DVD audio Tools / News: Recent posts

A new build of dvda-author for Impish has just been released.
It is installed as /opt/dvda-author/dvda-author-dev to avoid version conflicts.
A new build of dvda-author-gui for Impish has been released too.
This debian package should bee installed after the dvda-author debian package as an option.
Menu links are available in the "Found objects" section.

dvda-author GNU/Linux builds against (upgraded) Ubuntu-latest are now up for grabs as Github Releases.
Currently Github is transitioning Ubuntu-latest from 18.04 to 20.4.
For each tag, a Github Actions workflow will automatically build and release the whole toolchain (dvda-author-dev, plus the complete build of dependencies, including libraries and documentation).
dvda-author-dev itself is an (almost) static build that will run on most Linux (and BSD) platforms. You may have to install libpng16 on your platform (it most often has been previously). This build will enable authoring of standard DVD-Audio discs, without menus, even with MLP and FLAC and tracks.
Authoring discs with menus may run into linking issues however with this build.
As a tentative way out, try adding --bindir bin to command line when running ./dvda-author-dev locally under the extracted local/ directory. You may have to rebuild ImageMagick (and possibly dvdauthor) from source and configure it to install locally to local/. If so, please use the source code inlined in the repository for the dependency software. ... read more

Uploaded complete toolchain for Ubuntu 20.10. See website instructions in download section for proper installation.

The Windows package has been updated with current ffmpeg MLP code, as significant patches have been made by the ffmpeg team since previous release. No other changes.

Encoding support for 5.1 MLP has been added in package 20-08-6. 24-bit MLP encoding is still not supported, users will have to use proprietary tools if necessary for some time.

Both the command-line and GUI now offer experimental support for MLP encoding.

Warning 1 : Supported audio is restricted to 16-bit depth rate and up to 5 channels. 24-bit audio and 5.1 are not supported yet but should be added soon.
These audio constraints are not checked at runtime by the GUI, only by the command-line interface. You have been warned.

Warning 2 : MLP encoding depends on the FFMPEG encoder. While this encoder is legal in the EU, it may not be in the US. Please refrain from using this capability if it is prohibited by law in your country. If choosing to use the MLP encoder, please download the application from an EU mirror.

Windows package now contains a new build against current ffmpeg source code.

As of versions released 10th of Sept. and later.

The command line core application now supports playback through the (command line version of) the well-known VLC player (--play vlc and optionally --player-path [path to vlc]). A corresponding option has been added to the linux and OSX graphical interfaces.
This support is currently available for GNU/Linux and OSX and will be ported to Windows later on.

1. DVD-Audio discs and AOB files, whether MLP-encoded or standard PCM, can now be played (only from the start) with some limitations for PCM. See GUI help. This feature is currently only available under GNU/Linux and OSX but will soon be ported to Windows.
2. The Mac OSX ports can now generate menus like the GNU/Linux and Windows versions.

A new Mac OSX package release is now available (for OSX Sierra and later versions).
The Qt5 graphical user interface does not offer DVD-Video zone authoring to date for this platform.

A static build of the core command line dvda-author application has also been released for OSX, which should solve most dependency issues that have been reported.

The upcoming 19.09 release features new fixes to MLP authoring. Most audio combinations have been tested for 16 bit (and 24 bit/44-48 kHz), including multichannel, and tests are satisfactory. 24-bit MLP audio may still be unstable.

Fixes have been made to MLP-encoded DVD-Audio for surround (6ch/16bits-3ch/24bits).
The help files have been updated.
An included player has been added (ffplay binary) to the graphical interface.

Audio extraction is now fully restored with 3 extraction options: --extract --xlist=... , --aob2wav and --aob-extract (see help).
An MLP decoder has been integrated so that audio extraction from MLP-encoded discs can be automatically performed (option --decode added to the above options).

Audio extraction has been (partly) restored to working status, using the following options:
--aob-extract (AOB file or disc/directory containing an AOB file) : to extract to raw PCM files (headerless WAVs) or to extract MLP files from discs
--aob2wav (AOB file or disc/directory containing an AOB file) : to extract to WAV. This is only for PCM discs, for MLP discs use --aob-extract.
Option -x (--extract) is broken and will be fixed.... read more

A new package issued on Aug. 16th 2019 offers (very) experimental Windows support for MLP-encoded DVD-Audio discs.

Experimental support for the MLP lossless compression format is out for tests under the linux platform.
MLP files may be compressed using the MLP encoder of project ffmpeg. Note that this encoder is only experimental too.
MLP opens up new possibilities for the DVD-Audio format, notably longer audio durations and 5.1 24 bit/96 kHz audio, which is not possible with standard PCM.

Active menus (which remain on screen on playback), an interesting yet broken feature, have been fixed and work again.

Debian packages have been added as well as RPM packages.
These were tested on the following platforms: Ubuntu 19.04 and Fedora 30 workstation (June 2019). They also work unpacked and manually installed under Gentoo amd64, same date.
As of July 1st 2019, a fully static linux build will be uploaded, which should run under all Intel and compatible AMD 64-bit platforms (look for package -linux-x86_64.tar.xz)
However menu editing will request libc dependencies (at least version 2.28) that might not be updated on user platforms. In this case, use platform binaries to replace those in subfolder bin/... read more

Standard top menus were added to GUI in the dvda-author-package as well as linking groups to "audio" titlesets in the DVD-VIDEO zone of the disc.
A maximum of 8 video-linking groups can be added to top menu (with a maximum of 9 groups in all).

A bugfix issue was issued (19.06r5) for the dvda-author-package with major fixes to VIDEO_TS authoring, using the fork of lplex on this site.
This is used for either burning DVD-Video "audio" discs playable on any standard DVD player or to create DVD-Audio/Video hybrid discs.
Windows builds added against Qt5-12.4 static (MSYS2 project).

The old 2010 Qt4 dvda-author-package, which was broken, has been fixed for most issues and somewhat simplified.
Some minor bugs remain.
However the GUI will make it easier for some to author hybrid discs (which can play on either DVD-Audio or DVD-Video players).
The hybrid-authoring capability has been made possible thanks to a (forked version of) Lplex, originally created by Bahman Negahban on sourceforge and now unmaintained by the original author.
Other bug fixes will follow on.

Git code of lplex is undergoing changes to remove dependencies to wxWidgets and take advantage of c++17.
Current git code builds and works for simple cases. Lplex-dependent code in dvda-author is currently broken yet should be fixed in early summer.
Related options are: --miror --full-hybridate --mirror-strategy etc, which are used to convert AUDIO_TS into VIDEO_TS and increase portability across hardware.
However lplex-made VIDEO_TS folders can be imported with --videodir and linked to with -T. See EXAMPLES files for test cases.

Freebsd builds have been added. Please read file EXAMPLES.BSD.

Current Linux and MacOSX packages (and soon the W10 package) have been fixed for video-linking. This allows navigation between DVD-Audio and DVD-Video sections of a home-made hybdrid disc.