Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: DVD Audio to MPC? (Read 5800 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

DVD Audio to MPC?

Can I rip Audio from a DVD to MPC? I would really like the St. Anger DVD Audio in an MPC format so that I can lesten to it without having to play DVD.

Cheers.

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #1 –
Rip the AC3 stream using something like SmartRipper. Use BeSweet to convert the AC3 stream to WAV. Slice and dice the WAV files with CDWave. Then encode to MPC.

That's how I do it anyway
flac > schiit modi > schiit magni > hd650

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #2 –
The quality would be better analogly recording the output of a DVD-A player.

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #3 –
On some DVD's you will get lucky and find that it has a 2 channel PCM audio stream. That's the perfect way to go, but doesn't happen very often. Mostly on older DVD's.
flac > schiit modi > schiit magni > hd650

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #4 –
Quote
The quality would be better analogly recording the output of a DVD-A player.

Better than ripping it digitally and transcoding? Why?

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #5 –
Wondered that myself.

The only way it would be better is if the hardware decoder did a better job than the software on your pc. They are both doing the same thing.
flac > schiit modi > schiit magni > hd650

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #6 –
I you are speaking about DVD audio (DVD-A), there is no way to rip. And using the AC3 stream gives poor quality.
If you are talking about DVD audio (audio of DVD Video), it is better to rip, of course.

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #7 –
Quote
If you are talking about DVD audio (audio of DVD Video), it is better to rip, of course. 

That's what I was talking about. As far as I know, there is not yet a way to rip DVD-A.

Soon I hope.
flac > schiit modi > schiit magni > hd650

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #8 –
Quote
As far as I know, there is not yet a way to rip DVD-A.

That's because DVD-Audio is encrypted, just like DVD-Video.  Any attempts at ripping DVD-Audio discs are illegal by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998, which deems that bypassing methods of copyprotection/encryption is unlawful.

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #9 –
Quote
Any attempts at ripping DVD-Audio discs are illegal.

Not relevant to the discussion. If I buy the disc, I can make a backup copy for myself.

The DMCA means nothing to me in this instance.
flac > schiit modi > schiit magni > hd650

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #10 –
Bypassing copy protection for "fair use" purposes has not yet been tested in court, so right now it's questionable as to whether even that is legal.

I'm not saying it should be against the law, just stating the facts.

And since DVD-Audio discs are illegal to rip, I doubt you're going to see many (read: any) rippers.  If anything, you'll probably have to rip it via some arduous manual process.  =/

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #11 –
Quote
And since DVD-Audio discs are illegal to rip, I doubt you're going to see many (read: any) rippers.

I don't care about the legality. I'm not trading my music, and I do not condone that. The audio goes on a hard drive to be played from my PC. Truthfully, I don't care if that's legal or not.

As for rippers, I currently have about 5 different rippers for DVD's, which I believe technically shouldn't exist. As soon as there is one for DVD-A, I will have that one too, regardless of the legality.

If I paid for the content, they can take the "legality" and shove it.

Edit : When I say I don't care about the legality, I would prefer that it be legal. Either way, I will still put my audio on my home server.
flac > schiit modi > schiit magni > hd650

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #12 –
Quote
Bypassing copy protection for "fair use" purposes has not yet been tested in court, so right now it's questionable as to whether even that is legal.

I'm not saying it should be against the law, just stating the facts.

And since DVD-Audio discs are illegal to rip, I doubt you're going to see many (read: any) rippers.  If anything, you'll probably have to rip it via some arduous manual process.  =/

DVD-Video is illegal to rip as well, correct?  So why is it that you see programs floating around the net that allow you to do this?

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #13 –
DVD-Audio is encrypted with a MUCH tougher scheme than DVD-Video.  The Video uses CSS, whereas DVD-Audio utilizes CPPM.  When I say tougher, it could theoretically take months on a fairly powerful computer of today to crack, maybe even longer.  That's why you don't see too many DVD-A rippers.  Not because it's illegal, but because it's nearly impossible to crack. Remember that ripping Video is technically illegal according to DMCA, but there are plenty of those rippers around.

Also, Pio2001 is quite correct about DVD-Audio being an analog only format, sort of.  The problem is that DVD-Audio is referred to as both a form of media as well as the audio encoding scheme.  I think the audio encoding scheme may actually be called MLP, but don't take my word as the be all end all.  Anyways, MLP is one of the more mysterious schemes out there, because very few people actually know all that much about it.  Even just getting a decoder costs thousands of dollars, hence the reason you need to use analog out.

However, I think that most DVD-A disks have other encoded soundtracks on their disc for added compatibilty.  I have a DVD-A disc that contains DTS as well as PCM. Unfortunately, I've never successfully gotten the audio off of it.  Good Luck with yours though.

Edit: added information on WHY you don't see DVD-A rippers.
 

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #14 –
quick question, can you just grab the PCM stream as you listen to the DVD-A on your computer? my dad says hes been doing this, but it seems bogus/like someone else would have thought of it.

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #15 –
Quote
quick question, can you just grab the PCM stream as you listen to the DVD-A on your computer? my dad says hes been doing this, but it seems bogus/like someone else would have thought of it.

I think that this is possible.  It would be akin pressing play and recording it at the same time, but you don't need the cables.

I used to do this exact thing when wanting to make PCM copies of Real streams.  It's hardly elegeant, slow, and there MAY be some quality loss (though I really don't know), but it WILL get the job done.

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #16 –
The Real player > total recorder > .wav file route is one I used lots for Real audio streams. Hardly elegant. No quality loss - but you end up with a huge .wav file from a very small Real Audio stream. There was an old version of Stream Box Ripper that could grab the RA stream directly, but I could never get that to work.

Grabbing DVD audio in this way might not be possible. IIRC only a certain creative sound card allows you to play back DVD-audio discs (it contains the only PC decoder), and it keeps the audio secure on the way to the sound card. The latest versions of windows (XP?) are also supposed to have a secure route to the sound card to prevent the use of programs like Total Recorder.

IIRC you are allowed to digitally access a 2-channel downmix sampled at 48kHz - more than good enough for making mpcs. This is what comes out of the digital outputs of some DVD-audio players when playing the discs. It's the higher resolution, or multichannel part that is super protected on DVD-A.

That said, if DVD-audio was a popular as DVD-video, it would be naive to think that someone isn't going to crack it.


With suitable equipment, as Pio2001 suggests, you can always re-digitise the 6-channel analogue output of a DVD-audio player. However, don't think that the industry isn't aware of this. That's one of the things that watermarking may one day prevent you from doing. It doesn't matter that your PC from 2003 will happily ignore the watermark and record the content anyway. You can bet that the PC you buy in 2013 will detect it and stop you making a copy. You might think "that's OK - I'll just use my old PC and sound card" - but how many people are still using a PC from 1993 today?

Anyway, as I said, IIRC you can legally "get at" a 2 channel 48kHz sampled version - that should be enough for most people for now. If you're going to store a lossy 6-channel version, you might as well rip the AC-3 or DTS and keep that. If you're going to store a lossless 6-channel 24/96 version then I hope you have a very large HDD or a very small music collection! Obviously, in the future, things may be different.

Cheers,
David.

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #17 –
Quote
With suitable equipment, as Pio2001 suggests, you can always re-digitise the 6-channel analogue output of a DVD-audio player. However, don't think that the industry isn't aware of this. That's one of the things that watermarking may one day prevent you from doing. It doesn't matter that your PC from 2003 will happily ignore the watermark and record the content anyway. You can bet that the PC you buy in 2013 will detect it and stop you making a copy. You might think "that's OK - I'll just use my old PC and sound card" - but how many people are still using a PC from 1993 today?

Very few... but I suspect if there was a reason to use a PC from 1993, people would be using them.  Nobody can deny there are still plenty floating around at recycling places, garage sales, everywhere -- and PCs (and computing devices in general) were quite a bit less widespread in 1993 than they are now.

If the "secure PC" thing ever succeeds, it's almost a guarantee that at least some people will be stretching the lives of old computers for certain uses, and/or licitely or illicitely building their own computers without the copy protection.  I can't imagine it would be possible to outlaw all previous PC's ever built before a certain date -- they didn't do this in the USA with scanners that could receive cellular frequencies (and scanners are a far smaller and much different market).  They did make it illegal to manfacture & sell new ones that could receive such frequencies, except to government & police agencies.

Anyway -- since when did it ever require a PC to record from an analog line-out jack from one device to another?  They would have to license and restrict all ADC's (and believe it -- the entertainment industry would like to, and it has been discussed before!).

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #18 –
I'm only guessing what the industry has/had in mind, because after the hack SDMI challenge, there never was a "phase 2" to the SDMI. But...

It's all very well you having an old PC so you can re-record something with a watermark, but then you've got to play it back. Maybe you do want to use your 10 year old PC to replay your rips (and/or net traded files). However, anyone who wants to use a new PC to play that audio will find that the watermark is still there, and it won't play on a new device. That's enough to stop the mass piracy that the industry worries about. If a few techy geeks can still copy stuff, they won't care - as long as millions don't have access to the copies.

The other point you raise is a good one - they'll be an incentive to build PCs without this technology built-in. I've read (but can't find) an essay from a famous Free Software proponent, warning of the dire consequences of closed operating systems, and how anti-piracy measures could work out in the future. It doesn't sound too far fetched - but, like you, I have "faith" in the human nack of being able to find a way around anything that authority tries to impose on us. We're a bunch of awkward unpredictable sods, and that sometimes comes in handy against people who try to manipulate us.

Cheers,
David.

DVD Audio to MPC?

Reply #19 –
[deleted]