I am well experienced with the basics of DVD ripping, burning, etc....but I am in to something new now. How can I put audio files (.wav or .mp3) onto a DVD-R or CD-R in 5.1 Surround. I have ACID Pro 4.0 and am able to make AC-3 files.....(I think I am doing this correctly) and I use Sonic AC-3 DVD Burner to put on DVD-R. Everything seems to go well...but it does not play on my set-top dvd player. It does not play at all....it just spits it out. Does anyone have any experience with converting audio files to 5.1 surround and burning to DVD or CD ?? Anyone know of any good tutorials or have experience with ACID or orther programs?? Thanks.
To get audio DVD-Rs that play back on (some) standalone DVD players) you need to create DVD audio as mentioned in two other threads in this forum recently, using expensive professional software. The only alternative that could work is creating a DVD movie with a black screen @ max. compression as video track and the audio you want as audio track.
For any AC3 files to work in a settop player, they need to be in the video_TS directory, which controls DVD-Video playback, otherwise the settop player won't know what they are. They also need to be multiplexed into a video stream, so as tigre says you will have to use a DVD-V authoring program using videoblack and multiplexing the files together, or it won't work. Alternative number 2 is to use a DVD-Audio app, although this won't see AC3 files as they fall under the DVD-V spec. There is a third alternative, depending on your AC3/Dolby Digital encoder (I know this works with Hardware converters and the Nuendo DDC) and that is to export the files as a Dolby Digital Wave file. This looks like a standard wave file, so can be burned to CD-R with your usual software, but when you drop the disc into a DVD settop player it should see the file as an AC3 file, and providing the player is set up right should play back in 5.1 surround. Sorry about that, but the whole surround burning/playback issue gets very complicated, and usually expensive to boot.
Forgot to mention that AC3 files, although 32/44.1 & 48KHz sample rates are supported, must be at 48KHz for playback on a DVD-Video system. Only a DVD-Audio system will support playback at other sample rates, from 44.1 to 192KHz depending on track count and format. Hope this helps. If you have any questions at all, please let me know and I'll try to help.