No, vegas will not make a dvd audio disc. Look up disc welder on the internet as this is software that will.
Steve S.

Here's a great informative for anyone who is interested in authoring DVD Audio:

Authoring and Recording DVD-Audio

Basically you'll have to create AC-3 5.1 Surround audio files, then you can use another program to Author or create your master DVD disk.

I'm hoping that Vegas 5 will have DVD Authoring capabilities, but I will not add it to the list of 1000 things everyone wants, so they remember that my main concern for the application is to implement "Auto Input" and "Punch On The Fly".

Hmmm,
I'm quite interested in this subject too, since I recently got a DVD burner. DVD architect will not make a DVD Audio disc also? I haven't used DVD Architect yet, but was hoping to try it out for this particular reason of making 5.1 surround mixes. I'm not sure if this would be a task for CD architect or DVD architect if neither has this feature at this time.

I was disappointed with my first burns of a DVDrom. I did a similar thing as Farss did and put about 1000 .MP3 files onto a DVDrom. I was hoping my DVD player in my home entertainment system would play it. I was pretty confident that it would because it plays Cdroms, CDR's, MP3's, VCD's, and DVD's. So I was pretty confident it would play a DVDrom with .MP3's. I was wrong. I even tried burning the disc onto DVD-R and DVD+R formats and neither would play the DVDrom with .MP3's. Looks like I have to buy another DVD player so I can get my virtual jukebox DVDrom to play.

This is something I am interested in. It seems most of the current softeare is for Mac and the disc welder only supports DVD- burners. I have held off on buying vegas 4.0 because I want this feature. Please post any info as comes available
Bill

There are two DVD formats: Negative R/W and positive R/W.

In some cases, one will work in the other and in other cases, they are completely incompatible....

"Basically you'll have to create AC-3 5.1 Surround audio files, then you can use another program to Author or create your master DVD disk"
tmrpro,
While technically this would probably be a dvd audio disc, by using ac-3 compression it would negate the value of the format. A whole album of ac-3 files could fit comfortably on a cd.
Where the value lies with the dvd-a format is in higher resolution audio, either uncompressed or using mlp compression. This is a lossless compression codec, compared to ac-3 which is a lossy codec.
Steve S.

Hey Red,
You can put surround mixes onto a dvd (or cd) using the ac-3 codec in vegas 4 and dvd architect. But you can't make high resolution dvd audio discs this way. Clear as mud?
Steve S.

DVD Architect can make DVD Video discs with stereo or 5.1 AC3 audio, but but DVD Architect cannot make "DVD Audio" discs in the formal sense of that term.

Steve,
Thanks for the info, it's actually one of the posts on this whole DVD format issues I understand. I've been reading posts and visiting many DVD authoring sites for compatibility information and find a lot of contradicting information and end up leaving scratching my head with 10 more questions than I started with. Prior to purchasing my DVD burner, I was trying to create a VCD with DVD architect with my CD burner. I wasn't able to do that, maybe there was something I overlooked. So you can burn to a CD with DVD architect, just with the .AC3 format? Can I create a VCD too then?

My wife will probably buy an Acura TL which comes with a DVD-Audio audio system. It also has no reverb for standard stereo CDs. I have become used to the nice fullness the DSP adds to the sound in her current BMW.

Now, I would like to take our favorite recordings, turn them into 5.1 with a slight reverb, and burn them into a DVD-Audio.

The article above is a little dated. Disc Welder is $500 for the silver version and $2500 for the chrome version. I wonder about a company that calls their high end version 'chrome' instead of 'gold' or 'platinum'.

Can a create the reverb and make 5.1 files in Vegas? I thought AC-3 had full bandwidth on all channels.

Apparently, DVD architect will not make a disc that can be read by a DVD-Audio player. Is that true?

Thanks,

David

"It also has no reverb for standard stereo CDs. I have become used to the nice fullness the DSP adds to the sound in her current BMW."

DavidNJ,
I just want to correct you a little in what you're listening too if your wife's BMW happens to have a Harman/Kardon Logic 7 system in it. You just happen to be talking to an engineer that designs this system. There is no reverb added to the sound in that vehicle. What you are hearing is the DSP doing the Logic 7 surround decoding. Logic 7 is very similar to Dolby Prologic II if you are more familiar with that. Logic 7 actually takes the stereo mix and decodes it to surround. There's other techniques we use in tuning the vehicle also, with the use of Petroff filters. A petroff filter allows us to move the image of the sound higher within the vehicle, where the speaker may be located near your feet in the doors, we can create psycho acoustics to make the sound image up higher, rather than the sound coming from your feet where your ears aren't. The end result is that you get a bigger more spacious sound, than what the cabin size of the car is. No reverb added.

For the Acura TL, I'm actually pretty familiar with this system also. It's DVD-Audio, which was developed by Panasonic. It sounds pretty good, if you're sitting in the drivers seat, because that's where the tuning was optimized for. Panasonic demoed this vehicle for me a year ago, but wouldn't allow me to sit in the rear, because they knew it sounded like heck sitting in the rear. I'm actually going to the North American autoshow this week in Detroit, and gonna try and sneak into that vehicle again during press days, where I have full access to sitting in the car to give it another listen without the Panasonic engineers present. So as long as your wife doesn't have anyone riding in the back seat, she should be pretty happy with the sound. She just might not want to brag how great it sounds with listeners in the back seat, because they'll think she's on drugs. It also won't sound as good listening to standard CD's because there isn't any surround decoding in that system.

My wife's current car is an '01, with the previous DSP system. It does add a reverb that makes the sound seem a lot brighter. I've used the Dolby ProLogic on my previous receiver (a Pioneer 902) to enhance some sounds at home. By comparison, the Logic 7 in the new 5-series seems flat to me.

The Acura's sound system also seemed a little flat to me. It did occur to me that the controls on that system seemed a little light for the imaging it was claiming. My current home receiver, a Pioneer 912, has a remote mic and does a little dance where it calculates the volume and delay at the listeners seat and adjust the speakers automatically. I thought the car should have something to do the same (presets for driver, driver + front passenger, and all 4 seats). It doesn't. And what your telling me is if I listened from the rear it would sound substandard.

Maybe we should just get an extended warranty and keep the current car.

David

As far as i know DVDA will not author a VCD. Vegas says it can but I've never had any luck with it. I just render to mpeg-1 using the VCD template and then bring the files into a Nero VCD project, create menus etc and burn in Nero.

"Prior to purchasing my DVD burner, I was trying to create a VCD with DVD architect with my CD burner. I wasn't able to do that, maybe there was something I overlooked."

-Nope, nothing you overlooked. Vegas can burn a video to the VCD format (no menus) using a standard CD burner. DVD Architect cannot do this.

"So you can burn to a CD with DVD architect, just with the .AC3 format? Can I create a VCD too then?"

- No, DVD Architect can only make DVD Video discs using DVD burners and DVD media. Even in the case of a DVD Architect music compilation using AC3 (or PCM) audio and no video, it will still be a DVD Video disc (in terms of format).

" By comparison, the Logic 7 in the new 5-series seems flat to me."

I haven't worked on the new 5-series system, I'll have to listen to that system and critique it and then give some feedback to the systems engineer if it's not up to par. Thanks for your feedback. Have you had a chance to listen to the BMW 7-series H/K system? That one sounds pretty darn good to me. I know exactly what you're talking about with the sound position adjustments. We offer that feature on our Mark Levinson amplifier's which are in Lexus vehicles. It has 4 position adjustments, where what it does within the amplifier is load a different EQ into the DSP. Each EQ is optimized for different positions within the vehicle depending on your preference. We're launching this month a new Lexus Mark Levinson system that has a 12 channel DSP amplifier with a digital input, which will decode Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1/7.1 surround and also offers Logic 7 surround for CD's along with the 4 position adjustment.

Thanks for the clarification SonyEPM.

AC-3 provides "full bandwidth" or nearly full bandwidth on all the channels. However it's a lossy compression format using psychoacoustics to get the audio rate down to about 400-600 kbps for 5.1 audio. The DVD-Audio format allows AC-3 playback as well as lossless audio for high definition sound. This uses the Meridian lossless compression format which gives about 2 to 1 compression but still gives you the same output as if it were PCM.

moved for proper continuity.
Steve S.

I stand corrected. I must have been thinking about the now defunct soft encode which did have an option to encode ac-3 files with a wav extension and extra data "padding" so that the files could be burned as standard cd tracks, but when the disc was played back by a cd or dvd player the digital output was still decoded by dolby digital amps (sometimes... this is the reason I'm guessing why this format has been abandoned. Some decoders would decode, some would do nothing, some would try to play it as pcm audio...)
Steve S.

Rednroll,

Did you see the Acura/Panasonic system at the show? Is it better or worse than you remember? It seems to me they focused on DVD-Audio and forgot aboout the rest of the world (spacial enhancement of stereo tracks, MP3, WMA).

David

Actually, I'm headed there now with a fist full of DVD-A discs and a CD of music I do my vehicle evaluations with. I'll let you know how it sounds and see if they improved it from the last time I listened to it. You're right on the other things as far as .MP3 and .WMA. The only system of ours that plays compressed audio formats is in BMW. I'm bumbed because this is a feature I would personally like to have. Most of the car manufacturer's have a viewpoint that if you're interested in a premium sound system, than you wouldn't be interested in listening to a compreessed format. I disagree with this, because I would rather listen to a cdrom with over 100 songs of .mp3 rather than the radio playing the same 20 songs with commercials with less quality than the .mp3.

David,
Just got back from the autoshow. I got a chance to listen to the Acura TL again with the DVD audio system. Overall, it's a pretty good system. While listening to DVD Audio disks, you definately get a sence of spaciousness and good seperation when sitting in the drivers seat. I sat in the rear seat, and it's the exact opposite. It sounds like you are getting no sound from the front of the vehicle, where the only thing you hear is the sound coming from behind you from the rear deck speakers, which seem to have a lot of midrange content making it sound a bit thin. Listening to the vehicle with a standard CD, you lose most of the spaciousness, and you can tell it's a in a standard Stereo configuration. There is some good punch in this system, kick drums punch through very nice, but seems to really lack a lot of low end bass extension, when listening to music with lots of low end bass. There's no user selectable sound position adjustment, like you mentioned. Probably the only thing you could do to improve the rear seat listening is to adjust the fade position so that it's more up front.

I spent a good 30 minutes listening to the system, but was interupted quite a bit by press people coming in leaving the doors open and snapping cameras behind my head. They where pretty easy to deal with, it's funny how you can turn up the volume when sitting in the drivers seat, and everyone goes outside the vehicle and waits patiently :-) One press guy did hang out with me quite a bit while I was going through some DVD audio tracks and was sitting in the rear taking pictures, and I asked him how he liked the sound back there. He said it didn't sound very good, like everthing was coming from behind him...so we had the same consensus, maybe I'll get to read something about it in the Detroit News this week.