybe you can do it with the help of your rippers to get audio files, and then, some ordinary treatments for transformations.

[tommypeters]

This is about DVD-Audio, not about audio on DVD movie discs. Hopefully no one would want to transform DVD-Audio to MP3 - or AC3, which isn't lossless either.

[emr]

I wonder if someone (a mod?) could edit the first post to clearly state the current state of DVD-A ripping. It's very confusing to browse through a 12 page thread starting a while ago.

[ATWindsor]

I wonder if someone (a mod?) could edit the first post to clearly state the current state of DVD-A ripping. It's very confusing to browse through a 12 page thread starting a while ago.

Yeah, I get the impression that you actually can rip DVD-A with winDVD6 and a set of tools?

AtW

[MrMayhem]

Hello all!

New to this forum but stumbled across this thread on ripping DVDA when I purchased my first four ADHD-records from themusic.com. They are all 24/192 + 24/96 dualdiscs.

It would be nice to be able to play the 24/192-material on my HTPC without the disc shuffling, so I searched for a way to rip them, I now understand that it is difficult and perhaps impossible to do bit-perfect.

During my search I tried to extract the first track from "Encounter of the third kind"-soundtrack by John Williams, so I fired up DVD-Audio explorer and extracted the track onto my desktop, not really knowing what would be the outcome.

The program created an .mlp-file which to my surprise had the same icon as my other audio-files, namely the icon for the Creative MediaSource Player, which installed with my X-Fi Elite Pro soundcard.

To my question: What is it I am listening to when I doubleclick this file and it starts playing in the MediaSource Player? The track is 4:50 and the file weighs 122 036 309 bytes. It's obviously not an ordinary 16/44.1-stream. As I understand, making an mlp-capable player costs 1000:s of dollars in licensing. Has Creative purchased such a license allowing me to play the mlp-files. Another software that comes with the Elite Pro is the Creative DVD-Audio Player, allowing me to play my DVD-Audio records, I just couldnt believe that extracting the mlp-file and playing it in the MediaSource Player would be so easy.

So: What am I listening to? :-)

All the best to all of you!

[jhoff80]

I haven't looked at this thread in a long time, but I was wondering what the best lossless encoder would be to store the DVD-Audio data in. I generally prefer FLAC for my cds, but for some reason the FLAC plugin crashes Winamp with a 5.1 channel file. I reported this bug a long time ago, and it hasn't been fixed yet. So, which lossless encoder should I use for this application, and what would be the correct channel order for this?

[RotAtoR]

So, which lossless encoder should I use for this application, and what would be the correct channel order for this?

I find that WavPack works very well for me, but I don't use Winamp so I can't tell you if 5.1 WavPack files work correctly in Winamp or not. The correct channel order is Lf, Rf, C, LFE, Ls, Rs.