Hi.

You will probably tell from this message that I have, probably, a little too much time on my hands.

I'm waiting for my girlfriend to go into labour. Again. So, in my moment of distraction I had a flash of inspiration.

I'll join up to Club CD Freaks and ask them all a question which has been bugging my since I got my nice new dual layer DVD writer.

Ok. Enough preamble and onto the question which is at the heart of my confusion.

Can I take audio data from a CD and put it onto a DVD so that it will play in an normal DVD player?

Now, before you all start laughing, here is the idea I have and some supporting and probably wrong mathematics to go with it.

A CD can hold upto 80 minutes of audio (maybe not 80 minutes exactly, but close to, and I know there are 90-99 minute CDRs available, but I am ignoring these for the time being as I don't want to confuse myself even more!).

When I use Audio Catalyst, I can compress the ripped data to around 1/12th of the original size.

So, equation number 1.

1 AudioCD = 12 MP3CDs

Now lets look at DVDs.

DVDs are sold as holding 4.7GBs of data. Now I know this is not the 4.7GBs the rest of us use, but 4.7 thousand million (4,700,000,000). I think. For the sake of argument, I'm going to use the same rule for a CD capacity - 700,000,000 bytes.

So, the second equation of the day is to determine how many CDs would fit onto a DVD.

1DVD = 4,700,000,000
1CD = 700,000,000
1DVD = 4,700,000,000 / 700,000,000 CDs
1DVD = 6.71CDs
1DVD = 6.71 * 80mins
1DVD = 537.14 mins
1DVD = 8.95 hours of audio music

So far so good, a DVD holds more than a CD. I'm sure you are all saying "I could have told you that!!!", and I am sure you are right on that.

Ok, equation number 3. How many MP3 CDs could you get onto a DVD?

1DVD = 6.71CDs * 12
1DVD = 80.52MP3CDs

That seems like a lot! But, and this is where the fun REALLY starts, an if an MP3CD is approximately 1/12th the size of a normal CD, does it follow that ...

1DVD = 80.52MP3CDs * 80minutes
1DVD = 6445.71 minutes of MP3 music
1DVD = 107.43 hours of MP3 music
1DVD = 4.48 days of MP3 music

That is nearly FOUR AND A HALF DAYS OF MP3 MUSIC ON A SINGLE DVD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOW!!!!!!!

Eek!

Hold on.

That is a SINGLE LAYER DVD!!!!!!!

Are we ready for this?

A dual layer DVD holds 8.5GB of data (and I'll use the 8,500,000,000 bytes).

1DLDVD = 8,500,000,000
1CD = 700,000,000
1DLDVD = 8,500,000,000 / 700,000,000 CDs
1DLDVD = 12.14CDs
1DLDVD = 12.14 * 80mins
1DLDVD = 971.43 mins
1DLDVD = 16.19 hours of audio music

1DLDVD = 12.14CDs * 12
1DLDVD = 145.71MP3CDs

1DLDVD = 145.71 * 80 minutes
1DLDVD = 11657.14 minutes of MP3 music
1DLDVD = 194.23 hours of MP3 music
1DLDVD = 8.10 days of MP3 music

I'll repeat in capital letters.

ONE DUAL LAYER DVD COULD HOLD OVER EIGHT DAYS OF MUSIC IN MP3 FORMAT

Am I crazy? Have I missed the boat? Is my processor short of a register or two?

I don't think so.


Lets say there is an application which could construct DVD images for buring from CDs. Imagine a program that worked in the following way.

1 - You put a CD in to the drive.
2 - It is read and ripped.
3 - Cover image, track listing, lyrics and other text stuff was collected over the internet.
4 - A library is built from this information.
5 - You can repeat the steps 1 to 4 as often as you like.
6 - You can manually add existing files and images and text.
7 - You decide to build a DVD of your favourite music.
8 - You pick the tracks.
9 - Covers and lyrics are automatically added to the DVD.
10 - It tells you how many days of music you have left to fill on the DVD.
11 - You say BURN and a little while later you have a fully working, interactive menus and all, DVD of your favourite music.

I'd say that is a GOOD program!

But, does one already exist?

If you have found this ramble interesting and you can contribute PLEASE do so!

Kind regards and awaiting REALLY interesting responses,

Razor's Edge UK.

there are apps that will create audio dvds, but i refuse to mention them as they are ALL [all 3 of them that is] VERY buggy and should not be for sale. IMHO. there IS a long way to do it with TMPGenc Plus and TMPGenc DVD Author. but you know, if you ain't got the great sound equipment to play your dvd audio on, then it make no diff anyway. just put the mp3s in a folder, burn 'em as data to CD and plauy 'em in DVD player...u'll get a menu an' all too !

Ah. No. My DVD player doesn't play MP3 disks (CD or DVD).

What I'm looking for is a REAL DVD disk which contains my MP3s (all that VOB/IFO stuff).

I got a multi-region Sony 725. It is old now. It was expensive then.

And I'm not talking about DVD-Audio (which I know is around).

Basically, a DVD which contains stereo sound with little or no video. Can I take a still and add an audio track to it? I think that is what I am after.

Raz.