"Official" Audio format for the Bluray

[kurkosdr]

Ok, here is a toughie:

If I want to store audio on a CD, I 'll make an Audio CD (the official format for storing audio on CDs). For DVDs, I 'll make a DVD-Audio.
Now, if I want to store audio in a Bluray disc, which is the official format I should use?

Yes, I guess I could burn some MP3 or AAC files in a bluray disc and put them to play, but I doubt if this is the "standard" way. Which means compatibility with standalones can be problematic.

So, did sony bother to make a standard for that, or they were to pre-occupied with their Bluray Movie standard (for video) and kinda forgot?
And if the format exists, which are it's sampling rates, codecs and file containers?

[Inspector.Gadget]

Any audio format supported by Blu-ray will work. Since your question seems to deal with music, you might as well go lossless: 2 channel PCM at a 48 kHz sample rate will be 1536kbps, which is equal to the bitrate most DTS or DTS core tracks use for 5.1. Since there aren't any free encoders available for either of the other lossless BD formats, LPCM is the way to go.

[deank]

multiAVCHD authors 'audioBD' and 'audioAVCHD' discs. It is a standard Blu-ray (or AVCHD) which contains video track & chapters. I've never seen blu-ray equivalent of DVD-A or audio CD (specification wise).

[bigotti5]

Profile 3.0 is a player only profile for BD-Audio (wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Player_profiles)).
More info on this (http://www.pureaudio-bluray.com/) website.

[deank]

Yep, multiAVCHD does the same (except for the BD-J switching of audio formats from DTS to LPCM with the colored keys). You can have it with menu (or not) with video presentation of title names/duration/background (or not), etc...

Here is more... (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=145728&page=4)

[kurkosdr]

Thanks for the bunch of replies. Yes, I noticed the "Profile 3.0" specification, but I didn't manage to find any other info about that spec. As it seems, it's just a regular "BD movie" disc, possibly with no video and menus

So, does this means files are stored in the usual BDMV/STREAM folder? (and the rest of the regular BD movie structure?). And if yes, what is the container of the music files? Just the usual .m2ts? I am asking because the last time I checked, .vob files couldn't be audio-only, so the dvd-forum had to create the .aob file to facilitate audio-only streams. Can m2ts be audio-only? If m2ts is fine for audio-only, kudos to Sony for not making yet another useless container file...

PS: I wonder how standalone BD-Audio players are going to exist (you know like car stereos and racks), if menus and videos are a part of the spec. I mean, unless there is a quick way for the car stereo to bypass the menus and reach to the audio directly, a video output is needed so that the user can navigate through the menus and reach the music track.

[deank]

A properly authored audio Blu-ray disc will simply check player's capabilities and will proceed accordingly - if player supports menu it will play it, otherwise will skip to the first title.

Those audio bd/avchd which multiAVCHD produces can be played without a TV, but just by the blu-ray player with track selection using the remote control, fast ff, rewind, chapter skip (for album titles), etc.

A m2ts container can contain only video, only audio, only PGS or textST or just about anything found in blu-ray format.

[drpaulng]

In DVD-Audio, audio tracks can be played continueously without being interrupted by switching (navigation by remote) photos (or lyrics). This is what BD-Audio ought to be. multiAVCHD has almost cover every aspect normal audio-only player should be...except for this "dissociation of photo-frames from the audio tracks".

[deank]

Well, I guess I'll pass with these out-of-mux extras like lyrics and photo-slideshows, while audio album/playlist is playing.

multiAVCHD's audio Blu-ray/AVCHD output covers too many audio input formats already and I doubt I can expand this audio-only feature more than what it currently is (at least not in such a tool where you have drag&drop, click start, burn and play).

[kurkosdr]

Thanks for the bunch of information. If BD-Audio is indeed a regular Bluray-Movie with some BD-J instructions for playback on non-video standalone players, then here is the first audio format that includes graphics and menus in it's original specification. Hell, it was about time! The CD+G spec had a truckload of problems with some standalone players, and DVD-Audio never included graphics and menus, as far as I know. Yes, you could put some vob data in the video_ts folder, but most DVD players supporting DVD-Audio would ignore everything inside the video_ts folder if files in the audio_ts were found.
So BD-Audio is the first one to do the graphics and menus right.

PS:I really hope sony didn't overdid it with copy protection, like it did with Bluray-Movie profile. Imagine if the car stereo and rack manufacturers have to implement the whole AACS and BD+ protection, just to play the damn disc. If such happens, then standalone BD-Audio players are really never going to exist. Imagine the face of the car stereo designer, if told "your car stereo must support 128bit length keys an you must implement the whole of the BD+/DLX virtual machine". Hope this isn't true...