CREATE UP TO 40 CD's ON ONE DVD-VIDEO

[nerdboy69]

I have been mucking about for the past few weeks, converting my CD collection on to DVD. Why? Just because I can, that's why!

Everyone who sees/hears them, wants to know how I did it, so rather than send lots of e-mails, I thought I would add as a guide and post them a link.

Software used:
- Your favourite audio capture software. I use a convoluted combo of:
- + dbPowerAMP (to capture to WAV 48KHz),
- + WinAMP (with Plug-in to Merge into single WAV)
- + TMPGEnc (convert to mpa), or BeSweet or the Scenarist AC-3 Encoder (convert to AC3).
- DVD Workshop (for no other reason than to create the DVD Menu image and sub-picture)
- DVD Maestro (or Scenarist if you are a masochist)
- Your favourite video editor (to create your m2v video stream). Eg. TMPGEnc

Warning: This guide is more conceptual than specific. No screen images or references to specific settings. It assumes you already know how to use the software referred to.

Here is what I do:


1. CREATING THE AUDIO STREAMS

We need to convert each audio CD to a AC3 (or mpa if you prefer) stream. ie. One CD becomes one AC3 audio stream. I prefer AC3 above mpa, purely because some DVD Players are fussy and don't like DVD's that aren't fully book compliant (ie. first track should be AC3 or LPCM). If you only ever use players that cope, then knock-yourself-out and just use mpa if you want.

If you are unsure how to do this, then this is one way. I am sure there are easier and more efficient methods, but hey, it works so don't knock it.

a. Use dbPowerAMP (or whatever) to RIP the CD to individual 48KHz WAV files. dbPowerAMP is free and fast. Use the highest bit rate allowable.

b. Then I configure WinAMP plug-in such that the output is a single WAV 48 kHz WAV file (again, highest bit rate possible to keep quality up). Drag all the ripped songs from step a. into WinAMP, and press Play. It should hoot along and produce a single WAV file for you. Once done, rename the output to something sensible. Eg. Tool-Aenima.WAV

You can delete your original ripped WAV files. You don't need them anymore.

The beauty of WinAMP for this stage is that your source could be MP3's or a combo of whatever, and you just drag-and-drop and press play. Only thing is that if the source is not already a 48kHz stream, it may be slow.

c. Use your favourite audio encoder to convert your WAV file to a AC3 stream (or use TMPEnc to convert the WAV to a mpa stream if you prefer).


2. CREATE YOUR m2v/m1v VIDEO STREAMS.

Not going to say much on this step, other than the purpose of this exercise is to have reasonable quality audio, so keep the video bit-rate down.

As a guide, if you want 24-odd CD's to fit on one DVD-R, then stick to equivalent of VCD (eg. PAL 352x288 @ 1150kbps). Please be aware, however, that to be fully Book compliant that VCD resolutions should be kept in MPEG1 format.

If you want 40-odd, then go extreme (eg. PAL 352x288 @ 434 kbps). Yes, it will be blocky and pixelate, but if you choose slow moving pictures (which is typically all you need for background to music) you might be surprised at how reasonably it turns out.


3. CREATE YOUR MENU BITMAP AND SUB-PICTURE

The fastest and easiest way I have found to achieve reasonable results with minimal pain is to use something like DVD Workshop. Here is how I cheat:

- Create a new Project

- Add a really-really-really short video into it

- Paint my menu using DVDWS nice friendly interface. Typically I just make them all text so you can list all the CD titles on one menu, but if I want screen images of videos, I temporarily add the video to the project and take snapshots of the frames I want and remove the video again. Then use those images as buttons which then link to my really-really-really short video.

- Make sure all menu objects link to something, otherwise the subpicture won't include them.

- Save the Project and Generate the DVD image to HD. Should be very fast if your video was really-really-really short.

- Go to the target folder in Explorer, and steal the menu bitmap and sub-picture is generously created for you in the ~menutemp sub-folder.

- Keep this project in readiness for whenever you need to do the same sort of thing so it will be even faster to do next time.


4. USE DVD MAESTRO TO BRING THEM ALL TOGETHER

Add your AC3/mpa audio files, m2v/m1v videos and bitmaps to DVD Maestro.
Create a "movie" for each m2v/m1v, and then madly drag in each of the AC3/mpa streams as languages. Try to group them by genre/artist, so when you swap languages during playback you don't swap from Metallica to Kylie. Keeping longer CD's together also helps. Crop the video length to that of the longest audio stream.

For your menu buttons, map them to the appropriate movie, and then modify the button setting so it maps to the appropriate language number. Do this even if it is language 1, otherwise the DVD Player remembers the previous language and will default from a previous menu selection.

Note that being fussy on chapter times is pointless as each CD will start new songs at different points, so I just set chapter marks every 3 minutes regardless. It can be a good idea to set a chapter mark at the end of each audio stream so you can set the end action of that chapter to return to the menu (or play next CD) so it does not play silence until the end of the video portion.

Don't forget to map the menu navigation (which sh*ts me to tears, because I always forget and it does not warn) and set your first play and start menu stuff before compiling.


5 JUST PLAY IT LOUD, OK.

Remember to test first (play on hard disk or burn to rewritable).

I have created a DVD with 40 CD's @192kbps successfully, but I typically stick to about 24 CD's so I can keep the video quality at about VCD level.

Eg.
I created a DVD with every commercial Pink Floyd CD (24 of them when doubles are included) and still had room to include the movie, "The Wall" as a 4th video stream when I encoded all at 1150kbps with audio at 192kbps AC3's.


It really freaks people out when you put on a background DVD (I call it my fish-tank, because I typically use video from The Blue Planet BBC series) and bring up a menu full of selections. They immediately assume they are individual songs rather than entire CD's.

I hope someone gets use out of this.

Cheers,

NerdBoy

[tobyed2]

Software used:
- Your favourite audio capture software. I use a convoluted combo of:
- + dbPowerAMP (to capture to WAV 48KHz),
- + WinAMP (with Plug-in to Merge into single WAV)
- + TMPGEnc (convert to mpa) or the Scenarist AC-3 Encoder (convert to AC3).
- DVD Workshop (for no other reason than to create the DVD Menu image and sub-picture)
- DVD Maestro (or Scenarist if you are a masochist)
- Your favourite video editor (to create your m2v video stream). Eg. TMPGEnc

Yea this looks good, I'll give this a go, though can anyone suggest an equivalent for DVD Maestro (which is unavailable) and er no I haven't got $15,000 burning a hole in my pocket for Scenarist just for a bunch of music discs to be put on DVD ...

[nerdboy69]

Yes, I am interested in feedback from people on alternative software.

Especially in terms of native AC3 handling and conversion and multiple language tracks.

[namrehs]

Have you guy heard of DVD Architect from Sonic Foundry?
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=810

It's (apparently) been integrated into a new product.

Anway, you can add anything to the main menu you're creating. Meaning configurable slide shows and what they call a "Music Album". This is a 99 chapter (basically chapter markers for each seperate audio file) video file that it generates.

Basically you just drag/drop in any wav files and it automatically creates a tiny video file to accompany the audio that displays the title. You can set the bitrate for the video and the audio is standard AC3 (maybe 384 kBps - it's not configurable).

I was able to create 7 menus titles, each with 99 songs each. It was around 650 songs total with each songs being around 4 minutes each.

It's pretty great and all you have to do is convert the files to wav first (dbpoweramp works great) and drag them into the window and it creates the titles (which are completely configurable).

It's the easiest program I've found to create Multimedia DVD's with video, slide shows and music albums together - and it compresses the audio to AC3 so you'll have a bit more space than usual even if the video bitrate is high.

I hope this helps someone.

[nerdboy69]

Nope. Haven't investigated it (DVD Architect) before.

May have to take a peek at it. One of the big downers of the process I have been using is the amount of time it takes to go through the whole process.

Thanks for the tip.

[kalinkaa]

Hi all!

My notes and questions:

- i use Exact Audio Copy for creating WAV file (it can create one WAV for entire CD and a CUE sheet containg index information) and then SSRC_HP to convert WAV to 48 kHz
- why don't you make a BLANK video file? (PAL 352x288 @ 120 /!!/ kbps)


- if you use a blank DVD:
overall capacity: 4,700,000,000
authoring overhead: -150,000,000
-----------------
(A) 4,550,000,000

in your EXTREME example:
audio kbps 192
video kbps 434
-----
summa kbps 626
kbyte/sec 78
kbyte/min (B) 4695

Capacity of a blank DVD in minutes (A/B) is 970 minutes (24 x 40 minutes) this is only 24 CD and NOT 40: ???

I made some DVD-s (up to 360 mins per DVD) with WAV (PCM) files and blank videos (120 kbps, PAL, 352x288) (nearly /sample rate conversion/ exact copy of the original ones) but i looking forward to use Sonic's DVD-Audio Creator because my Panasonic RA-61 is DVD-A capable and this way i have EXACT copies of my original CD-s on DVD. Has anyone tryed it yet??

[nerdboy69]

- i use Exact Audio Copy for creating WAV file (it can create one WAV for entire CD and a CUE sheet containg index information) and then SSRC_HP to convert WAV to 48 kHz

Haven't used "Exact Audio Copy". Might have to give it a go if I create single audio streams if the Cue sheet is easily changed to chapter marking details. Only useful for single audio stream, but still handy.

- why don't you make a BLANK video file? (PAL 352x288 @ 120 /!!/ kbps)

Go for it. Should allow you to get 48 CD's on without too much hassle. I am partial to some visuals, but they aren't necessary, so go low as possible with a blank picture. I only chose 434kbps because it was as low as my software was willing to encode at, but I can find no mention of the DVD specification for a minimum bit rate.

Capacity of a blank DVD in minutes (A/B) is 970 minutes (24 x 40 minutes) this is only 24 CD and NOT 40: ???

I'm sorry, but I think you missed the main point of my whole guide, which was to entice people to make use of the 8 audio streams available to each video stream. If you take this into account then the bitrate calculation is:

Video: 434 kbps
Audio: 192 x 8 = 1536 kbps
Total Video + 8 x Audio: 1970 kbps
Average Rate for each CD: 1970 / 8 = 246 kbps
kbyte/sec: 31
kbyte/min (B): 1847

So (A/B) will work out to well over 2400 minutes or 60 CD's by your choice of 40min/CD. Most of mine are more like 60min/CD, which is where my 40 CD's comes from.

Sonic's DVD-Audio Creator because my Panasonic RA-61 is DVD-A capable and this way i have EXACT copies of my original CD-s on DVD. Has anyone tryed it yet??

Nope. For the moment my experimentation on this has ended as I have my full collection on DVD. When I rack up another 20+ CD's I will consider making a newey.



Thanks for the ideas.

[tygrus2000]

Umm, hate to tell you this, but you went to way too much work on this project. WinOnCd DVD Ed. will make a DVD Music Album using MP2 audio converted from wav or mp3. Just drag and drop to the workspace, then set it off encoding for a few hours and you are done. About 700 songs on one is possible and you get a menu style interface and individual track info.

Tygrus

[nerdboy69]

Good. There needs to be software to simplify this process. All very well if you own it, of course.

Does anyone know of other products?

[mustang581]

I don't want to start a discussion on this but, maybe get some clarification on what kind of format is Created by Winoncd DVD ED.
I use Winoncd 5 PE and also create Music Albums but these are created as VCD's, I guess I could write these to a DVD and get more music on them but it would still be a VCD on a DVD.
In order for these to play on your player it has to support VCD playback, so this not the same as creating A DVD with audio as mentioned in this guide.
By the way this looks like a good guide.

[LouJr]

Hi gang!
Someone mentioned a winamp plugin which would append the wav files into one long wav. Can someone tell me where to find this plugin? I've checked the nullsoft website and forums and can't seem to locate it.

Thanks in advance!

Lou

[nerdboy69]

It is there somewhere. I got it form their site donkeys-years ago.

Shows as "Nullsoft Disk Writer plug-in 2.0c" within WinAMP preferences, but I am sure it has a more recent release by now.
When you configure it, it has a "single file mode" pane within the window which you can activate. If you don't, it will create individual files.

Note that I use WinAMP 2.xx, not 3.xx, so who knows what it will be called there.

[LouJr]

Thanks! I found it in Winamp 2.8. However, it doesn't appear to be in Winamp 3.0.

Lou

[Lounger]

step A and B can be done in once with Eaxact Audio Copy (EAC).
this program also creates a cuesheet with track-times so you could easialy create chapters.....

only one thing, i can't find how to rip to 48kHz

[Cornucopia]

If you already have Maestro (legally, of course), you should know that you don't need to waste valuable disc real estate by putting in moving video. Just do a "slideshow" type disc, using stills with underlying video. It "plays" the picture for the length of the audio, yet just stores the single still frame. You could do this in the "title/movie" domain (with chapters) or in the "menu" domain.

In this way, I don't really see a need to do the "multiple languages" thing.

Scott

[Paco M.]

Hi,

In my opinion an only audio DVD with hundreds of songs has a lot of interest but also some problems:

1. Random access to individual themes can be little confortable
2. Still images on TV, could "burnt" TV tube
3. Authoring can be difficult

A couple of years ago I tested WinOnCD 5 VCD Music Album and I found it not compatible with several DVD players. I hope newer versions have less problems. But I have not checked it.

So I tried another procedure and you can see the result in my VideoCD Audio and VideoCD Audio + Stills authoring guides at the site:
http://www.digital-digest.com/dvd/articles/index.html

I hope you to find them useful. Bye

Paco