BDAV Authoring

[wswartzendruber]

Desire: To create home-made Blu-ray Audio discs that can play on any BD player.

Assumption: I need to author the disc as BDAV without a video stream.

Question: How? tsMuxer creates "BD-J" and "BDMV" folders, so that doesn't look right.

[Ghitulescu]

Why not author a normal BD-Video with a black H.264 video track (to get more space for audio)?
IIRC, BDAV was created before BD-Audio was established to serve a different purpose. I'm not sure whether the newer generations of BD-players are still compatible with BDAV. You may try the very first version of PowerDirector BD, AFAIK it was the only commercial application to create BDAVs.

I've found an image of a commercial BD-Audio on the net
http://images.computeraudiophile.com/graphics/2009/0607/file-structure-full.png
It's BDMV.

[wswartzendruber]

Well, yeah, that's BDMV because it's commercial. As I understand it:

BDMV: Commercial
BDAV: Home

Now this can be confusing as BDAV can refer to two things:

1. File structure of a home-authored Blu-ray Disc.
2. M2TS format.

I'm talking about #1.

To my knowledge, you cannot have an unencrypted BDMV.

NOTE: I really wish HD DVD would've won.

[Ghitulescu]

Well, yeah, that's BDMV because it's commercial. As I understand it:

BDMV: Commercial
BDAV: Home

Now this can be confusing as BDAV can refer to two things:

1. File structure of a home-authored Blu-ray Disc.
2. M2TS format.

I'm talking about #1.

To my knowledge, you cannot have an unencrypted BDMV.

NOTE: I really wish HD DVD would've won.

Yeah, this was the initial idea, but it never caught. All new authoring software create BDMV.

And, no. BDMV has [almost] nothing to do with encryption. All backups here are unencrypted (one needs a replication factory to manufacture encrypted BDs) and still BDMV.

Is there something wrong with the tiny black video track? Why complicate the matter?

[wswartzendruber]

Because most music-only BDs don't have a video track whatsoever, at least as far as I know.

But more importantly, are you trying to tell me that I can burn a BDMV structure to a BD-R(E) and have it work in a compliant player? I would LOVE for this to be true!

[setarip_old]

But more importantly, are you trying to tell me that I can burn a BDMV structure to a BD-R(E) and have it work in a compliant player?Yes you can...

[wswartzendruber]

Okay, so are there any gotchas to using tsMuxer?

[MrVideo]

Desire: To create home-made Blu-ray Audio discs that can play on any BD player.

I'm curious: why?

If you try and create a Blu-ray disc without any menus, you'll have no idea what is on the disc and how to even get to it.

You'd be better off having a newer Blu-ray player and putting lots of MP3 files on a DVD-R and having the player play that disc. At least the player will show you a list of the music titles and the player might even have a random play mode.

[MrVideo]

But more importantly, are you trying to tell me that I can burn a BDMV structure to a BD-R(E) and have it work in a compliant player? I would LOVE for this to be true!

Whatever gave you the idea that it wasn't true?

[Ghitulescu]

If you try and create a Blu-ray disc without any menus, you'll have no idea what is on the disc and how to even get to it.

That's not entirely correct.

One can create a playlist that starts automatically, and the songs may be selected with ¦<< or >>¦ like a regular CD (or similar authored DVD). I think that's more or less what tsmuxer does.

[MrVideo]

That's not entirely correct.

One can create a playlist that starts automatically, and the songs may be selected with ¦<< or >>¦ like a regular CD (or similar authored DVD). I think that's more or less what tsmuxer does.

While you can indeed do that, you still do not know what is on the BD, unless you create a list.

With a CD player, you can at least randomize what is being played. Can that even be done with a video tsmuxer authored BD?

[Ghitulescu]

I never used random play on my CDs. Most of them are author-type, and the order of songs is therefore important (like Pink Floyd).
There is no need for a menu on any optical media I know (including VCD, DVD, BD to name the digital ones), but a menu will make indeed the things visually much appealing. However, for an audio-only disc, the existence of a menu is (philosophically speaking) a contradiction in terms. The purpose of an audio-only disc is to put it into the tray and hear the music (audiobooks, conference etc.) without the need to switch the TV on.

[MrVideo]

I never used random play on my CDs. Most of them are author-type, and the order of songs is therefore important (like Pink Floyd).

CDs that really can't be randomized just means you don't put the player in random mode :D

There is no need for a menu on any optical media I know (including VCD, DVD, BD to name the digital ones), but a menu will make indeed the things visually much appealing.

Which what I did when I authored a DVD of all the single releases of a particular artist. While the song was playing, the screen would display the title and length (I think I even included that highest Billboard chart position and the chart date it hit that position). The menu let her find a particular song real fast.

However, for an audio-only disc, the existence of a menu is (philosophically speaking) a contradiction in terms. The purpose of an audio-only disc is to put it into the tray and hear the music (audiobooks, conference etc.) without the need to switch the TV on.

Audiobooks and conference proceedings, etc., are not music discs. The original posting implied, to me anyway, that a music disc is what was desired.

Personally, instead of trying to burn media, it would be easier to load music into a MP3 type player and just connect it to the stereo system. A lot cheaper than trying to burn BDs.

[Ghitulescu]

A lot cheaper than trying to burn BDs.

Indeed. Probably the best idea, provided the player understands HD-audio (which seems to be the reason for choosing BD-audio, as opposed to space need).

I said I don't wanna randomize my songs (and never used), not that I can't (or I don't know how to do it), or the player can't or de disc doesn't allow it. Try reading the pages of a book in a random fashion :), of course you can, but it makes no sense.

[MrVideo]

Indeed. Probably the best idea, provided the player understands HD-audio (which seems to be the reason for choosing BD-audio, as opposed to space need).

The original audio will not be in any of the compressed formats that a BD player will understand. The audio will have to be transcoded.

I said I don't wanna randomize my songs (and never used), not that I can't (or I don't know how to do it), or the player can't or de disc doesn't allow it.

That is you. But, the OP might want to randomize the music that is being played. When you have a MP3 type player filled with thousands of songs, you do not play them from beginning to end. You randomize for variety.

Try reading the pages of a book in a random fashion :), of course you can, but it makes no sense.

Audio that must be played in order has been removed from the equation, as previously noted. Music can be randomized.

[rik1138]

The original audio will not be in any of the compressed formats that a BD player will understand. The audio will have to be transcoded.

How do you know? You have no idea what the original poster is trying to create, he just said 'music disc'. Maybe he has 5.1 wav files of some music that he wants to play lossless via blu-ray.

That is you. But, the OP might want to randomize the music that is being played. When you have a MP3 type player filled with thousands of songs, you do not play them from beginning to end. You randomize for variety.

Whether or not it can ranomize has nothing to do with this topic. That was never mentioned by the original poster. For all you know, he has a single 4-hour long piece of audio. How do you randomize one track?

I've never understand why people have to jump into threads that they seem unable to provide any usefull information to only to argue why the OP shouldn't do what they asked how to do.

_He_ knows what he wants to create and why... If you can't help with that, why even post? Offering an alternative could be useful, but trying to argue that he's doing it wrong just because it wouldn't suit _YOUR_ needs is a complete waste of everyone's time (presumably even yours...).

[MrVideo]

All of this is because I'm trying to extract from the original OP what it is s/he is exactly trying to do. So far the OP has been quiet. Once the OP responds with more detail, the above guesses can be amended.

I have plenty of time :D

[setarip_old]

@wswartzendruber

Okay, so are there any gotchas to using tsMuxer? You've not previously mentioned anything about tsMuxer.

1) What SPECIFICALLY functions do you wish to use tsMuxer for?

2) What "gotchas" might concern you?

3) Please describe your desired audio-only project - e.g. Will it be a single (very) long audiostream or many different shorter streams (such as individual songs, passages from books, pages from a diary, etc.)?

[wswartzendruber]

Wow! First I'd like to thank everyone for contributing.

I'm trying to make an audio disc that functions like an audio CD. I have 96 kHz PCM tracks in 5.1. Of course I'll also make stereo downmixes for each one. The only thing really going on these discs is going to be LPCM. I would do DTS, but tsMuxerGUI doesn't like the DTS files the official encoder generates.

I have no desire to randomize the track order, and I certainly don't want menus.

Regarding tsMuxer, I have read that it creates incompatible structures in certain cases, but couldn't find any specifics.

I will also be using the custom chapters functionality.

[setarip_old]

@wswartzendruber

You should encounter no difficulty from tsMuxer for your described project. Just remember, you want to "JOIN" and not "ADD" ;>}

I'd suggest that you create a blank 2 second track to be placed between each tune.

[rik1138]

I'm trying to make an audio disc that functions like an audio CD. I have 96 kHz PCM tracks in 5.1. Of course I'll also make stereo downmixes for each one. The only thing really going on these discs is going to be LPCM. I would do DTS, but tsMuxerGUI doesn't like the DTS files the official encoder generates.

I've used freshly encoded DTS files with TSmuxer in the past, never had a problem with it... But, depending on the version you are using, it might be having a problem with the header data that the encoder puts on there (that is stripped off in authoring for the final disc). It's usually 140 bytes, if you are familiar with a way to trim files, trim the first 140 off the DTS and see if TSMuxer likes it.

(If you are really familiar with Hex editing, you want to remove everything up to and including the 8 bytes that follow STRMDATA in the encoded file... For DTS-HD MA audio, that should be 140 bytes total, it's a little different for DVD DTS, or Secondary streams, etc... But I doubt you are using those.)

[wswartzendruber]

So is that what "Padded DTS" is? And I don't have the tools for HR or MA authoring, just plain old DTS.