Audio DVD without video content?

miller1 wrote on 11/1/2003, 6:11 PM
When I make a 24/96 audio DVD wihtout video, music compilation won't allow chapters within tracks... Not good for classical stuff, where you want gapless playback between tracks. (To be honest, I haven't tried out whether the tracks of a music compilation will be played back without gap... Should do that).

Anyway, when inserting 24/96 audio as media, DVDA will still render a video, even if there is no video at all. With a long piece of music, you may endup with several hundred MB of "video" containing a totally black still picture...

Any way around that?

BTW, is there any other affordable authoring software that allows 24/96k LPCM audio?

M.

Comments

JSWTS wrote on 11/1/2003, 10:55 PM
I haven't authored a 24/96 audio disc, but when creating a 'standard' audio disc with Dolby digital, you can either associate a still picture of your choice with the selection, or the default black background. You won't get several mb of 'black' video (or still picture background) when you do this, in fact, the file size is actually quite small. Authoring apps will create a single mpeg2 'I" frame, and then define the playback duration within the ifo/VOB files so that when the dvd player 'sees' this black/still frame, it will display it as long as it's directed to (in this case, the duration of the music segment). It's not just a long running stream of black video.

Jim
miller1 wrote on 11/2/2003, 6:22 AM
Other authoring software may do that, but not DVDA...

With a black screen, I get a 700 MB "Video" for a 50-minute piece of music, with a still picture it*s over 900. What a waste..

No way to stop this?

M.
JSWTS wrote on 11/2/2003, 8:02 AM
I was talking about DVD-A (and other software). I have authored several dvd's that are audio only (not actual DVD-Audio like you are talking about), so maybe that's the difference. I just haven't seen the issue you describe in your posts with either the black still or still image. The size of the visual content of these discs are a fraction of the overall project size. DVD-A wasn't designed to do actual DVD-Audio type discs, and if you want to do that without issues, check out Sonic for their app (you aren't going to find a cheap one presently that does it 'legally').

Jim
Ronomy wrote on 11/2/2003, 8:53 AM
This is a problem with the DVD-Video spec. It was designed for video not audio. Chapter points are taged via I frames within a video track, not audio. With a still image, there is no way to add a chapter point. What you can do to get around this is split each song into a separate file. Then add a still image to each song. This will give you your chapter points and minimize the amount of room used for video. I prefer to render a video track of a still image with a very low bit rate within Vegas. Then author as I would any other DVD. The chaper breaks are seamless this way. The multiple file routine can work within Scenarist because you can select a seamless playback but I don't believe there is a way to do this within DVDA. Anybody out there know if this is possible in DVDA?
miller1 wrote on 11/2/2003, 10:20 AM
I'm not talkong about DVD-Audio. I know the difference. I'm talking about Video-DVDs with still pictures. I get Video files of several hundred MB, even at the lowest bitrate.

Am I missing some setting?

M.
JSWTS wrote on 11/2/2003, 11:36 AM
When you do a music compilation in DVD-A, you can attach a still image to the song, or leave it black. A video stream is not created with this AFAIK, just a very short mpeg file for each video (ie, an "I" frame). This space taken up by the images is fairly small. I have the last Harry Potter book on tape, which I think is about 17 hours overall. I put it all onto a single dvd, using a still image pic of the respective chapter from the book as a visual clue as to what chapter the viewer/listener was on (38 pics in all, 38 separate ac3 audio streams--224 kbps). The viewer/listener could jump from chapter to chapter because each one was it's own file. The entire disc was 2.45 gb, of which, the audio component was 2.42 gb. The '.03' difference was the still images--pretty small if you ask me.

Jim
miller1 wrote on 11/2/2003, 5:58 PM
Seems we're using different software... ;-)
I get large video fiels when I try to do that...

M.
JSWTS wrote on 11/2/2003, 6:17 PM
I must have version 1.0d ;)

Seriously, don't know why you are having the problem--sorry I couldn't be of more help.

Jim
Ronomy wrote on 11/2/2003, 6:33 PM
That's great! Cool project! I've only completed one 24/96K audio project on a couple old records. I fit two full albums with 24/96 LPCM on one disk. Menus and all. I didn't use DVDA but from what I've experimented with in DVDA it looks easier to complete than using Scenarist. So the separate file import works in DVDA! Is there a pause between each chapter or does it play seamlessly? I also have ReelDVD and you can not make the separate files run seamlessly in this authoring program. You get a lot for your money in DVDA...that's for sure. Just wait till they iron out the bugs like in there other software.

Ron