Open Source DVD-Audio authoring program released

[4candles]

I am happy to announce that I have just released the first version of dvda-author, my open source DVD-Audio authoring software. The project home page is at http://dvd-audio.sourceforge.net

This initial "alpha" release of dvda-author is capable of taking up to 99 16-bit Stereo WAV files at any of the samplerates supported by the DVD-Audio standard (44.1KHz, 48KHz, 88.2KHz, 96KHz, 176.4KHz or 192KHz) and creating an AUDIO_TS directory compatible with hardware DVD-Audio players.

The next developments will be support for multiiple DVD-Audio "groups" (the DVD-Audio standard allows up to 9 groups per DVD, each consisting of up to 99 tracks), 20-bit and 24-bit audio and 6 channel surround. A cross-platform GUI version of dvda-author is also in development.

Native FLAC support will also be added in the very near future, so you can create DVD-Audio discs directly from a set of FLAC files - so there will be no need to convert to WAV first. But due to licensing issues, I will never add SHN support.

dvda-author is available to download from http://dvd-audio.sourceforge.net/alpha/ and usage is documented at http://dvd-audio.sourceforge.net/howto.shtml

The dvda-author release contains both a Windows executable and full source code (suitable for Linux, Mac OS X and any other platform with a C compiler) and is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Note that this software produces real "DVD-Audio" DVDs - you will need a DVD-Audio capable DVD player (i.e. one displaying the DVD-Audio logo) to play the resulting DVDs. They can't be played on a standard DVD-Video only player.

And before anyone asks, yes, the DVDs created by my software are both "lossless" and "gapless".

However, it is not currently possible to extract the audio back to WAV files, but that is high on my to-do list. When I do implement that, I will include MD5 support so that you can be sure that the extracted audio is bit-for-bit identical to the original.

Dave.

[jraras]

w00t!

This is awesome, thanks for your work. The idea of carrying one DVD-R with a 4 show run to a friend's party is much more appealing than 12 CD-Rs! Or having to house them all on my iPod or other.

Looking forward to the 24-bit edition, I mastered a bunch of stuff in 2001 in 24- and never listen to it, that will change...

Kudos for your work!

JR

[RainDawg]

Congratulations! I think it's great that you've taken the time to develop projects for the FOSS community. I encourage everyone who has been wanting something like this (there have been numerous threads in the past) to give it a try and give the author some feedback.

[Five]

[4candles]

Has anyone tried the program yet? Does anyone here actually own a DVD-Audio capable DVD player?

[ffooky]

It compiled happily under OS X and created the requisite *****_TS folders but I have no player to test on

[4candles]

Originally Posted by ffooky

It compiled happily under OS X and created the requisite *****_TS folders but I have no player to test on

Glad to hear it compiles OK under Mac OS X.

It does seem like no-one owns a DVD-Audio player...

[ffooky]

The cheapest player I've found so far in the UK is around £75 but it's not a feature that retailers make a fuss of so it may well be that some of the sub-fifty quid jobs are indeed capable.

[4candles]

Originally Posted by ffooky

The cheapest player I've found so far in the UK is around £75 but it's not a feature that retailers make a fuss of so it may well be that some of the sub-fifty quid jobs are indeed capable.

I think that's about what I paid for mine - the Panasonic DVDS47EBS in RIcher Sounds. It's a reasonable player for the price, but only plays back DVD-Audio in Stereo, it doesn't support multi-channel DVD-Audio.

But you are right - a growing number of DVD players are DVD-Audio capable, but it's hard to find out which ones are. They should have the "DVD-Audio" or "DVD-Audio/Video" logo on the front, so if you go to a real shop you can easily spot them, but if you're buying on-line it's a lot harder to find the information.

I have a decoder. I'll give it a shot this weekend. Thanks for the software. It will be nice to use it for 48kHz DAT transfers with no need to resample or break into two disc format. The only downside I can see is longer downloads if you share a dvd audio disc, but hey, fuck it!

[4candles]

Originally Posted by New Homebrew

I have a decoder. I'll give it a shot this weekend. Thanks for the software. It will be nice to use it for 48kHz DAT transfers with no need to resample or break into two disc format. The only downside I can see is longer downloads if you share a dvd audio disc, but hey, fuck it!

Once I implement multiple "groups" of tracks, you should be able to fit 3 or 4 average length shows onto one DVD-R. Currently you are limited to a single group of 99 tracks.

There shouldn't be any need to torrent DVD-Audio images - I hope to finish the GUI version quite soon, at which point the aim is that burning a DVD-Audio disk will be as simple as burning an audio CD. So you can just torrent FLAC files (at any of the DVD-Audio samplerates) and my program will turn them into a DVD-Audio disc.

Please let me know how you get on - I'll keep an eye on this thread, or you can join my dvd-audio-devel mailing list (see the link on my website) and post your feedback there.

Dave.

[jraras]

Originally Posted by 4candles

Has anyone tried the program yet? Does anyone here actually own a DVD-Audio capable DVD player?

I've got a sahweet Denon DVD/DVD-A/SACD player that's itching to be used and many 48kHz xfers of sick shows archived as FLAC/SHN/MAC... now I just need some time to try your program out

Hopefully soon... thanks again.

JR

[4candles]

Just to keep you updated, I've just released another alpha version of dvda-author. The main change is that it now supports up to 9 groups of tracks.

The cheapest commercial DVD-Audio authoring program (DiscWelder Bronze) restricts you to discs containing only 1 group. You need to buy the $500 DiscWelder Steel in order to author discs with more than one group.

Dave.

burning audio shows from DAT 48 kHz sources onto DVDR is great. being able to have the opening act(s) + the main act all on one disc with no disc changes is just amazing. with the headphones on, and your eyes closed, it can be better than watching a movie.

good work, 4candles. at some point in the near future, i'll try out your program. what i've used in the past is my DVD-Video authoring program and/or Audio DVD Creator... which actually make "Video DVDs" as opposed to bona fide DVD-A discs. but, one good thing about DVD-V discs is that they are compatible with more players. nonetheless, thanks again for working on a needed program.

This is a great project - thanks for the work. I think that for this group, the 24 bit capability will be the main hook. There's quite a few of us doing 24 bit recording but always sharing the 16. While we can do 24 bit with DVD-V, it has to be resampled to 48. I record in 24 bit at 44.1 kHz because the ultimate destination is cd. With DVD-A I keep the 24 bit, 44.1 (that makes sense for anyone ripping a cd collection tool, rather than resamping to 48).

As far as players go, the Pioneer 578 is nothing fancy but for $100-140 it plays everything (CD, DVD, DVD-A, SACD). It's got coax/optical digital outs if you have a DAC. It's a bit flimsy but so is most everything it seems.

david