Apple Lossles, Tool for Home DVD Audio?

I have heard about burning to DVD and know it's popular, but can't find any mention of what tool or software is required to convert my Apple Lossless Encoded iTunes library, into a DVD audio format which will play on a older home DVD player. Not interested in lossless formats.

I'm a newb, but have diligently researched and come up empty. The closest I've come is DVD Data burning, which looks like a great way to backup computer music files, but I want to make a huge collection and play it in my home DVD player.

Anything else you think I should know about an ALE to DVD Audio conversion? And in the event it's not possible, expensive, or difficult, any good alternatives?

Eternally Gratefull,
Dave

WinterMute said:

DVD's particularly on older players, require .aiff files at 48Khz (not the 44.1Khz that CD is encoded at).

To get an "audio" DVD to play on a standard DVD player (i.e. not one of these new multi-format players) you'll need to convert all of your Lossless files to 48Khz aiff, than import them into something like iDVD (although Toast 7 will also work I think) and use the Slideshow function to lay all the tracks in a row. You might need a background pic, but a black jpg file of 720x576 size will do.

DVD Studio Pro makes this process easy, iDVD will allow it, but I've no idea how easy it is to do, Toast should work.

I'm sure there are other ways.

Click to expand...

Great, that was the missing clue! I can finally get enough background info to start asking the right darn questions and putting the pieces together.
Talk about apples and oranges, with the different sampling rates of DVD and CD.

Thanks for the Toast suggestion. That's probably about my speed.

It appears that Toast Titanium is the practical to get the music on DVD format without taking all the fun out of it!

Obviously, for some real professional audiophile mastering applications CD quality is still pretty low in the scheme of audio standards. Since I'm not a pro and am limited by my basic sound card, CD source material, funds, not to mention my speakers ability to resolve the detail into these 49 year old ears,
Think I'll be picking up Toast 7 Titanium today and look toward a better sound card and perhaps a firewire 800 card, that is if my 100Mhz front side buss data bottleneck would make this kind of upgrade useless??

Any opinions about a decent, but Non pro, stereo instead of a multitrack sound card upgrade? Think they call it a break out box? That 2.5 mm headset jack input is just plain wrong. Looks like an accident waiting to happen!
I'd like to hook up my Laserdisk player and optical Toslink, coaxial AV receiver outputs to my computer, without having to pay a premium for pro multitrack equipment.

The basic CD standard and a lossless format is going to be the basis of my music filing and manipulations, with perhaps some other hopefully lossless codecs to record on a new CD/DVD player..
And my friends think I'm nuts to record in Lossless formats?
I tried saving AIFF files at first. Wow those are really big!

Getting a new multi read (RW?) DVD player, is probably a good investment instead of trying to conform my ALE files to work around old DVD standards,

Any recommendations for a Mac/Toast complimentary home DVD player possessing a higher end audio file capabilities, or changer? Got a great remote that came with my Sony 550dvd player. Has amplifier volume control button that would be nice to still keep using should the IR codes work across another sony DVD remote contol.

What kind of Firewire external box or internal card would provide some coaxial digital or optical digital (Toslink Lightwire) cable connecivity .
Would an upgrade to Firewire 800 ports be an advantage for external device connectivity?

Is the addition of USB 2.0 PCI card along with a Firewire 800 going to improve data transfers among my external A/V equiment. Includes USB 2.0photo printer, Pioneer ext DV-109 DL burner, Ipod, 200 GB Seagate External HD.
Not sure if the G4 100Mhz front side bus bottleneck would make any faster external device port options, than the Firewire 400 I'm using? The OWC 200GB hardrive is Firewire 800 capable.

DVD Audio appears ot be one one of highest resolving formats/hardware available, far beyond my needs, but it's helpful to see the range of formats available.

Toast Titanium appears like the most practical turnkey approach given my source material and skill level. This is going to be lots of fun!

Thanks again,
Dave

***************************************************************
"iLife Browser – Your Digital Hub
Integrated, fast and easy access from within Toast 7 to your iTunes music, iPhoto pictures, iMovie projects....

Music DVDs – Party On (And On and On)
Enjoy over 50 hours of music on a DVD, complete with on-screen TV menus for easy navigation, automatic “SmartLists”, shuffle play and rich Hollywood-style Dolby sound. Make your home theater system a giant jukebox for your next party, put a multi-CD boxed set onto a single inexpensive blank DVD, archive your favorite podcasts, and make your road trips more fun with your in-car DVD player. Music DVDs are hot and only Toast 7 has them.

http://www.sonic.com/products/Consumer/Toast/features.aspx#hearit

Hear It
• New! Enjoy over 50 hours of music on a DVD, with on-screen menus for navigation to your favorite song, automatic “SmartLists”, and shuffle play. Add photos and music videos for a complete multimedia experience.
• New! Add rich Hollywood-style Dolby Digital sound or full-quality 96 kHz, 24 bit audio to your music DVDs and DVD-Videos.
• New! Instantly capture and digitize audio with the desktop recorder Dashboard widget (requires Mac OS 10.4).
• New! Seamless support for OGG and FLAC - popular enthusiasts audio formats – in audio CD and music DVD projects.
• New! Convert audio ?les to OGG, FLAC, AAC and more.
• New! iLife browser provides easy access to all your iTunes music.
• Improved! Digitize and restore your vinyl LPs and tapes. Edit tracks, reduce noise and enhance sound quality with included ?lters.
• Improved! Design personalized disc labels, case covers, and inserts.

See It

http://www.sonic.com/about/press/news/2000/september/cppm.aspx


DVD AUDIO

About DVD-Audio
"DVD-Audio is a new audio format that builds on the success of the hugely popular DVD-Video format. More than two years in the making, DVD-Audio is the result of close collaboration among major recording companies, consumer electronics manufacturers and technology suppliers. The format incorporates breathtakingly accurate audio reproduction by supporting sampling rates of 96kHz and 192kHz with up to 24 bits of information per sample (compared to the CD standard of 44.1kHz and 16 bits per sample). With DVD-Audio, full-resolution audio can be presented in stereo or in any channel combination up to six-channel surround. Audio programs can be accessed interactively and presented along with visual material including menus, slides, and text. Because of the enormous bandwidths involved in high-resolution audio, DVD-Audio incorporates an innovative coding scheme developed by Meridian Audio, called Meridian Lossless Packing (MLP). With MLP it is possible to use full-resolution, 24-bit, 96kHz audio on all six channels of a surround presentation even though the overall bandwidth of the original master tracks would exceed the bandwidth available in a standard DVD disc.

About DVD Creator AV and SonicStudio HD
Sonic Solutions has created the industry's first DVD-Audio production system, Sonic DVD Creator AV, which includes SonicStudio HD, Sonic's system for high-density audio production and Sonic's DVD Creator for authoring DVD-Audio and DVD-Video titles. SonicStudio HD is built upon the innovative new HDSP(tm) Processing Architecture and supports editing and mixing of multi-channel audio at sample rates from 44.1kHz to 192kHz."

Lacero said:

You can also use 48Khz 16-bit AIFF files (PCM) for DVD audio.

But for the most capacity, go with Toast 7. Or use a.Pack encoding to Dolby Digital AC3 at 192KB/s if you have it.

Click to expand...

thanks guys,
Guess i meant dvd audio 48Khz 16 bit as the preferred format not DVD-Audio. Allthough my eyed are bloodshot from getting up to date with DVD-Audio/SACD and multi-players. Stopped reading my Widescreen review and sterophile stuff about the time all the new high res formats came out, hoping after the dust settled here would be a good cheap player/format...only to find there's just more to catch up on, ie blue ray and a plethorea of new formats, codecs and sw ...

Bought toast 7, works well.
Playing with Sound Studio to extract some fav Laserdisc analog audio tracks before sending them off to digital/polycorbonate oblivion. That's fun!

Still haven't focused on the original goal of burning my ALE files to a dvd audio...
Kinda got lost, when it started not to be fun anymore listening to music and everything looked like more $'s to persue.
Just because I can have a ton of music capaicity on a disc, doesn't make it practical to listen to, although probably a good idea to back up my hardrive files. Kinda avoid huge file movements. My library is about 80GB and growing! I guess all the better to back up!

Practically, I think just getting a cd player in my car is the next step to appreciating the new tools I've mastered.

Thanks,
Dave

Ok, burned a 6 hour 15 minute DVD PCM audio disc from apple lossles using Toast 7. Worked like a charm. Took nearly two hours, not sure I fell alseep! The menu structure created on the DVD audio, with easy song, artist and title lookup provided by toast 7, is really nice. Lots of options to fine tune.

I'm amazed at how good the Toast software is for even inexperienced users to turn out a quality product.

Where does 96Khz audio media exist? I'd like to take advantage of the higher resolution format and do some listening test?
Is there anything to gain from copying CD 44.1 to 96Khz PCM?
-
Thanks, dave

bdellisola said:

So does the "Music DVD" format created by Toast work in a DVD Audio player? i realize it will work in a standard DVD player, but I have an Acura TL with a stereo system that plays DVD Audio. While i don't need the extra quality that DVD-A can deliver, i would like to take advantage of the additional storage capacity of the DVD format to have more songs available to me.

Does anybody know of software that can create DVD-A format for use in those players? Would prefer Mac sw...

Click to expand...

The Toast 7 Titanium instruction manual only refers to DVD-Audio as requiring a special DVD player. I see no other reference or settings for DVD-A. i suspect high definition media was designed to thwart copying.
As far as Music DVDs playing in a DVD-A player...good question. It seems whatever the hardware manufacturer's alliance is, in the format wars, dictates what any given player will play. Check your documentation or try one out. Truly multi media players are starting to come out, but most seem to leave out DVD-A or SACD.

In reading lots of reviews on Crutchfield, there are mobile DVD players down to $300, but apparently track access gets pretty slow when 60+ tracks are involved. Although not required (and a big expense), a video screen is a huge improvement to navigation of audio DVD.

Found a PCM to AIFF converter. Works well with extractd PCM audio from various disk media to convert to CD.
Also used Toast Spin Docter to edit crowd noise from analog input (live) audio tracks. Kinda time consuming, but I converted some old concerts from my Laser Disc collection to play in CD format.
There's also an AC3 decoder tool from sourceforge.net "AC3dec" for tracks that only got encoded in AC3.
I can only imagine what real Pro sound tools can do, but I just wanted a few songs for CD and have no Digital I/O.

Aiff from PCM
AIFF from PCM is a freeware tool to convert files containing stereo or mono linear PCM sound data into AIFF format.

http://www.verek.com/

-
Dave