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Authoring a basic DVD-A with DVDA-Author

In this guide, you will learn how to author a simple DVD-A with the open source freeware DVDA-Author. This program lacks some of the advanced features of discWelder Chrome (like: menus, trackpoints and MLP support) but you can't beat the price: $0. What you will get is a DVD-A that starts playing when you load it into your DVD-A player and which you control with the Previous and Next buttons. The sound will be fully lossless, just like what you get with discWelder.

Quicklinks:

1. Getting and installing DVDA-Author
2. Recording the output files in Plogue Bidule
3. Authoring the DVD-A
4. Burning the ISO image
5. Playing the DVD-A

1. Getting and installing DVDA-Author
   
   DVDA-Author is a commandline utility to author compliant DVD-Audio disks. Its official web page is here.
   
   DVDA-Author Qt GUI is a GUI frontend for DVDA-Author. Its official web page is here.
   
   Both DVDA-Author and the GUI are updated frequently. You can download the latest version of the GUI (including DVD-Author and other associated programs) from this page. In the Newest Files section, pick the file which has "package" and "installer" in its name. During the installation procedure, you can choose not to install the source code.
   
   
2. Recording the output files in Plogue Bidule
   
   When you record (final recording) the .wav files in Plogue Bidule, make sure that:
   
   
   1. Bit depth is set to 24 bits. The DVD-A standard does not support bit depths higher than 24 bits.
   2. Create multiple files is not checked. DVD-Author requires multichannel input files.
   3. Each track is recorded individually. Because DVDA-Author does not support "trackpoints", you would not be able to go from one track to the other if you recorded a single long "full album track". Recording individual tracks solves this issue.
   
   
   
   
3. Authoring the DVD-A
   
   
   1. Start DVDA-Author-GUI.
      
      
   2. In the left pane, select the mch wav files (one per track). Click on the "Import" arrow between the two panes to include the selected files in the right pane.
      
      
      
      
   3. Click on the Options button in the toolbar, check Create ISO file with mkisofs and press Browse to name the ISO file (example: mch.iso in the same folder as the input files). Press OK to close the Options window.
      
      
      
      
   4. Press the Encode AUDIO_TS button in the toolbar. If you get a message about a directory to erase and recreate, press OK to do it. You can follow progress in the bottom pane. When processing is completed, the last two lines in the bottom pane are:
      
      ISO file (path and name) created
      You can now burn your DVD-Audio disc
   
   
4. Burning the ISO image
   
   To burn the ISO image on a DVD, simply use the "Write the image file to disc" option in ImgBurn.
   
   
   
   
5. Playing the DVD-A
   
   On your HTS, you need a DVD player which supports the DVD-Audio format. Such a player needs analog connections to a receiver.
   
   On your PC, you can easily play the mch waves directly in foobar2000 (free). To play the DVD-A itself (or the mounted ISO file), you need a commercial player like Cyberlink PowerDVD or you can simply use the excellent and free foo_input_dvda plugin for foobar2000.

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Change History

2009-09-13 Initial version published (Fan51)
2009-11-15 Link added to foo_input_dvda plugin for foobar2000 (Fan51)

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