Constantin describes in this article how to create an DVD-Audio disc on Linux/Solaris (and also emphasizes the difference between DVD-Audio and DVD-Video).
I assume that most people who are interested in DVD-Audio know that there are also commercial DVD-A solutions out there, like DiscWelder.
However, for the task at hand Constantin would not have needed to create a DVD-Audio disc, but instead could have simply used his favorite DVD-Video authoring tool and create a stereo 96kHz/24bit LPCM track on a DVD-Video. All fully compatible DVD-V players must support this format, thus you do not have to resort to DVD-Audio.
This is obviously different for multi-channel formats where the DVD-Audio format is the only viable alternative. For high-resolution, multi-channel tracks, you will also need an MLP encoder … and here we are talking about some serious licensing fees.
tag: DVD-Audio, DVD-Video, High-Definition
PS: Here is an overview on the DVD-Video audio capabilities.
Hi Gerald,
yes, I found about DVD-Video supporting 24/96 out too, while including a link to the Wikipedia DVD-Video page into my blog entry :). OTOH, it is not known how typical DVD-Players would react to that format, given that it is used not very commonly. It might be that the DVD-Video routing will just down-convert to 16/48 for the sake of feeding the S/PDIF output which does not support a higher resolution than that.
Cheers,
Constantin
Actually, S/PDIF (and also AES/EBU) do support higher bitrates – for stereo streams actually up to 192 kHz @ 24bit. A DVD player that is built to spec, should pass the bitstream unmodified up to the external DAC (either stand-alone or in the receiver/pre-amp).
As an example: I have a few DVD-Video discs with LPCM 96/24 tracks (e.g. Elliot Carter). When passing them through the digital interface the receiver recognizes this and decodes the bitstream accordingly. Most DVD-Video players will allow you to downsample at the source, though.
Best,
Gerry