Ripping multichannel to digital?

[ClarkNovak]

OK folks, hold onto your hats - I have a really cool task for work that I need advice on how to accomplish.

As some of you know, I work for a broadcast equipment company that is a big supporter of discrete 5.1 over digital FM. At this year's NAB convention, we are going to have a huge display showing that our gear can play 5.1 content.

What my boss has tasked me with is figuring out a way to get 5.1 music from DVD-As and SACDs onto a hard drive for playout. And he wants a LOT of it - one reason radio is a little leery of multichannel broadcasts is lack of content. So he wants me to buy all the music I can find of any type, and put both the 5.1 and stereo mixes on a hard disk so we can demonstrate it at the show.

SO... the $64k question: how to do this? I don't know of any way of getting multichannel audio off the media into digital form short of buying a 6-channel sound card and doing a discrete, real-time capture of the content. This would be time-consuming, inefficient and just plain tiring .

Is there any software that will rip multi-channel disks? Are there any computer DVD drives that will read it? What would I need to accomplish this? (The bonus is, at the end of it all, I get to keep the discs I purchase for the project )

Clark

 

[JonUrban]

Well, considering that this is a "legit" task, you may have to resort to your analog idea, since SACDs and DVD-A's are protected discs. There are "rippers" for DVD-A that I have heard about, but I have never used them. You of course could rip the DD and DTS tracks from DVD-A's.

If you are going to display this at NAB, you don't want to show up at the trade show with a bunch of bootlegged tracks! Can't you just play the SACDs and DVD-A's into your system directly in real time as you demo?

 

[ClarkNovak]

If you are going to display this at NAB, you don't want to show up at the trade show with a bunch of bootlegged tracks! Can't you just play the SACDs and DVD-A's into your system directly in real time as you demo?

We could - but this won't be the way radio operates, and we have to show them that it can be done on-air the same way they do it now: one-button playout from a hard-drive system. No stations play CDs anymore, and they won't want to start doing it again just because the number of audio channels has tripled

Clark

 

[winopener]

We could - but this won't be the way radio operates, and we have to show them that it can be done on-air the same way they do it now: one-button playout from a hard-drive system. No stations play CDs anymore, and they won't want to start doing it again just because the number of audio channels has tripled
Clark

Hi Clark,

unfortunately both DVD-A and SACD are heavily protected media and there is no "consumer" way (maybe a "professional" one do exist somewhere and you're in the position to ask the Big Peoples for it) to rip them on hard drive directly.
If you are tied with original dvd-a and sacd the possible "consumer" solutions are two, both working in realtime:
- the analog way: dvd-a/sacd player, better a Universal one such as Denon or Pioneer, and a analog 6ch soundcard.
- the digital way: you need a dvd-a/sacd player modded by a switzerland company that found a way to spit out the 6ch onto 3 spdif - there's a link for it somewhere on the forum - and of course a digital sound card with 3 spdif in. The positive for all this is that you have no signal degradation, which may be important.

If you're tied to "generic 6-channel" audio and not specifically dvda or sacd, consider also dts and dd as sources. Not only you can find more audio stuff using these formats but you can find them on ng and sharing - can't say nothing for sure since i'm on a 56k modem - that will speed up your work a lot, and access music also from dvd-video or dualdisc that features just DD 5.1 track - last Destiny's child (dualdisc) or Blues Brothers soundtrack are two fine examples of just DD but still good.

 

[winopener]

Addendum:

Clark,

there's another problem that arise regarding your project for NAB:
do you have playback software that can handle 6-ch wave files?
This is a serious problem regarding "compatibility"; for sure something new can be developed and especially us we will be glad to find out decent ways to handle multichannel files.
Given the present situation, a easy way to propose mch sound while keeping the already present hardware/software specific for radio playback could be really dts audio cd. Without going too technical, as far as ripping/storing/cataloguing they are the same as ordinary audio cd - just you can't encode them in MP3! - and this media, even if slightly inferior to sacd-dvda - could be the easiest way to set up and show using the H/S already deployed (which will be a cheaper solution for many stations and thus a easy one to afford). The only thing really needed is a mch mixer, one that with a single fader can raise up/down the 6ch at once, and the dts decoding libraries, which can be found both on the dts ent. company and on the VLC open source project.
After all, if DTS audio could be a way for radio stations, promo discs for radio could be sent in dts format aready encoded instead of dvda-sacd

 

[CaptainQuad]

Addendum:

Clark,

there's another problem that arise regarding your project for NAB:
do you have playback software that can handle 6-ch wave files?
This is a serious problem regarding "compatibility"; for sure something new can be developed and especially us we will be glad to find out decent ways to handle multichannel files.
Given the present situation, a easy way to propose mch sound while keeping the already present hardware/software specific for radio playback could be really dts audio cd. Without going too technical, as far as ripping/storing/cataloguing they are the same as ordinary audio cd - just you can't encode them in MP3! - and this media, even if slightly inferior to sacd-dvda - could be the easiest way to set up and show using the H/S already deployed (which will be a cheaper solution for many stations and thus a easy one to afford). The only thing really needed is a mch mixer, one that with a single fader can raise up/down the 6ch at once, and the dts decoding libraries, which can be found both on the dts ent. company and on the VLC open source project.
After all, if DTS audio could be a way for radio stations, promo discs for radio could be sent in dts format aready encoded instead of dvda-sacd

I may be off base here, but didn't I stumble across a 'multichannel mp3' decoder/encoder that has been released? Seems to me I saw the link on a thread here.

Michael J. Brenegan
USAR, Retired

 

[ClarkNovak]

I may be off base here, but didn't I stumble across a 'multichannel mp3' decoder/encoder that has been released? Seems to me I saw the link on a thread here.

Yes. Actually, it's our partners, Fraunhofer Labs, who have developed a discrete 5.1 encoder/decoder using AAC encoding. It's a free download at http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/download/mp3surround/downloadpage.html .

Our company's position is that discrete is essential for a proper listening experience. That doesn't mean that DTS material is out of the question - just that it's got to sound pretty darn discrete before I use it!!

One thing that's apparent in all this is that I'm going to need a good 6-channel soundcard that includes SP/DIF inputs. Can anyone recommend one?

Clark

 

[winopener]

Our company's position is that discrete is essential for a proper listening experience. That doesn't mean that DTS material is out of the question - just that it's got to sound pretty darn discrete before I use it!!
One thing that's apparent in all this is that I'm going to need a good 6-channel soundcard that includes SP/DIF inputs. Can anyone recommend one?
Clark

Dolby Digital, DTS, Mp3surround, WMA9 are all lossy and discrete; the problem is what kind of quality you want to have and which is the max bitrate you can deliver.
I've tried the MP3S encoder/decoder: it is discrete and backward (stereo) compatible but i do prefer DTS quality. It is just less "lossy" than MP3S.
For sure a MP3S file can be managed with the same software that can handle ordinary MP3; DTS audio cd can be managed form software that uses uncompressed wave.

For MCH cards, Motu has a wonderful 8in-8out + digitals, iirc it is Motu 828.

 

[JonUrban]

For MCH cards, Motu has a wonderful 8in-8out + digitals, iirc it is Motu 828.

That's what I use!

 

[CaptainQuad]

Yes. Actually, it's our partners, Fraunhofer Labs, who have developed a discrete 5.1 encoder/decoder using AAC encoding. It's a free download at http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/download/mp3surround/downloadpage.html .

Our company's position is that discrete is essential for a proper listening experience. That doesn't mean that DTS material is out of the question - just that it's got to sound pretty darn discrete before I use it!!

One thing that's apparent in all this is that I'm going to need a good 6-channel soundcard that includes SP/DIF inputs. Can anyone recommend one?

Clark

Sounds like you are in the market for a soundcard upgrade in order to proceed.

Michael J. Brenegan
USAR Retired

 

[jrahrah]

http://www.app.demon.nl/DTSguide.htm

I had saved this address which seems to explain somethings that may or may not be helpful to you. How's that for being obtuse?