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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.
What does AC-3 have to do with DVD-Audio? DVD-Audio uses Meridian Lossless Packing, not Dolby Digital. The DVD-Audio disc may also have an AC-3 or (preferably) DTS track for backward compatibility, but the main mode is MLP.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
At this point, where everyone with a computer and a CD burner are considered potential thieves, I don't think it changes the light in which anti-piracy advocates view computer users. It couldn't possibly get any worse!
Calm down, it's *only* ones and zeroes.
ok, so when does DVD flop and movies start coming on 2 CD's, one for video and one for audio? My CD changer becomes my movie player..
Will this technology usher a new type of online piracy when DVD-Audio and surround sound systems become more commonplace?
Then we have the comment from chrisd:
While this is only audio, it is a good step in the right direction.
Yeah, finding new ways to easily pirate software is a step in the right direction. Wrong. Getting the manufactures and owners of such technology to start believing that not all people are theives and they can allow open standards to exist to allow copying for backups, personal use such as having a copy of said music in my car player; while in my house; or at work is a step in the right direction. All this will do is piss off the RIAA/MPAA, they'll lobby for stricter laws, and we're back here again.
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
From the article:
Dolby has officially advised me that this CD-AC3 disc should not be used as a master for CD duplication or public distribution since there's no safeguards against someone playing it back in an audio CD player. But it's a great method for making one-off test mixes. I've considered added a standard audio disclaimer on track 1 that says something like "This disc contains Dolby Digital data. Do not play in a standard CD player or speaker damage can result".
Could you think of a better gift for those you don't love?
Or will it be gagged as being in violation of the DMCA?
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Net geeks
there's no need to feel guilt
I said, net geeks
for the software you built
I said, net geeks
cause you're not in the wrong
there's no need to feel unhappy
Net geeks
you can burn a CD
I said, net geeks
with your fave MP3s
you can play them
in your home or your car
many ways to take them real far!
It's fun to violate the D M C A!
It's fun to violate the D M C A-AY!
you have everything
you need to enjoy
your music with your toys!
It's fun to violate the D M C A!
It's fun to violate the D M C A-ay!
you can archive your tunes!
you can share over cable!
you can annoy the record labels!
Here is the link. Wait like two minutes so I can get my copy.
Go to a friend's house who has an annoyingly loud car stereo that he keeps cranked at 11 all of the time booming some bass. Slip your "Phat bass remix" into his DVD player and show him the good stuff. Then say "you can keep the CD" next thing you know, he slides it into his (clarion/kenwood/eclipse whatever) car stereo that cost more than his car. And blows his eardrums with straight undecoded ac3. Just like he blows your eardrums with his bass while you are in his car.
Does anyone know if this works on Macs? At $12 a disc, making test DVD's gets expensive really quickly.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
This has been out for over a year, maybe two. Oddly enough, I was just doing this last night. There's several programs that will do this, in fact there's a program that will do this in one easy step as opposed to SoftEncode...
u re .html
/ li nk46.html
.vob's here:
t al-digest.com/dvd/downloads/traile rs.html
:)
u necity.com/jabba/220/miniDVD. htmld vd_con vert_minidvd.html
http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/downloads/bes
"This program allows a direct conversion from VOB/AC3 to CD, using BeSweet (freeware) and SurCode DTS (for DTS-CDs : commercial-ware)!! Makes AC3-CDs, DTS-CDs and standard CDDA discs. "
This is way cool. I took my roomate's Dave Matthews DVD, popped it through this program, and out came a burned CD in either DTS-CD, DD5.1, or regular CD. Way cool, and perfectly legal as far as I'm concerned. I'm making a backup and/or transfering the media to a different format.
And the original article was published here:
http://www.modernrecording.com/articles/soundav
quite some time ago.
Better than that, you can burn mini-dvd's on to a CD. There are several programs that will burn the ISO DVD directory structure on to a regular CD. This comes in handy for say, when I took my roomate's NIN DVD in DTS, and extracted the DTS track, and burned that onto a dvd-cd. The DTS track is a perfect 550mb. How cool is that. Also good for burning DD5.1/THX trailers onto a CD to take to the home theater shops to test out their systems. You can get full blown
http://dvdgsm.free.fr/vob.html
http://www.digi
I have my copy with 12 different trailers, including the simpsons THX one. It doesn't work in all players, you need to test them out.
Fun programs to have:
Surcode DTS encoder
Sonic Foundry Soft Encode
Gear Pro CD/DVD burner
Scenarist NT dvd authoring program (it's a $39,000 program which can be used to make menus like the Matrix DVD)
vobrator
DVDDecrypter
websites to visit:
doom9.org
apachez.has.it
http://tatooine.fort
http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/articles/
and of course #pcdvd on efnet.
Most folk'll never lose a toe, and then again some folk'll...
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.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
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.
http://www.doom9.org contains lots of information and tools to work with AC3 plus DVD, MP3 etc. The tools are mainly for expert users as they are mostly commandline only. Althought some of them come with GUI wrappers, I am not sure if they are much help as they are perfect examples of GUI from hell (no offends!). They will get the job done if you are willing to commit quite a bit of time.
Of course if you don't have a good decoder/speakers don't waste your time on AC3.
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
If you want to refer to violation of copyright law, then please call it what it is.
Vorbis (ogg) makes a binary data stream. AC3 makes an encoded sound. That sound comes out of any system that can record and playback sound (standard compact disc, LaserDisc, etc.), and if that sound ends up in an AC3 surround processor, you get 5.1 music out.
You can put an AC3 disc into a CD player, and play it straight out (not recommended, hard on speakers). All you'll hear are sounds like a modem chatting.
-twb
I've done a considerable amount of testing 5.1 formats on CD-R and DVD-R (and variations). Yes, AC3 can be WAV-padded to look like a PCM audio file and subsequently put onto a red book CD-DA disc, but I've found that most older AC3 decoders don't understand the reverse bit-order format.
On the flip side, WAV-padded DTS does work on all DTS decoders, as it was included in the format from the beginning.
Additionally, DTS is a better format because it is fixed-rate 4:1 compression, as opposed to AC3's variable 12:1.
Jory
OT: Just say "Texas Style!" after everything you say. It's fun, and it confuses the hell out of people. Texas Style!
"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?"
Ok, how many DVDs do you have in your library? You own them, right? For the most part, this isn't really disputed. Those DVD have all the music associated with the movie. In effect, I'd like to argue that you own the soundtrack to that movie. So since I effectively own the music to the movie on DVD, I should be able to download it off the internet without violating any copyrights. Unless the version were vastly different from the one I already paid for on DVD (and yes, I did pay for every track used in the movie, since all that production cost is wrapped up in the price of the DVD), there is no reason why I should have to pay for a totally seperate audio CD I paid for the music and movie once, and now I have to pay just as much for only the music? How does this make sense again? Don't worry, it's just how they expect you to pay full price when you switch to a new format even though you already have the song in a previous format. Why am I paying for another licence when I should only be paying for the price of the new media itself? Because they are just as big a pirate as they claim we are.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Obviously you can't get that many minutes of video on a CD with reasonable compression, but that's OK. They're a useful way of shipping little video clips and demo reels around. I want to put my own computer animation demos on them, rather than having VHS tapes duplicated in bulk.
I know, not all DVD players will play them. Anybody have a current list of which ones will?
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
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
You might want to try Robitussin. Or peyote.
It's TRUE! You do look like a total jackass!
Right now, a DVD mastering station is about as expensive as CD-R recorders were 5 years ago. That is, they cost ten's of thousands of dollars for the hardware and software.
I guess this guy hasn't heard of the iMac.
Happy to be of service. :)
Most 5.1 channel mixes are done using simple pairwise panning between two adjacent speakers to place the sound sources around you. This may be OK for movie effects but not for capturing the spatial nuances of a recording venue.
Ambisonics is a true 3D audio recording format. It is composed of 4 components: X, Y, Z and W that may be captured by the Soundfield Microphone or synthesized by audio ray tracing of the virtual venue.
The four components of the Ambisonics B format are a mathematical decomposition of the 3D sound wavefront at a point in space and are not directly related to any particular speaker placement. It may be decoded using simple linear operations into any speaker configuration. The 3D fidelity of the playback will depend on the number and placement of the speakers.
Note that 5.1 audio is still just 2D. The equivalent Ambisonics format would require only the W, X and Y components. With an additional top speaker you could feel the height of the concert hall in an Ambisonics recording.
One of the problems with Ambisonics is the chicken-and-egg problem - lack of enough media and playback equipment.
The significance of this is that AC3 on CD-R could let more people experiment with Ambisonics - the W, X and Y channels will be pre-decoded to a typical 5.1 speaker placement configuration. The AC3 should probably be recorded at the maximum quality setting of 640kbps. The resulting disk can be played back on any home theater system.
The Z channel can be somehow also stored on the disk so an Ambisonics-aware decoder could get full 3D audio. 3 of the 5 channels can be linearly combined to get back the W, X and Y channel and together with the Z channel you can decode it to any speaker configuration.
There is one particular speaker configuration that makes Ambisonics much easier to understand: imagine 8 speakers at the points of a cube. The W channel is fed to all speakers in the same polarity. The X channel is fed to the 4 right speakers with positive polarity and 4 left speakers with negative polarity. The Y channel is fed to the 4 front speakers with positive polarity and 4 back speakers with negative polarity. By now you can probably guess how the Z channel is connected.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Etymologically, you are absolutely correct. However, the modern meaning of the word "piracy" (when used in this context) refers to actions that aren't strictly copyright violations. For example circumnavigating region encoding on DVDs is covered by fair use rights and is thus not a "copyright violation" but is "piracy" none-the-less.
It seems that it is the RIAA's intention to criminilise (in the minds of the public as well as the government) actions that would otherwise not be considered "crimes" if "copyright violation" was used in favour of "piracy". As mentioned by Sanity in the original post, this is literally new-speak.
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.
DVD-Audio disc: $20
Satellite-subwoofer combo: $600
High-end audio system: $20,000+
Not being an elitist, audiophile prick, so you can't tell the difference: Priceless!
"And like that
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.
Have you ever been to a concert? There's ALWAYS some asshole behind you talking loudly to his buddy while you're trying to enjoy the music.
With surround-sound audio, that experience can be accurately recreated!
What's the point of stereo, anyway? All the sound is coming from a single point -- the stage! Maybe there's a PA system with a big speaker at each end of the stage, but chances are the same signal (or close to it) is coming out of both speakers, so that the balance is the same no matter where in the venue you're seated.
The sole purpose of recorded audio should NOT be to accurately reproduce the experience of being at a concert (what ever that is).
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.
I hope so too, because it would probably mean I would have to get a lecture on fidelity from the insufferable asshole that owns the system.
Our "low-end" systems are good enough for us "poor shmucks". We're happy. Leave us alone.
Sure it's usually edited. But the the producers had to commision the artists to produce the entire song, which is factored into the movie production budget whose cost in it's entirety is passed on through the DVD, distrubted via 100,000s of copies. This cost is also defrayed by movie-goers at the theaters, who's primary job is not to sell you tickets, but popcorn and condiments. In fact, that is the entire reason hollywood exists-- To sell you food. And you think I'm joking. Nope. In any case, since all that cost is a package deal with the DVD I bought, I own the soundtrack to that DVD. Why pay for it twice when you've already paid for it once? And believe me, you have paid for it.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
You can get good surround effects from conventional stereo by placing your speakers to your left and right, where your ears are, not in front of you, where your eyes are. After all, we listen to sounds, we don't look at them. Try it sometime. Maybe you won't need to make Dolby AC3 CDs.
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Can break bones -- all kids are taught that lesson / rhyme at a very early age!
Ever watched the Wizard of Oz and listened to Dark Side of The Moon?
;-)
Just synch the too up before you drop
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This is what dts does theatrically; the soundtrack is on CD, and is synced with the film going through the projector.
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