Re: [Dvd-audio-devel] 1, 3, 4 or 5 channel DVD-Audio?

[<th...@us...>]

Dave,


>
>I've tried that with my copy of Discwelder Bronze, and it doesn't work.
> I've also tried the Demo version of Chrome II available from
>Minnetonka's website, and I can't get it to work in there either.
>

I'm not sure how the interface in Discwelder Bronze is designed, but I believe this is the procedure for the interface with Discwelder Chrome:

1. Start with a 5.1 source for the purpose of exemplification.  Break it down into (6) individual mono *.wav files.  You might wish to label the *.wav files something like Lf.wav, Ls.wav, LFE.wav for easy identification.

2.  Open Discwelder, highlight the album name, right-click and select "New Group".  In Chrome, adding a group also automatically adds a track with the channel format established from the global properties dialog.  If your global properties adds a stereo track, right click on the track and change the track to a six channel surround with the track properties dialog.

3.  In Chrome, when the "L" image is highlighted, double clicking on a filename in the browser window, assigns that mono *.wav file to the left front audio channel.  The interface is tricky so if you do not wish to use
all of the channels, one must use care to highlight the appropriate audio channel or double clicking will assign the *.wav to the next available channel.  For example if one wishes for 2.1, one must manually advance beyone the "C" image to highlight the line with the "LFE" image, thus leaving the "C" channel unassigned.  (Drag and drop also works to assign filenames to specific channels.)

4. Continue assigning mono *.wav files to as many or as few audio channels as you wish to appear in the output stream.

5. Create a disk or compile an image file for test.  One can simply compile an image file and extract the *.AOB from the image file with an ISO editor like Winimage, UltraISO, etc. and playback the *AOB with PowerDVD Deluxe v6. Note: PDVD v6 will not playback using the *.IFO file from an AUDIO_TS directory on the hard disk using "Play DVD files on the hard disk" for some reason even though this is possible for DVD-V files from a VIDEO_TS directory on the hard disk.  It will, however, play a *.AOB file from the hard disk.

I did not try to create a mono *.AOB, but PDVD correctly identified the *.AOB content as LPCM 3.1, 4.0, 3.0 and 2.0 when I played back the *AOB's that I created.

>The "channel assignments" drop-down lists only ever display 2 out of the
>21 possible channel assignments - Stereo and one of the 5.1 options.
>
>But I would be happy if someone could tell me I'm doing something wrong.
>

See above.

>
>In that case, would you use 5 20-bit mono WAV files as input?

Yes.

>
>DVD-A support "scalable LPCM" - so you can have some of your channels at
>a higher bitrate (e.g. 24-bit/96KHz) and the rest at a lower bitrate
>(e.g. 16-bit/48KHz).  I think I understand how this is implemented in
>the IFO files, but I don't know how the LPCM data is packed in the AOB
>files - I've found no examples that do this with LPCM.
>

I read something about this and if I remember correctly, I tried it but perhaps I did something wrong.  PowerDVD was unable to playback such a stream.  I guess this might also indicate a limitation of PDVD rather than an error on my part.  I'm a little fuzzy on what I tried.  Perhaps I tried to create a group with six channel 16/44.1 and another group with stereo 16/44.1 and that is what PowerDVD would not play.  PowerDVD reacted as if it could not interpret the *.IFO.  I do not have a hardware DVD-A player with which to test.

>
>I tried emailing you privately, but your ISP blocked by email - "because
>one of the host computers listed in the mail headers is on our blocking
>lists.".  Let me know if you have another email address.
>

I bypassed my spam filter to retrieve your mesage.  I will send you an e-mail message from a different account.

>> Windoze users should be able to burn the AUDIO_TS folder created by
>> DVDA Author directly without using mkisofs if they have access to an
>> application called "GEAR PRO Mastering Edition" as it will correctly
>> order the files in the temporary *.iso that is created when that
>> burning application is used in the mode to "create DVD-A disk".
>
>Thanks for that - I'll add the information to the Howto.  However at
>about $399, I'm not sure how many people will own it.  It's also
>available for Linux and other Unix variants.  Not sure about Mac OS X
>though.
>
>Do you have a copy of it?  If so, I would be interested to see how it
>formats the output of dvda-author, and if it performs any checks on the
>contents of the AUDIO_TS folder.

I do not have a personal copy of "GEAR PRO Mastering Edition" but I think I can access the application on a machine elsewhere.  I have not actually used DVDA Author yet and was hoping I could wait for the GUI version.  I'm a Windoze user who has conveniently forgotten how to use command line apps.  Aren't the only people who use command line apps techies with *.NIX installations? <grin>

>
>> Does anyone here experience using PowerDVD Deluxe v6 to play DVD-A
>> disks on a PC?  I do not understand what the "the "SPDIF" audio
>> option" does and I'm unable to find a help forum where I could pose
>> my question about this option.
>
>I can't help you specifically, but I do know that the DVD Forum have
>forced all DVD-Audio player manufacturers to cripple the SPDIF output
>when playing DVD-Audio content.  Maybe it's related to this.
>

Actually, it isn't really crippled when the SPDIF option is chosen.  It is more like that when this option is chosen, the stream is passed to the DAC's on my soundcard unadulterated. If, however, I instead choose "6 speaker" output in the audio options, it seems like PDVD resamples or somehow tampers with the stream and perhaps delivers only 16/48 to the DAC's on my soundcard.  I'm not quite intelligent enough to understand exactly what IS happening and I do not know how to examine the inner workings.

Regards,

Thos.