FLAC
And there's this:
Since I've seen so many "DVD Audio" rips around that are transcodes made with DVD Audio Ripper, I thought I'd write this little guide. First we'll talk about regular DVDs, then DVD-Audio discs.
The first thing you should do is familiarise yourself with the types of audio found on DVDs. The four types found on regular DVDs are:
Dolby Digital (aka AC3, A/52) - The most common, found on essentially every DVD. Often presented in 2.0 or 5.1 channels.
DTS - A high bitrate codec commmonly used for high quality 5.1 material.
MPEG-2 Audio (MP2) - Not very popular, but you might see it on a few European DVDs. It can also be 2.0 or 5.1.
LPCM (aka PCM Stereo) - This is the only audio format on standard DVDs that is lossless. Due to its high bitrate (it is uncompressed, like an Audio CD) it is only ever stereo. Most of the time its 16-bit 48kHz, but some discs (such as Queen - A Night At The Opera) feature 24-bit and/or 96kHz LPCM tracks.
AC3, DTS, and MP2 are lossy codecs. Converting them to MP3 is transcoding. Running them through Surcode is transcoding. Unless your DVD contains an LPCM track, you should not convert to any other format and upload it here. Just because the audio track is in stereo does not mean it is PCM Stereo. Your DVD player will tell you what format the audio track is. If you are ripping the disc with DVD Decrypter, it will tell you. If you are using DVD Audio Ripper, it will tell you.
This disc should not be transcoded to MP3, FLAC, etc. as there are no lossless audio tracks.
You can do what you like with LPCM track on this disc. Converting to the format of your choice and/or downsampling to 44.1kHz is fine.
If you upload ripped audio from a DVD to OiNK, it is a good idea to mention that you ripped the content from the PCM track.
Ripping AC3/DTS
So what if you want to share the content of a disc without an LPCM track? Don't transcode it, and upload it in AC3 or DTS format.
The easiest way to do this is to rip the disc in DVD Decrypter.
The first thing you should do is to go into DVD Decrypter's settings and tell it to split by chapter when in IFO mode, which will ensure you get one file per song and don't need to split it up later.
Now use the Stream Processing tab to deselect everything except the audio track you wish to keep, which you should select to Demux.
When DVD Decrypter is finished ripping you should have seperate .AC3 or .DTS tracks for each chapter on the DVD, which should correlate to songs.
Spend a few minutes renaming the files to reflect their song titles and you should be good to go.
Other rippers on OS X and Linux should be capable of the same thing. As long as you can extract the AC3 or DTS.
Can't I just select AC3 as my output profile in DVD Audio Ripper?
No, that will just perform an AC3->AC3 transcode.
So how do I play DTS/AC3?
Most players will handle DTS or AC3 either natively or with a plugin.
Depending on your DVD Authoring program, you may be able to create a DVD with the audio tracks you have extracted.
And you can always transcode and make a DTS Audio CD, or transcode to MP3 (or preferably FLAC) for your own private use. But never, ever share the files or upload them to OiNK.
So all DTS audio CDs are transcoded?
No, but pretty much anything taken from a DVD source is. Going from a 1536kbps 48kHz DTS to a 1411kbps 44.1kHz DTS suitable for burning to Audio CD is a DTS->DTS transcode. But those that were ripped correctly from a DVD-Audio disc, Audio CD, or other lossless source are likely to be fine.
DVD-Audio discs (The Complex Part)
DVD-Audio discs are not just standard DVDs or DVDs with music content on them. DVD-Audio discs contain high resolution audio, compressed losslessly using MLP. If you can manage to rip it, you can downsample and convert it to any format you wish. DVD-Audio discs should contain a DVD-Audio logo and a "High Resolution" logo.
The majority of DVD-Audio discs also contain standard DVD material. For example, in addition to high-resolution 2.0 and 5.1 mixes, they may include standard AC3 or DTS soundtracks as well, bonus videos, etc.
Programs such as DVD Audio Ripper do not rip DVD-Audio discs. They rip the audio from standard DVDs. If I insert my DVD-Audio disc into DVD Audio Ripper I am greeted with this:
DVD Audio Ripper can only see the 2 standard DVD tracks, that is, the lossy Dolby Digital tracks and not the lossless DVD-Audio tracks. The same rules apply as before. If its not LPCM, don't transcode it.
So how do you rip DVD-Audio? It's a somewhat long and involved (but not difficult) process, you'll need the DVD Audio ripping tools, and a copy of WinDVD 5/6/7, and you'll need to use the command line. The DVD-A ripping tools are located here.
We're going to use PPCMRipper to rip the lossless audio files to WAV. If you just want to capture 2-channel content, feel free to skip the next few steps and rip directly from the DVD-A with PPCMRipper instead the ISO we're going to make.
PPCMRipper can not capture
…[Message Truncated]
Since I've seen so many "DVD Audio" rips around that are transcodes made with DVD Audio Ripper, I thought I'd write this little guide. First we'll talk about regular DVDs, then DVD-Audio discs.
The first thing you should do is familiarise yourself with the types of audio found on DVDs. The four types found on regular DVDs are:
Dolby Digital (aka AC3, A/52) - The most common, found on essentially every DVD. Often presented in 2.0 or 5.1 channels.
DTS - A high bitrate codec commmonly used for high quality 5.1 material.
MPEG-2 Audio (MP2) - Not very popular, but you might see it on a few European DVDs. It can also be 2.0 or 5.1.
LPCM (aka PCM Stereo) - This is the only audio format on standard DVDs that is lossless. Due to its high bitrate (it is uncompressed, like an Audio CD) it is only ever stereo. Most of the time its 16-bit 48kHz, but some discs (such as Queen - A Night At The Opera) feature 24-bit and/or 96kHz LPCM tracks.
AC3, DTS, and MP2 are lossy codecs. Converting them to MP3 is transcoding. Running them through Surcode is transcoding. Unless your DVD contains an LPCM track, you should not convert to any other format and upload it here. Just because the audio track is in stereo does not mean it is PCM Stereo. Your DVD player will tell you what format the audio track is. If you are ripping the disc with DVD Decrypter, it will tell you. If you are using DVD Audio Ripper, it will tell you.
This disc should not be transcoded to MP3, FLAC, etc. as there are no lossless audio tracks.
You can do what you like with LPCM track on this disc. Converting to the format of your choice and/or downsampling to 44.1kHz is fine.
If you upload ripped audio from a DVD to OiNK, it is a good idea to mention that you ripped the content from the PCM track.
Ripping AC3/DTS
So what if you want to share the content of a disc without an LPCM track? Don't transcode it, and upload it in AC3 or DTS format.
The easiest way to do this is to rip the disc in DVD Decrypter.
The first thing you should do is to go into DVD Decrypter's settings and tell it to split by chapter when in IFO mode, which will ensure you get one file per song and don't need to split it up later.
Now use the Stream Processing tab to deselect everything except the audio track you wish to keep, which you should select to Demux.
When DVD Decrypter is finished ripping you should have seperate .AC3 or .DTS tracks for each chapter on the DVD, which should correlate to songs.
Spend a few minutes renaming the files to reflect their song titles and you should be good to go.
Other rippers on OS X and Linux should be capable of the same thing. As long as you can extract the AC3 or DTS.
Can't I just select AC3 as my output profile in DVD Audio Ripper?
No, that will just perform an AC3->AC3 transcode.
So how do I play DTS/AC3?
Most players will handle DTS or AC3 either natively or with a plugin.
Depending on your DVD Authoring program, you may be able to create a DVD with the audio tracks you have extracted.
And you can always transcode and make a DTS Audio CD, or transcode to MP3 (or preferably FLAC) for your own private use. But never, ever share the files or upload them to OiNK.
So all DTS audio CDs are transcoded?
No, but pretty much anything taken from a DVD source is. Going from a 1536kbps 48kHz DTS to a 1411kbps 44.1kHz DTS suitable for burning to Audio CD is a DTS->DTS transcode. But those that were ripped correctly from a DVD-Audio disc, Audio CD, or other lossless source are likely to be fine.
DVD-Audio discs (The Complex Part)
DVD-Audio discs are not just standard DVDs or DVDs with music content on them. DVD-Audio discs contain high resolution audio, compressed losslessly using MLP. If you can manage to rip it, you can downsample and convert it to any format you wish. DVD-Audio discs should contain a DVD-Audio logo and a "High Resolution" logo.
The majority of DVD-Audio discs also contain standard DVD material. For example, in addition to high-resolution 2.0 and 5.1 mixes, they may include standard AC3 or DTS soundtracks as well, bonus videos, etc.
Programs such as DVD Audio Ripper do not rip DVD-Audio discs. They rip the audio from standard DVDs. If I insert my DVD-Audio disc into DVD Audio Ripper I am greeted with this:
DVD Audio Ripper can only see the 2 standard DVD tracks, that is, the lossy Dolby Digital tracks and not the lossless DVD-Audio tracks. The same rules apply as before. If its not LPCM, don't transcode it.
So how do you rip DVD-Audio? It's a somewhat long and involved (but not difficult) process, you'll need the DVD Audio ripping tools, and a copy of WinDVD 5/6/7, and you'll need to use the command line. The DVD-A ripping tools are located here.
We're going to use PPCMRipper to rip the lossless audio files to WAV. If you just want to capture 2-channel content, feel free to skip the next few steps and rip directly from the DVD-A with PPCMRipper instead the ISO we're going to make.
PPCMRipper can not capture