I've not read this thread. Neil is an expert at these things, but his comments usually go right over my head, which makes me speculate that if he were to ever analyze my discs he'd probably find them to be out of spec. But, they work. On most players. They don't work on my samsung, but then again, many commercial discs don't work on the samsung either, it's good for a boat anchor.
Anyways, the basic steps for me are:
1. record audio to 4 channel wav file in sound forge. Back up that file.
2. split the file to 4 mono files. Apply noise reduction to these files. This is also done in sound forge.
3. Declicking and EQing in audition. Declicking is done by bouncing, since I setup multiple passes using Cai's method. When bouncing, the bounced file is usually a few samples longer than the original, so I trim that excess off to make sure my 4 files stay the same length. I have had issues in the past where I end up with 4 mono files that aren't the same length, which alarms me, so to make sure I don't end up with things going out of sync, I zoom in to the original and bounced in audition, highlight the excess at the end, go to edit form, and delete. EQing is applied directly to the file, not via bounce, so this isn't an issue for EQing. Also, the bounce will likely convert your 24 bit file to 32 bit. I'm not sure why, but Audition seems to dislike the 24 bit standard, and loves to force 32 right down your throat. So, you'll need to bit depth convert back to 24 when back in sound forge.
4. Trim and fades. At this point, I now have 4 mono files that are ready to go, how I want them to sound in my conversion. I do trimming and fades in sound forge by merging the 4 monos back into a 4 channel wav, so everything is in sync, and once done with edits (fade in, cut side or track change, rearrange order for Q8s that are not in correct album order, fade out), I copy and paste them back out to mono files. Also, this is the part of the process where I apply pitch shifting if needed. It's a tricky thing to go into just now, but if you attempt this, make sure you use pitch shift, and not time compress. Two completely different things.
5. Ok, now you have your files. Now it's time to get them prepped for the media. This requires encoding to mlp, encoding to dts, and encoding to dolby digital (dolby digital requires resampling to 48kHz). Your audio is now ready for your discs. I'm not sure if you already sought out all the software you need to create your discs, or if your just starting from nowhere and have nothing. So let me know if you have questions on this process. Or any of these really, this is just a vague guide to kinda pull everything together, so as you look into each individual part, you understand the whole that they are part of.
6. Art. You'll at least need something to put up on the screen. I usually create a slide with the album cover, with text of the track name, so I have one slide for each song. Make sure to keep overscanning of the tv screen in mind, you can find guides for title safe and action safe with a quick google search. I usually create a 640 by 480 file, paste a title safe layer to it, create my slide, and delete the title safe slide, type in the text for each song, save each song, until I have all slides. Oh, before each save, you'll need to resize to 720 by 480. Yes, in photoshop this will stretch it to look wide, but don't worry, the dvd format is 4:3, and uses a resolution of 720 by 480, so it'll look fine when you use it. Also, I create a menu slide, by having the album cover on the left side, and blank on the right for space for your track listing, also saving as 720 by 480. I save as .bmp files. The custom menu for chrome is complicated, I recommend starting with the generated menus for your dvd-a portion until you get this stuff down, you have enough to worry about already.
7. Make an mpg for your dvd-v. I use Vegas. I used to use Magix Move Edit Pro. I'm not sure if you can do this in magix, but the main reason I've stuck with vegas is because I need to get timings in both drop and non drop frame. I create a project with 1 video track and 4 audio tracks. I lay out the 48 kHz files as a guide. I put in the first slide starting at the beginning, find the beginning of the second song to the closest second for simplicity in drop frame timing. This will be the timing for Chrome. If you have something that doesn't work to an even second, you can go to a half second by ending it with ;15 instead of ;00. Chrome uses decimals, so you'll make that ;15 a .5. Anyways, I open a text document to keep track of these track timings. After I set a chapter, I then set the mode to non-drop frame, and note that time. Don't worry about rounding or finding an even second, just jot it down exact. At the end, you'll have your slide show laid out, delete the sound files, and render to mpg. You'll also have a .txt document with 2 timing lists, one in drop, one in non drop. Save that. Then, delete the drop list, and save a text document that has all the non-drop timings. You can import this directly into your dvd-v project when we get to that step.
8. Ok, now you have your materials, now to author that disc. First, make a dvd-v. You can use dvd lab pro 2, and import in your dts wav file, your dolby digital ac3 file, and your mpg. dvd lab probably won't like your mpg, and will automatically split it to an audio portion and video portion, for your convenience. Don't worry about that audio portion. Use the video portion, and your 2 audio tracks, in the movie. To be in spec, put ac3 in the 1st audio, dts in the 2nd. The other way around will work just fine, and wouldn't cause a problem....but rules are rules. I make some attempt to stay in spec. Import in the chapters from the text, layout your menus (2 menus, one for audio selection using the option to select audio and go to next menu, 2nd a track menu), and then you're ready to compile the project. You'll now have a ts_video and ts_audio folder. Don't worry about the audio folder, it's empty, it may as well not exist, delete it if you wish. Make sure you know where that ts_video folder is. This is all vague, I recommend finding a guide on using dvd lab pro 2, this listing is more about pulling all the steps together, to understand how all these things go together.
9. Chrome. Bring in the .mlp file, lay out your tracks, set the slide on each track using the .bmp slides you created, generate a menu, and import the video_ts. From here you can burn a disc, or create an image. Although it wants you to create a .dim file as an image, this is just their own name for .iso. You can rename the image to .iso after done, or you can just type in .iso as your file name when saving, and even though .iso isn't an option as a file type to save as from the drop down, typing it in at the end of your file name will make it save it with that name, it won't add the dim. And if it does anyways, like I said, just rename it to be an .iso. Once again, this is vague, I recommend finding a chrome guide.
Ok, so that's your vague guide on how to do this, start to end, with lots of details missing. But hopefully this gives you a starting point to understanding what the process is you'll be doing, what software you need to track down, and what questions you have for what steps. So go ahead and absorb that, do some research, find some software, and come back with questions, and before you know it you'll be enjoying your first conversion.
Also, I didn't start with this process, I really did come to it through many other processes. I started, as many did, with simple dts CDs. And then I was making dvd-a only discs with that other software, I forget what that was. Not that I ever really used any of those, because that was before I had a dvd-a player. So, maybe if you want to play around with dts cds, or other softwares first, to get down other processes, that could work. One way or another you'll find your own way to your process that works for you, and I'm sure many of us can help you along the way. I know many helped me along the way, I forget where and what I read, but I didn't find these things on my own, and through various tips and guides here, I got to the point I'm at now. I have to say that there were 2 people that were instrumental in my process, Cai for the audio end of things, and Bob Romano for the authoring end of things.
