Burning Audio DVD Software & Experience

Al, thanks for the info. I've never heard of Taiyo Yuden. Several years ago I bought MAM-A/Mitsui CD-R's from mediasupply.com. I see that they carry the Taiyo Yuden DVD-R's. http://www.mediasupply.com/taiyoyuden.html Of the 16X choices, which would you pick?

What software and DVD drive are you using? I was considering an Iomega http://go.iomega.com/en-us/products/multimedia-drive/dvd-cdrw/dvd-writer/?partner=4760 external USB drive. Any thoughts?

I ran across some open source writing software called Lplex http://sourceforge.net/projects/audioplex/that should work.

Thanks Al and Jim.

My current PC will burn CDs, but not DVDs and I don't want to install another piece of hardware in the current box. I've used Iomega products in the past and have been happy enough with them. I believe the Nero suite comes with the drive. The Avery labels looks like a good solution.

The open source software appeals to me so that I can look under the hood if I want or need. Lplex appears to do just what I want, but we'll see...

Jim, just for clarification... I'm interested in DVD-video containing only audio, not DVD-A, so that the disc will play on any DVD compatible player. DVD-video will support 96kHz/24-bit audio which covers the files from HDTracks.com. I expect to use HDMI on my Blu-ray player to get the hi-rez stream out of the player.

I'll order the gear and supplies this weekend and take the plunge.

Thanks again guys,
Bob

Hi Jim,

I plan on taking 96kHz/24-bit FLAC files from HDTracks (I bought the Getz/Gilberto album download Friday night) and writing them to DVD-Rs. I'm not interested in ripping from any physical media.

If this works out OK, I'll buy a few select hi-rez albums. HDTracks has a few Verve albums I would buy again. I'm sure more will come available in the future. I really wish that Chad Kassem would release his Nat King Cole selections in hi-rez on Blu-ray. I'm not interested in owning SACD.

I was surprised at how large the audio files are and how long it takes to download an album (AT&T DSL Lite) -- new ground for me. I played the album via MediaMonkey through my old Cambridge Soundworks PC/TV speaker and it sounded quite nice. My plan is to create an ISO disc image, which you can play directly for testing, and then write that to DVD-R.

-- Bob

Just a quick update...

LPlex was unable to recognize the FLAC files from HDTracks.com. So that tool is now gone.

I've used this: http://cirlinca.com/ to create a DVD video (music only) ISO image file.

I've used this: http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-overview.htm to create a virtual DVD drive from the ISO image file.

I've used this: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ to play the DVD on the virtual DVD drive.

Problems...

The JPEG cover art included with the album from HDTracks was the wrong size for the DVD authoring software. I'll look into resizing it.

According to VLC, the DVD title and chapter names are generic: Title 1, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. I'll need to read the manual about this so they can be named appropriately.

Once these two issues are resolved, I'll use MagicDisc to burn the ISO image file to DVD-R and give it a spin on my Blu-ray player.

Hi Jim,

Re the ISO DVD image file and virtual drive is so that I can verify that the image is what I want BEFORE burning it to DVD-R.

I didn't wait to correct the sizing of the album cover art or naming the tracks to burn a disc. I used ImgBurn. It took a hair over 3 minutes to burn the DVD at 8X and then another 1.5 minutes to verify.

Using VCL to play the burned DVD I can look at the codec info and it says 96,000 sampling rate and 24-bit words. When played back via my Samsung Blu-ray player using HDMI to an Integra DTC-9.8, the DTC-9.8 shows an fs of 48 kHz. I went through all the menus on both the player and the pre/pro to see if I was asking for the audio to be down converted and it didn't look like it. I'll have to do some more research on the DTC-9.8.

I was hard pressed to hear any difference between the CD and the DVD of the same album using the same playback system. I'll try a friend's analog setup with an Oppo BR player tomorrow.