[sdiy] [OT] LPCM question

[Cynthia Webster]

on 5/15/05 11:23 AM, JH. at jhaible at debitel.net wrote:

> I have a stupid question - quite off-topic, but I guess some of you know
> this
> without much thinking ...
> 
> How can I get an audio track from a DVD (the music from a music video, LPCM
> format), copied to an ordinary Audio CD, such that it will play on an
> ordinary CD player? Google told me that the LPCM is practical the same
> format as used on CDs, and I've played around with Nero, DVDShrink etc., but
> still don't know how to do it. Can anybody tell me?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> JH.
 
Hi Jurgen!

It's been a while since I've authored any DVDs, so forgive me if something
glaringly obvious doesn't occur to me...

Practically the same, yet ~not~ the same compression format,
so one challenge will be to somehow uncompress the audio from the DVD
AC3 format first - before recompressing it into Audio CD format.

DVDs are all standardized in that they divide all of the Video into one
folder on the DVD, "Video TS", and all of the audio into another folder,
"Audio TS". ("TS stands for "title set").

These are always at the root level of the DVD and never hidden in a sub
folder, (or else the DVD Players cannot find them).

(I wonder what an audio CD player would do if it found an audio TS folder
on a disc?)

Using a disc authoring program you will want to somehow uncompress the
Audio TS folder which will then probably give you separate files for
each channel of the surround audio, (i.e. left front audio file,
center channel audio file, right front audio file, etc).

Then all of these can be mixed back down to stereo in the Audio
workstation program of your choice, before going to CD.
Some DVD authoring programs have a separate AC-3 encoding program
packaged with it and exploring these may yield answers.

As far as Audio workstation programs that might do this,
Nuendo is the way I'd go.

It might be much much easier to simply connect the outputs of your
set-top type DVD player to the inputs of your audio recorder using
RCA cables and do it physically instead of in software.

it might make a big difference if you choose a better player with
discrete surround outputs, or a cheapo unit that has only outputs
for Left and Right.  (5.1 is automatically downmixed on most systems
to stereo if there's no 5.1 output).

You might need a mixer in between the two to spread the center channel
onto both left and right audio, or the dialog my all disappear,
(maybe that is not so bad in this case LOL!)

This is an interesting puzzle indeed!

A better place to ask might be the "Recipe for DVD" Yahoo group list
where there are lots of friendly professionals in this field who can
probably help you. 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/recipe4dvd/

Best Wishes!


Cynthia

www.cyndustries.com