Encoding 5.1 Tracks for DVDA Creation

[etzeppy]

It's been a while since I've posted. Many years ago I created a bunch of DVDA disks from various hi rez sources. I used the old command line DVDA Author. I recently found out that my DSOTM Blu Ray crapped out and the replacement program has ended. Bummer... I have backup flac files. I figured, why not just make a DVDA of the official 4.0 mix. That worked. I decided to make the 5.1 too. To my surprise, DVDA Author gave me an error "filename.wav cannot be recorded to DVD-Audio without MLP encoding ( 6 channels, 24 bits, 96000 samples per second.)". After a little research I found that DVDA Author cannot handle 5.1 PCM directly. Presumably if I could encode the files to MLP first it would work. Is there freeware available that can do this? I can't find it. It doesn't really matter if I can pull it off, I just hate to be defeated....

 

[Marplot]

I believe ffmpeg can.

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

It's been a while since I've posted. Many years ago I created a bunch of DVDA disks from various hi rez sources. I used the old command line DVDA Author. I recently found out that my DSOTM Blu Ray crapped out and the replacement program has ended. Bummer... I have backup flac files. I figured, why not just make a DVDA of the official 4.0 mix. That worked. I decided to make the 5.1 too. To my surprise, DVDA Author gave me an error "filename.wav cannot be recorded to DVD-Audio without MLP encoding ( 6 channels, 24 bits, 96000 samples per second.)". After a little research I found that DVDA Author cannot handle 5.1 PCM directly. Presumably if I could encode the files to MLP first it would work. Is there freeware available that can do this? I can't find it. It doesn't really matter if I can pull it off, I just hate to be defeated....

There are two ways to go about this.
1. Downsample the 5.1 from 24-bit 96kHz to 24-bit 48kHz PCM. The easiest and fastest way. Most likely imperceptible quality loss.
2. Encode the 5.1 to MLP. There are two ways of doing this. Using the commercial encoder (which costs money but produces a 100% compatible, optimized file) or using the latest version of FFMPEG (which is not completely optimized, requires command-line knowledge, and may be incompatible/cause errors/may have encoding errors.)

For this specific use case, I would recommend just downsampling since it's for casual playback, but if you REALLY want to, the other option exists.

 

[etzeppy]

Thanks for the tips. I just gave ffmeg a try and I think it worked. The resulting mlp files play and sound correct.

 

[etzeppy]

UPDATE: Success with the 5.1 MLP files. The resulting DVDA works as expected. Ironically, the 4.0 DVDA using straight PCM did not work. Everything looks right (tracks, song length, ect) but the audio is just white noise. Either I did something wrong converting FLAC to PCM, or I just need to give these files the same MLP treatment. At least I know that works.

 

[barfle]

Mark Waldrep of AIX records, who has done a LOT of DVD-As) says that the DVD format doesn’t have the bandwidth for 5.1 channels at 96k/24 bits. His releases are all MLP.

Do your quad source files sound OK?

 

[etzeppy]

Mark Waldrep of AIX records, who has done a LOT of DVD-As) says that the DVD format doesn’t have the bandwidth for 5.1 channels at 96k/24 bits. His releases are all MLP.

Do your quad source files sound OK?

The source files sound fine and read the correct number of tracks, etc. They are flac files that I had to convert to PCM wav for use with DVDA-Author. I used EZ CD Audio Converter for that task. I have no idea what program I might have used in the past for that function. Best I can tell the resulting files are good but turn into white noise on the DVDA. I found a few references to similar white noise issues searching Google. I'm still looking into that one. There might some command in DVDA-Author that I'm missing. When I used to do this a lot, I was dealing with 2.0 sources.

 

[etzeppy]

I have an update on the 4.0 PCM white noise issue. One of the developers of DVDA-Author says I found a bug one way or another. If my PCM files do not meet DVDA spec, I should have received an error message. Therefore, either 4.0 PCM support is broken or the error handling process is broken. I am going to provide log files and samples back to them. Obviously there is very little demand for this sort of thing or someone else would have found the issue long ago. It’s like going back in time 10+ years.

 

[HomerJAU]

or using the latest version of FFMPEG (which is not completely optimized, requires command-line knowledge, and may be incompatible/cause errors/may have encoding errors.)

I tried using the ffmpeg mlp encoder a couple years back but it produced a pop artefact every few seconds so I didn’t go ahead and implement it in Music Media Helper. Can I presume this mlp encoder is now fixed? Have you had a close listen to the encoded content?

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

I tried using the ffmpeg mlp encoder a couple years back but it produced a pop artefact every few seconds so I didn’t go ahead and implement it in Music Media Helper. Can I presume this mlp encoder is now fixed? Have you had a close listen to the encoded content?

I managed to use FFmpeg to losslessly pack an 48/16-bit LPCM.wav audio into .mlp using this basic commandline: ffmpeg -i input.wav -strict -2 output.mlp. Playback worked fine without pops....

I haven't had chance to experiment using different sample-rates and bit-depths with FFmpeg or to see if DVD-A Author GUI is able to support anything other than 48/16-bit (LPCM).mlp files.

 

[etzeppy]

I tried using the ffmpeg mlp encoder a couple years back but it produced a pop artefact every few seconds so I didn’t go ahead and implement it in Music Media Helper. Can I presume this mlp encoder is now fixed? Have you had a close listen to the encoded content?

It worked for me and the resulting files play fine. Here is the exact command I used:

ffmpeg -i file1.flac -strict -2 file1.mlp

 

[etzeppy]

I tried using the ffmpeg mlp encoder a couple years back but it produced a pop artefact every few seconds so I didn’t go ahead and implement it in Music Media Helper. Can I presume this mlp encoder is now fixed? Have you had a close listen to the encoded content?

I wasn't familiar with Music Media Help but I am about to install it. I need to join some some flac files. If it would allow for batch conversions to MLP, that would very useful.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

It can be quite difficult to seamlessly join FLAC audio files together without obtaining drop-outs

Personally, I convert the FLAC files to lpcm.wav, then join the lpcm.wavs together. Then re-encode the lpcm.wav back to FLAC

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I tried using the ffmpeg mlp encoder a couple years back but it produced a pop artefact every few seconds so I didn’t go ahead and implement it in Music Media Helper. Can I presume this mlp encoder is now fixed? Have you had a close listen to the encoded content?

I haven't had a close look at the encoded content but in my tests the MLP files playback fine. However I do know that the encoder technically still isn't complete, and there are probably issues with the files as conversions from generated MLP files authored to the DVD-A format back to FLAC yield errors in the audio. However, for all practical purposes for a non-professional user, it should work fine.

EDIT: Cool, this is my 777th post!

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

After further testing, the files outputted seems to be fine, at least auditorily, except that each file ends with a 10 millisecond static presumably due to an unexpected end of stream/corruption.

 

[HomerJAU]

Thanks for the update. I’ll add mlp encoding to MMH in the next release. I maybe able to trim the 10ms noise from the end as part of the encode process.

 

[etzeppy]

It can be quite difficult to seamlessly join FLAC audio files together without obtaining drop-outs

Personally, I convert the FLAC files to lpcm.wav, then join the lpcm.wavs together. Then re-encode the lpcm.wav back to FLAC

I must have been lucky. I stitched together some continuous FLAC tracks using Music Media Helper and it plays back without gaps. I converted that to MLP and it still sounds fine.

 

[etzeppy]

Thanks for the update. I’ll add mlp encoding to MMH in the next release. I maybe able to trim the 10ms noise from the end as part of the encode process.

Let me know if you need a beta tester.

 

[etzeppy]

I had noted in this thread that when I attempted to create a DVDA with 4.0 PCM tracks, the resulting audio was just white noise. I have been conversing with the co-creator of dvda-author and provided sample data. A bug has been confirmed and should be fixed in the next few months.

 

[HomerJAU]

You could probably create a DVDA now but adding too silent channels for C and LFE. MNH has a Channel Remix tool that will add two silent channels to a wav or FLAC for all selected 4 channel files (or sub folders files with 4 channels).