DVD-Audio on PC's? 14
DarkEdgeX asks: "I've been looking, admittedly for a brief period, for a player that will work with DVD-ROM drives to play DVD-Audio discs through a PC (any platform, Win32, Linux, etc). Does such a thing exist, free or otherwise? I know that DVD-Video players can play the audio tracks encoded for Dolby 5.1, but it doesn't get to the better quality sound that's embedded in the AUDIO-TS subdirectory on DVD-Audio, it just reads the VIDEO-TS files. (In fact, from what I've read, DVD-Audio discs often do this for compatibilities sake, otherwise the only directory on a DVD-Audio disc that's really needed is AUDIO-TS.) Finally, are there any *technical* differences between DVD-Audio players and DVD-ROM's in so far as hardware is concerned? (A home DVD-Audio player from Pioneer, retail anyways, goes for $2000-3000!)"
A couple possible technical differences (Score:5)
2) Bandwidth: I wish I knew where my DVD drive manual was right now, because I don't feel like slogging through Creative's site. DVD-Audio has a higher bandwidth limit than DVD-Video; 9.6 Mb/s as opposed to 6.144 Mb/s. A slightly better laser is necessary (I think; I'm extrapolating from what I know of the format), and the data path coming out of the drive needs to be able to handle 9.6 Mb/s of data coming down the pipe. IDE and SCSI might handle this without sneezing; I'm not going to take completely wild guesses without studying the docs.
3) MLP and SMART: Meridian Lossless Packing is a wunderbar compression scheme that allows for more music to be packed on the disc and through the data stream. A decoder for this is necessary. As well, there's a downmixing scheme called SMART (again, don't ask when I don't have the docs in front of me) that attempts to mix multiple channels into a stereo mix. I'm not sure of anyone actually using this - who wants to trust the computer with your high-end audio mixes? - but it's necessary in DVD-Audio players.
CSS2, MLP and SMART decoding might be possible within software, but it would take a nice high-end chip, or, a dedicated DVD-Audio card with the firmware to handle that decoding. The "normal" DVD-Audio streams are Linear PCM, the same stuff on CDs, only at much higher bitrates, sampling rates, and with multiple channels. As you said, the Dolby 5.1/DTS tracks are there for compatibility. I've heard little to nothing about DVD-Audio-capable DVD-ROMs, simply because it's seen as an audiophile format at this point. Most people get off on two channel stereo CDs.
I find it unfortunate most people my age (around 21) think Mp3 and CD are as good as it gets, and having "theater-quality" sound is left to the theaters and a few insane audiophiles. I'm working with a group on a DVD-Audio project composed of all original music by a series of Canadian groups, and we're all in our early twenties. I've heard DVD-Audio in all its glory, and it's worth the investment in equipment if you're even a borderline audiophile. The competing format SACD is also a worthy option, especially if you want to have discs you can let your non-audiophile friends borrow, although they won't get the superior SACD sound.
Re:A couple possible technical differences (Score:3)
Re:A couple possible technical differences (Score:2)
Problems with pulling this off (Score:2)
The RIAA got really antsy after the whole MP3/Napster incident, and decided that they were going to attempt to subvert any of those problems this time around. As such, DVD-A players will not output DVD-A in a Digital format (at least not any of the DVD-A players I've seen or read about). The setup goes something like this: Look on the back of any old DVD-A player in the high-end stereo shop. They will have 6 analog outputs, and (if they're a DVD Video player as well) a TOSLink (fiber) or Coax-Digital output. The Digital out will only function with the audio for video (the movie's sound), the audio (from an audio DVD) will not be output from the digital out. The Audio is instead separately decoded inside of the DVD-A player, and output in analog format to the recevier, which then treats it as if it were any old analog source. This whole setup was devised to keep the consumer from having easy access to the pure digital stream in order to record it.
What this translates into is simply that there will probably not be a commercially available solution anytime in the near future to play DVD-A in a computer. The simple fact that there isn't a feasible way to get the audio to a decoder card that would be able to interpret it and output the 6 analog channels. What would then logically be required would be some sort of hack, a way to decode the signal using software, and then output it using a sound card capable of 5.1 output.
This is, of course, very frustrating to everyone involved with these products. One of the favorite products for our company to sell was Bose sound equipment (not for the quality, but because the markup is so outrageous, and it's an easy sale to uninformed yuppies), and complete Bose systems (their lifestyle series) do not have 6 channel analog input for externally decoded 5.1. Thus, DVD-A would not function at all on a Bose system.
On a completely alternate note, JVC sells a DVD-Audio/Progressive Scan DVD-Video player for around US$400, and it's easily located. Any Best Buy or Circuit City carries the unit. I haven't listened to it at all (since neither store carries DVD-A discs to demo the product), but I can tell you that a world of difference can be made with these products depending upon the patch cables you use for hookup. Invest in 3 good pairs of high-end stereo patch cable, or ask your local audiophile shop for a 6 channel analog patch cable setup.
-Chris Canter
Re:A couple possible technical differences (Score:1)
Re:Problems with pulling this off (Score:2)
Seriously people, the way to go here is less digital-to-analog in the path, not more. Just about every consumer reciever now has (crappy) ADC and DAC, DVD players all have dedicated DAC for video and some have it for audio too. Digital set top boxes (Tivo) and VCRs (MiniDV, DVHS) do too. CD transports usually have the DAC built in too.
Wouldn't it be a better world if you could buy one unit to do audio and video? It would save the serious electronics buyer at least a couple thousand in equiptment costs, not to mention if you wanted to upgrade your audio/video decoder you could do it once for ALL your equiptment instead of buying a new DVD/VCR/CD/etc.
Re:A couple possible technical differences (Score:1)
where did you get those numbers? (Score:1)
Re:A couple possible technical differences (Score:3)
I find it unfortunate most people my age (around 21) think Mp3 and CD are as good as it gets, and having "theater-quality" sound is left to the theaters and a few insane audiophiles.
This is all very well (and I agree with you that digital audio does get better than CD) but the key thing to remember is that unless you have thousands of dollars worth of other audio equipment and much time invested in making your listening environment acoustically pleasing, the enhanced quality that DVD-Audio and SACD bring is pointless. The wonderfully crisp high-end and reduction in quantization noise gets completely buried in class-A transistor amp mush and funky reverberation modes of the listening room. Thus, until cheap (sub-$1k) audio hardware gets significantly better and your average Joe becomes interested in acoustically reshaping his living room, DVD-Audio and SACD will stay as obscure audiophile formats.
This is to say nothing of the fact that most recording studio equipment is nowhere near the quality required for recording these new formats properly - in a typical studio the best digital audio recorders they have are 20-bit, 48kHz ADATs...
The reason CD succeeded tape and vinyl is because your typical guy could hear the difference, with amplifiers and speakers that they already owned. In the early days of CD very few recordings were done digitally, but a recording done on quarter-inch reel-to-reel tape still sounds an awful lot better mastered onto CD than it does on cassette tape. SACD and DVD-Audio require both better audio hardware than the average guy has and better recording equipment than the average studio has to even begin to notice the difference.
The multi-channels are good though, and if DVD-Audio especially is ever going to make it mainstream, then it should be that which the marketers focus on rather than the quality aspects.
Re:Problems with pulling this off (Score:2)
This completely did not occur to me when I made my earlier post on the problems preventing DVD-A from becoming part of PC DVD drives. At first I figured the decryption would take place in a decoder card...until I recalled that CSS/CSS2 do nothing to prevent copying, only access. Feed an encrypted file through the decoder, hello clean digital audio bitstream, goodbye MPAA argument about CSS being a "copy control".
This was a major sore point among some engineers at a conference I attended. During a panel discussion in the last hour, a couple engineers took time to poke at the record industry's paranoia, with one guy going off on a 5-minute rant about how the content providers were doing seemingly everything possible to piss off audiophiles and hurt the acceptance of high-end audio in order to protect their property from any form of copying at any cost. The bit about "no digital audio outputs" was especially galling, in the face of attempts to preserve the quality of the audio itself at every opportunity. The feeling I got was that the labels were making it almost worthless for studios to take time making tracks as crystal-clear as possible if the whole effect would be tanked by a cheap builtin DAC.
IMO, the record industry has really dropped the ball on promoting either SACD or DVD-A. The studios got behind DVD-V and hyped it to the heavens, enough that a lot of people didn't take notice of the access and pricing controls until they started to bite people in the ass. The RIAA is raking it in on CD sales, which most people are happy with (or even less, thank you MP3:), I guess they figure it isn't worth their time/money to cater to audiophiles' wants and needs, even if the tech may trickle down to Joe Average Home Theatre Owner.
Side note: I met a couple recording engineers at a nearby studio last week. They lamented the fact that what was once considered "midrange" facilities (in their case, a 56-channel analog board, nice 24-track analog reel-to-reels, 48-track digital recorders, Pro Tools, a $30 000 Sony digital board, all the fixins) is now considered "high-end" - the standards have apparently receded in the past five years. I guess no one is an audio junkie anymore...bad news for my future:)
Re:A couple possible technical differences (Score:1)
> recording studio equipment is nowhere near the
>quality required for recording these new formats
>properly - in a typical studio the best digital
>audio recorders they have are 20-bit, 48kHz ADATs
24-bit recording is pretty widespread, at least in live recording. But I agree that it's nowhere near 192kHz. Although that is simply a case of better a/d to improve the sampling rate and store 4 times more data. But there needs to be more people demanding this higher quality, better than CD's.
I think as more people use a computer as the basis of the entertainment systems, enabling DVD-Audio discs on computers goes a long way. Key is to have external high-quality D/A converter for playback...
Re:where did you get those numbers? (Score:2)
Will it *really* play the DVD-Audio content, or is it actually playing the information stored in the video section of the DVD? Most DVD-Audio discs have Dolby 5.1 audio stored in the *video* section of the disc so that incompatible DVD players won't completely choke on the DVD-Audio only format.
As for where I retrieved those numbers, you can check out one of Pioneer's DVD-Audio player, the DV-AX10, at this URL: http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pioneer/CDA/Home Products/HomeProductDetails/0,1422,2092,00.html [pioneerelectronics.com] or you can check out their "Elite" model DVD-Audio (and video) player, the DV-38A at this URL: http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pioneer/CDA/Home Products/HomeProductDetails/0,1422,2060,00.html [pioneerelectronics.com] (and see prices via StreetPrices.com at http://www.streetprices.com/Computers/search.pl?qu ery=DV-38A [streetprices.com], as of this writing, the price is $997, a fair shake off of the retail of $2,200).
And I was wrong, they want $6,000 for their first model right off the bat, but I'm sure the street price is probably half that (I can't find the first model I listed on StreetPrices though, so, shrug..).
Anyways, the reason I'm interested is 1) because I'm curious if DVD-Audio is possible on PC DVD-ROM drives and 2) I'm curious if there's cheaper solutions that still let you get at the real DVD-Audio and not the Dolby 5.1 stored in the Video area. Dolby 5.1 is probably a step above CD quality, but full blown DVD Audio (from what I've heard and read) is far better in quality than either of those alternatives.
BTW: To the other posters on this story-- thanks for your information, it's been educational and interesting. Thanks! =)
Re:A couple possible technical differences (Score:3)
I now see where my error came from.
After doing some more digging through specs and FAQs, yes, the DVD-Video max bitrate is 10.08 Mbps. The normal max audio bitrate is 3.1 Mbps. However, there is a non-standard digital PCM audio output available in DVD-Video that can produce 24 bit, 96 kHz, running at - wait for it! - 6.144 Mbps. *That* explains where I got that bitrate from; I originally heard it at a conference on DVD-Audio/SACD in reference to "maximum bitrate;" although I should have known being at an audio conference, it wasn't specified that this referred to audio bitrate only.
Sidenote from the DVD FAQ; the CSS license doesn't allow for digital output of CSS-protected PCM streams at 96 MHz; the player must downsample to 48. The inability to legally get digital PCM audio output at high bitrates was a sore point among the engineers I heard from at said conference. Try to find a DVD-Audio player that will give you digital PCM outputs. Good luck, and get ready to shake your head in disbelief:)
Anyway, yeah, now that I look back over the notes, it should be possible to support DVD-Audio in software using existing DVD-ROM drives. However, it would require at least some software rewrites, and possibly a lot of large rewrites due to the completely different processes a DVD-Audio stream goes through during decoding. There's the need to support the things I mentioned above (CSS2, MLP, SMART, and of course you need to pay licenses for those:), among other things I can't imagine I missed. There isn't any decoding hardware available (that I know of) for DVD-Audio streams like there is for DVD-Video that incorporate the above decoders, so the audio on slow machines (ie; my Pentium II 266) will be just unlistenable.
There are barriers, but quite frankly, they're easily surmounted. There just isn't any large demand right now for DVD-Audio playing on computers, not enough to justify the costs of software and hardware development for the beancounters. Unfortunate, but reality just sucks sometimes.
Re:A couple possible technical differences (Score:2)
Tell me about it; we're getting at least one (and hopefully two) Tascam MX-2424s [mx2424.com] in for recording. Our school currently lives off of a series of DA-88/38s for multitrack recording - Just Not Good Enough! We're also planning on either rebuilding one studio with some swank equipment for mixing, or going to a nearby studio with the equipment we're trying to get.
Funny you mention ADAT; I've seen exactly one ADAT recorder, at a professional audio store, looking lost and forgotten. My few encounters with the Real Professional World hasn't led to any ADAT run-ins, although I do recall one of the engineers at a recent small conference in Toronto saying "Don't get me started on ADAT":).
The reason CD succeeded tape and vinyl is because your typical guy could hear the difference, with amplifiers and speakers that they already owned.
Heh, quick way to start an audiophile war; "Vinyl sounds better than CD!" I could probably go for hours trying to describe my perception of vinyl and CD sound, but in short, I find vinyl sounds warmer, but not necessarily "better" than CD.
SACD and DVD-Audio require both better audio hardware than the average guy has and better recording equipment than the average studio has to even begin to notice the difference.
Point taken, and that's the part I have the hardest time dealing with; we want to create such spectacular soundscapes, and about ten people in the world will be able to enjoy it in the comfort of their own home at this point:)
The multi-channels are good though, and if DVD-Audio especially is ever going to make it mainstream, then it should be that which the marketers focus on rather than the quality aspects.
Hence, the usefulness of DVD-A/V players integrated into home theater setups. The audio reproduction won't be the best in a "Joe Well-Off Average" system, but it will at least be slightly better than CD, in addition to the same fun surround stuff Joe would get from his DVD movies. After that, it's all about having good content available to make Joe want to use the DVD-Audio features.