Burn a DVD-AC3 Compatible CD-R

grant+harris writes "This interesting article shows how it is possible to burn AC-3 audio onto a normal CD-R. Will this technology usher a new type of online piracy when DVD-Audio and surround sound systems become more commonplace?" While this is only audio, it is a good step in the right direction.

Comments

Laws anyone?

[T-Kir]

Will this technology usher a new type of online piracy when DVD-Audio and surround sound systems become more commonplace?

Or will it be gagged as being in violation of the DMCA?

Re:What? Slashdot Advocates Piracy?

[SageLikeFool]

So all we have to do is be completely compliant to their whims and they will give us what we want?

Sure, this will probably be used for "piracy" as much as any other technology is in this day and age. That doesn't mean it should be buried, and that doesn't mean it won't be legitimately used either. If you want to get rid of every tool and technology that is developed just because it could be used maliciously by somebody, you won't even be left with sticks and stones.

Mpeg2 is lossy...

[Bonker]

Remember that even the MPEG2 format that DVD video vobs are stored in is lossy, although at such a high bitrate that, on a good DVD, it's close to impossible to tell.

DivX and other Mpeg4 codecs may be unbearably noisy at lower levels you've seen, but when you raise the bitrate up to where a 1:30:00 movie will just fit on a CD-R, it's very nearly indistinguishable from DVD video. This goes double for animation. Many of the anime fansubs that show up on IRC and Usenet are encoded in such a way that a 200mb file is more than high enough quality to tape and share with your friends.

surround sound AUDIO?

[alienw]

High quality audio is not surround sound. Nobody listens to music on a surround sound rig and expects quality. Surround sound is good for movies, where you don't need good fidelity, but most surround sound systems suck if you're trying to listen to music. Audiophiles don't like subwoofer-satellite systems (because it's a cost-saving compromise that causes lots of problems), and a high-quality surround-sound system with 5 real high-end speakers and amplifiers would be prohibitively expensive ($20,000+). Anything cheaper, and it sounds like crap, because it's low-end.

Besides, when you're at a concert, you don't sit in the middle of the stage, so the only source of sound is from the front. That would mean that there is exactly no point in recording surround-sound audio CDs. It's a marketing measure, if anything.

And to the poor shmucks who listen to music on a satellite-subwoofer combo: I hope you don't ever come near a high-end audio system. If you do, you will probably realize that your system totally sucks, and will have to replace at least two of those speakers (and probably the amp). There is quite a bit of very tangible difference. Sort of like the difference between a 128k MP3 and the real uncompressed file.

A primer on surround - Texas Style!

[teamhasnoi]

Wendy Carlos was into surround back in 'the day'. Here is a link detailing all the different 'surrounds' there are. A good read on a cool site.

OT: Just say "Texas Style!" after everything you say. It's fun, and it confuses the hell out of people. Texas Style!

Works on many ordinary CD players too

[Namarrgon]

Not only can you burn surround AC-3 or DTS audio onto a standard CD-R, you may not even need a DVD player to play it back :-)

If you have a CD player with a digital output, and that is connected to a surround-decoding amplifier, chances are that'll play it back just fine. I burned a CD with various bitrate AC-3 tracks mixed with DTS tracks (CD-Text too), and stuck it in my 300-disc Sony CD jukebox. The signal was piped into my Yamaha surround receiver, and played it back perfectly - even scrolled the filenames by on the CD player's display. Very cool, listening to surround sound from a standard CD player.

That got me thinking - perhaps I could encode all my CDs down to 192 Kbps 2-channel AC-3 files, and squeeze much more music onto each CD. Load up the jukebox & get 7 weeks of uninterrupted audio...

'Cept it didn't work, of course - in order to play back on a standard CD player, the compressed AC-3 file has to be padded out to ordinary redbook audio rates - it takes the same amount of disc space. Still only ~80 minutes of audio, regardless of encoding.

Never mind - I'll encode my whole MP3 collection into AC-3 files, then burn a standard DVD (with still images & a lot of music) on my nifty DVD+RW drive. I can still fit many hundreds of hours on a single disc that way. Too bad I don't have a jukebox DVD player...

And, of course, I can still rip my Luc Besson - Atlantis DVD's soundtrack onto a DTS surround CD, and replace the humble 2-channel CD soundtrack I have in the jukebox with full 5.1 audio :-)