DVD-A Creation

What you may want to know....

I've written a graphical user interface GUI program that is a lot easier to use than the scripts here. It really simplifies the process and will let you convert mp3 songs as well as taking in wav files for your disks. If you want to just make stereo disks then give it a try. Link to DVD-A GUI

If you want to make multichannel audio disks then see the info below.

Cirlinca has a program called "DVD Audio Solo". It is available from their site Cirlinca.com and is a very good program. I use it now when I need to creat multichannel disks. The price, at the time I am writing this is $34.95 US. It comes with a very generous fully featured trial. I suggest you give it a try.

If you wish to continue and use the free method below please do so. I may, however, not be able to support questions as I did in the past.

What's New in Version 3

Support for converting mp3 files into wav files. Just chuck them in along with your wav files. Tthey will be decoded by BeSweet.
BeSweet decodong normalizes mp3 files to 100%. See the version.txt file.
Checks to make sure that total size of files is not too much for a DVD-R (Can be changed if you use DVD DL)

Downloads

Version 3.01 (2/11/05)
Version 2 (8/1/05)
Version 1 (7/11/05)

Overview

The goal is to provide a free way to take your CDs and other music and compile DVD-A discs that will play in your TL. Right now this process is geared to taking stereo sources only. I'm not against pay-ware but in my experience many inexpensive (<$100 USD) pay-ware solutions are actually free ware tools that have been re-packaged into "flashy" GUIs. This was certainly the case with many DVD-V packages. I'm not suggesting that Wave Lab is not worth the investment if you are a musician but it is simply overkill for what I wanted to do.

Many discs have been made using the process described below.

The process is this:

Covert your music to WAV files and put them in specific folders, described below, on your drive. The folders I have set up make it easy for you to make one big group of songs or to make up to 9 groups. I like one big group but the choice is yours. This is probably the most time consuming part of the process. The only catch here is that you need to make sure the names of your files will sort (be ordered) the way you want them on the end disk. Sorting will be alphabetical.
--OR--
You put your mp3 files in along with other wav files
Run the script I have provided. It simply helps automate the tasks described in "How To" at the dvda-author web site. Simply run the MakeDVDA.bat file and follow the directions. This will convert your WAV files into the required DVD-A files structure and then create the ISO image of the disc. This link probably has more than you ever wanted to know about this structure.
Burn your image file. This takes the image (.ISO) file on your hard drive and burns it to DVD media. I recommend DVD-R media since more people have had success with it.

Requirements

This process has been tested on Windows XP Professional. It should also work on Windows XP Home and Windows 2000. It probably will NOT work on prior MS operating systems
Tool(s) to create WAV files.
Up to 13G free hard drive space. Since you will have up to 4.3G of WAVs, 4.3G of DVD-A structure and 4.3G ISO file.
My zip file. Which also includes dvda-author-20050703 , cdrtools-2.01.01a01-win32-bin and BeSweet
Something to burn ISO files with
A DVD burner. Preferably -R
Patience. It takes time.

Setup and Usage Description

Delete any old copies of the version 2 program by deleting the DVDA directory prior to installing version 3.

The first thing you need to do is download the zip file and extract it to your hard drive. Click here to download it It is easiest to extract it to your C: drive but you can extract it to drives with other letters. It is easiest to expand it in the root of the drive. Mine is on my C drive.

NOTE: It will be easiest if you make sure the files are in the directory C:\DVDA. See the picture below. It shows the directory structure you should have when you unzip the folder. Follow the steps here to do it if you are using XP

NOTE: If you do not put the "DVDA" folder in the root of the C:\ drive then you need to edit the file SetEnv.bat and change the line that says "set BD=C:" to another letter. (e.g set BD=D: if it is on your D:\ drive)

There are 4 batch files in the root DVDA folder. They are:

SetEnv.bat - a simple file that all other batch files use to set their base directory. If this is wrong, nothing works.
MakeDVDA.bat. The main patch file that automates the build process.
eval.bat - Used as a function call by MakeDVDA.bat to help get the sector for the second pass encoding.
deleteWAVs.bat. Deletes all the WAV files in the WAVs directory and subs. Very powerful, careful with it, delete it if you are scared of it.
deleteMp3s.bat. Deletes all the mp3 files in the WAVs directory and subs. Very powerful, careful with it, delete it if you are scared of it
ConvertMp3s2Wavs.bat and toWav.bat - Used to convert mp3s to wav using the BeSweet.exe program.
evalWavSize.bat Used as a function call by by MakeDVDA.bat to get the total size of all wav files
renameWAVs.bat - A (not very elegant) batch file that renames files to sort correctly for the way I extract wav files. It probably will not work for you. It corrects names like "Track1" to "Track01". Read on and you will understand.

There are 5 main directories inside the DVDA directory. (See image below)

Code - This is where the freeware tools are. They are dvda-author-20050703 , cdrtools-2.01.01a01-win32-bin and BeSweet.exe ( various places on the web)
Docs - Where this file is located
Image - Where the finished DVD ISO image will be created .
WAVs - Nine subdirectories to hold the wave files. They can be used in various ways. Do not change the names, add or delete any of these.

C:\DVDA
+---Code   ¦
+---DVD   (created
by   dvda-author)
¦   +---AUDIO_TS
¦   +---VIDEO_TS
+---Docs   ¦
+---extractfiles_files   +---Image
+---WAVs
    +---CD_GRP1
    +---CD_GRP2
    +---CD_GRP3
    +---CD_GRP4
    +---CD_GRP5
    +---CD_GRP6
    +---CD_GRP7
    +---CD_GRP8
    +---CD_GRP9

How to Use

Here is what I do.

Use my favorite tool to extract CDs to wav. Right now I like CDEx (free) but there are many others.
Here are some other free ones courtesy of other members at Acurazine.com Click here to see how..
Rip each CD to one of the CD_GRPn directories (where n=1 to 9). If I want a CD to be first on the disc then I put it in the folder CD_GRP1. If I want it to be the 3rd then I put it in CD_GRP3. You do not have to put wav files in all of the directories. If a CD_GRPn directory has no WAVs in it it will be skipped.
Copy any mp3 files into the corresponding GRPn directories (where n=1 to 9). When you make your disk they will get decoded to wav. The same sorting rules apply to mp3 as to wav.
Once I am done converting all the CDs to WAV files then I check the order of files. dvda-author will put the files in alphabetical order. you need to be careful. Many programs will name WAV files Track 1, Track 2, ...Track 10, Track 11. These will not sort properly. They will actually sort like Track 1, Track 10, Track 2.... Make sure numbers below 10 have a leading zero (Like Track 01).
Then I run (double-click) the file MakeDVDA.bat.

MakeDVDA will ask the following:

Do you want all songs from all directories in one big group (Y) or each directory to be a separate group (N):

Answering Y will make the DVD-A have 1 group. All of the wav files in the CD_GRPn directories will be put on the disk with the songs in CD_GRP1 coming first and CD_GRP9 coming last.
Answering N will make each CD_GRPn directory its own group.
I recommend Y since most DVD-A players do not play group 2 and on when group 1 is finished. In the TL the player will go to the next disk when group 1 is over. Groups work best when the content is the same in each group but the format is different. That's how most commercial DVD-As are. But since we will only have 2 channel content I think one big group works best.

Next it will ask

Do you have MP3s that need converting? Enter Y or N :

Answering Y will convert all of your mp3s to wav.
Answering N will skip mp3 decoding

NOTE: you can put mp3s AND wav files in the WAVs directories. Your final DVD-A will be a combination of all the songs sorted within each group and each group following the other.

Example 1 you can ripp a CD to WAVS\CD_GRP1 and put some mp3s in the WAVS\CD_GRP2 directory. The mp3s will come after the CD on your DVD
E xample 2 you can ripp a CD to WAVS\CD_GRP1 and put some mp3s in the WAVS\CD_GRP1directory. The songs from the CD and the mp3s will be mixed into group 1 and play in the order of the file names.

Now the program will then go and do the first pass encoding and image creation. This can take a long time but the screen will update frequently with progress. Best to go do something else for a while.

NOTE: This is a good chance to see the way your disk will be created since a listing of the groups and songs in each group will scroll by. You can scroll back up to it to see it. If you don't like what you see just close the window and the program will stop. Go back, make your changes and try again.

The program will then do the second pass encoding and image creation using a start sector automatically found. Again, this can take a long time but the screen will update frequently with progress. Best to go do something else for a while.

When it is done your image ISO file will be ready for burning, You will see a wrap-up screen that will look similar to the one shown below. THe values shown as <filed in at run time>filled in by the program.

************************************************************************ * * * ALL DONE * * * ************************************************************************ Your ISO image is complete. Estimated disk size is <filled in at run time>

Location = <filed in at run time> Burn with a program that can burn DVD ISO files NOTE: Starting Sector used was <filed in at run time> A listing of the isoinfo will follow. Verify sector start prior to burn. Note the start sector of the AUDIO_PP.IFO Example: "[ 282 00] AUDIO_PP.IFO" is a starting sector of 282. ************************************************************************

Next a "dump" of the ISO file structure will be shown. It may look like the one shown below. Find the AUDIO_PP.IFO entry and make sure it is the same value as the program said it used in the step above. (See the red number)

Directory listing of /
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Aug  1 2005 [    275 02]  . 
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Aug  1 2005 [    275 02]  .. 
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Aug  1 2005 [    276 02]  AUDIO_TS 
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Aug  1 2005 [    277 02]  VIDEO_TS 

Directory listing of /AUDIO_TS/
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Aug  1 2005 [    276 02]  . 
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Aug  1 2005 [    275 02]  .. 
----------   0    0    0            6144 Aug  1 2005 [ 178966 00]  ATS_01_0.BUP;1 
----------   0    0    0            6144 Aug  1 2005 [    348 00]  ATS_01_0.IFO;1 
----------   0    0    0       365803520 Aug  1 2005 [    351 00]  ATS_01_1.AOB;1 
----------   0    0    0          131072 Aug  1 2005 [    278 00]  AUDIO_PP.IFO;1 
----------   0    0    0            6144 Aug  1 2005 [    345 00]  AUDIO_TS.BUP;1 
----------   0    0    0            6144 Aug  1 2005 [    342 00]  AUDIO_TS.IFO;1 

Directory listing of /VIDEO_TS/
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Aug  1 2005 [    277 02]  . 
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Aug  1 2005 [    275 02]  ..

That's it. Burn baby, Burn ! I use Nero 5.10.x but TerminaderTL has suggested Deepburner (http://www.deepburner.com/) They have a freeware burning download.

Thanks to:

Dave Chapman - dvda-author creator

TerminaderTL - for his help trying this out..

9:16 AM markjrenna - for his help also in testing out this process.