Stereo mastering on the 5 11 DVD — Forum Archive

12 Dec 2004, 18:14

Since purchasing Half Life 2 :D I recently dug out my trusty Creative Labs DVD-ROM drive in order to install and play the game, and since it was attached to my PC anyway I thought why not start ripping the audio from all my various music DVDs for encoding into MP3 (for iPod)? I've downloaded and experimented with a number of DVD audio rippers with mainly success having already ripped the Doves DVD Eden gig and a handful of DVD music singles.

Anyway, I thought it would be a cool idea to take my various New Order DVDs and rip the "exclusive" audio content on them, however I ran into a small "issue" with the 5 11 DVD. In the ripper I'm using, I set the audio to plain 2-channel stereo and ripped everything there. The final files were a little "loud", to say the least and I'm not talking a distortion or ripper volume level problem here, more the way the whole DVD is mastered. To be on the safe side I ran WinDVD playing a track from the gig in Stereo and had Cool Edit recording the wave channel in the background. The final result was almost identical to the ripped one, very very "loud", verging on distortion but not quite if you get my meaning? To be honest, I am a little disappointed cos I certainly wouldn't have minded a full quality MP3 rip of the Finsbury gig on my iPod & MP3 folder, but listening to those files for more than 2 songs brings on a headache :( The final nail in the coffin was the "Vicious Circle" instrumental music from the 5 11 menu as it was ripped near perfect, from the same session, sounding great and not distorted at all.

Basically, I was wondering if anyone else here had tried something similar with the 5 11 DVD and/or come out with better, more listenable results.

Cheers, Ally.

PS. Regarding copyright and any prudes out there, I paid full whack for the DVDs when they came out so I feel I have every sodding right to put them on my iPod if I see fit so I can listen to them more conveniently! So there :D Hehe

12 Dec 2004, 18:20

Originally posted by Ally3000 Since purchasing Half Life 2 :D I recently dug out my trusty Creative Labs DVD-ROM drive in order to install and play the game, and since it was attached to my PC anyway I thought why not start ripping the audio from all my various music DVDs for encoding into MP3 (for iPod)? I've downloaded and experimented with a number of DVD audio rippers with mainly success having already ripped the Doves DVD Eden gig and a handful of DVD music singles.Anyway, I thought it would be a cool idea to take my various New Order DVDs and rip the "exclusive" audio content on them, however I ran into a small "issue" with the 5 11 DVD. In the ripper I'm using, I set the audio to plain 2-channel stereo and ripped everything there. The final files were a little "loud", to say the least and I'm not talking a distortion or ripper volume level problem here, more the way the whole DVD is mastered. To be on the safe side I ran WinDVD playing a track from the gig in Stereo and had Cool Edit recording the wave channel in the background. The final result was almost identical to the ripped one, very very "loud", verging on distortion but not quite if you get my meaning? To be honest, I am a little disappointed cos I certainly wouldn't have minded a full quality MP3 rip of the Finsbury gig on my iPod & MP3 folder, but listening to those files for more than 2 songs brings on a headache :( The final nail in the coffin was the "Vicious Circle" instrumental music from the 5 11 menu as it was ripped near perfect, from the same session, sounding great and not distorted at all.Basically, I was wondering if anyone else here had tried something similar with the 5 11 DVD and/or come out with better, more listenable results.Cheers, Ally.PS. Regarding copyright and any prudes out there, I paid full whack for the DVDs when they came out so I feel I have every sodding right to put them on my iPod if I see fit so I can listen to them more conveniently! So there :D Hehe

I ripped the 5 11 DVD using Handbrake (http://handbrake.m0k.org, Every major OS *except* Windows, ipped it on my Mac for speed) and then knocked the video out of it with MediaConvertor (BeOS). Sounds fine, it is 2 channel obviously.

I'd suggest you either have your machine configured in Windows for 5.1 channel support, or have recording volumes up too high. Or both.

12 Dec 2004, 23:52

I'm absolutely sure there are major issues with the sound on 511, well my copy at least. I mentioned this once before, but didn't really get an answer as to whether all the 511 DVD's sound shite, or just a few. I suspect if MYOB has managed without a problem then it's the latter.

But yes Ally, I've experienced exactly the problems you mention. On playback, if I select the 5.1 audio then it's completely unlistenable, and if I select 2.0 audio it's not quite as distorted but I have to turn the telly down to volume setting 1. And even that is a bit loud. As for ripping, I've given up. Whatever channel I rip using whatever software sounds utter garbage.

13 Dec 2004, 01:40

You guys might wanna try this:

rip the vob-files with SmartRipper (I've got version 2.41)
then get BeSweet (my version: BeSweet v1.5b23, in combination with BeSweetGUI v0.6, downloaded from http://dspguru.doom9.org); don't use the wizard, but the proper GUI. You also need the VOBinput.dll, which can be downloaded from http://DSPguru.doom9.org/effects.html
locate the BeSweet.exe file and the in-/output destinations in the upper left hand corner of the window, select whether you just want Wave-stereo or the 6 channels as separate mono-files, and then hit VOB to WAV.

I did a test with Digital, and it came out looking like a healthy wav-file, with no clipped peaks whatsoever. Maybe the programme does normalization automatically; I don't know for sure, as there's no option for it. Anyway, the 15H/48kHz wav-file sounds pretty good, methinks (occasionally, you still hear slight distortion, but it's passable)... a shame about the actual performance, which is a shocking disgrace.

13 Dec 2004, 02:02

i've ripped the stereo track of 511 using smartripper 2.41 and then CDEX to convert wav to mp3 and it sounds great...

13 Dec 2004, 14:02

Originally posted by Old Blue I'm absolutely sure there are major issues with the sound on 511, well my copy at least. I mentioned this once before, but didn't really get an answer as to whether all the 511 DVD's sound shite, or just a few. I suspect if MYOB has managed without a problem then it's the latter. But yes Ally, I've experienced exactly the problems you mention. On playback, if I select the 5.1 audio then it's completely unlistenable, and if I select 2.0 audio it's not quite as distorted but I have to turn the telly down to volume setting 1. And even that is a bit loud. As for ripping, I've given up. Whatever channel I rip using whatever software sounds utter garbage.

I clearly remember that one of the audio track,don't remember if it was the 5.1 or 2.0, was playing like shite on my system and I had to switch to the other one.

So maybe Ally's problem is that he needs to rip the audio audio track.

13 Dec 2004, 18:40

Originally posted by Be Music i've ripped the stereo track of 511 using smartripper 2.41 and then CDEX to convert wav to mp3 and it sounds great...

I just downloaded Smartripper 2.41 following your suggestion and, to be honest, I don't understand exactly how it works. I mean, I succeded to start the ripping (even though the software was telling me the DVD couldn't be entirely «unlocked»), but it was only to save .VOB files. And if I understand correctly, this is for both VIDEO and AUDIO!

So what did you do to save only the audio tracks in WAV format? :confused2:

13 Dec 2004, 18:52

Sorry BeMusic, but it took me 2 minutes on Google to confirm that your software is crap.

Try DVD Audio Ripper 1.0 instead (http://www.imtoo.com/dvd-audio-ripper.html).

Not only does the interface is very user friendly and perfect for newbies and dummies, but it lets you convert DIRECTLY into either WAV or even MP3 (and you can choose the bitrate too!).

Also, the reason why my DVD was "locked" was because I hadn't ASPI installed. Now I have absolutely no idea what this is, but this magic software offered me to install it for me automatically and it worked just fine.

14 Dec 2004, 01:56

Software schmoftware. The point Ally and I are trying to make is that the sound on the our copies of the DVD is fundamentally flawed.

It's nice of everyone to offer advice on which ripper might do the job, but nothing will...

At the risk of repeating myself, I'm just curious to know if all the 511 disks have bad sound, or just a few.

14 Dec 2004, 05:42

I haven't played my NO DVDs for a while - but I remember being extremely disappointed with the audio on Doves' "Where We're Calling From"...

Chris :(

14 Dec 2004, 07:22

Right, I downloaded that Smartripper app but as Seb also said I couldn't really get my head around it. Badly designed GUI with no clear help instructions :nonono: So I resumed using the ImTOO DVD ripper 1.0 but just changed the settings away from the crap PCM 2.0 to 6ch and bingo, I'm getting MUCH more listenable results. My approach now is to rip all the 5 11 chapters I need in 6ch format then manually normalise the wave files to 100% in Cool Edit 2000 as they're originally ripped at about 80%-85% level. This method produces the best quality results from 5 11 as opposed to the shitey sounding PCM stereo I've found. There is definitely a sound issue with stereo on that DVD, whether it was a faulty batch or more widespread I don't know.

I did the 3 16 DVD last night too and in contrast to 5 11 the PCM stereo on it rips sounding great and is almost fully normalised (I finished those waves off in CE2000 too) So I have excellent quality versions of Reading 98, Taras Shevchenko, and now Finsbury 02 on CD-R/my iPod :) so I'm happy. For good measure I ripped the interviews from both 3 16/5 11 as well as any extra material I could get my hands on. (Good for long train trips y'know) I'm going to quickly do Doves live @ the Eden project from the "Where We're Calling From" DVD tonight. Spaceface was amazing when I saw them live in Edinburgh so I've been wanting that gig ripped for ages

Cheers, Ally.

14 Dec 2004, 08:44

Whilst you've got the Doves disc in, don't forget to rip the demos...

14 Dec 2004, 09:02

Originally posted by Christmas Teaser > Originally posted by Be Music> i've ripped the stereo track of 511 using smartripper 2.41 and then CDEX to convert wav to mp3 and it sounds great...

I just downloaded Smartripper 2.41 following your suggestion and, to be honest, I don't understand exactly how it works. I mean, I succeded to start the ripping (even though the software was telling me the DVD couldn't be entirely «unlocked»), but it was only to save .VOB files. And if I understand correctly, this is for both VIDEO and AUDIO!

So what did you do to save only the audio tracks in WAV format? :confused2:

Don't rmember exactly what i did but i managed to rip the audio track to wav... Well, maybe i should give it another try with 316.

14 Dec 2004, 10:41

At the end of the day, Ally, I think the answer might be that 511 is just a bad release. 311 is much better! Better sound, better video (Reading is more spectacular to watch, better comedy from the band and better setlist.

Blame it on the rain!

14 Dec 2004, 18:34

Originally posted by Christmas Teaser At the end of the day, Ally, I think the answer might be that 511 is just a bad release. 311 is much better! Better sound, better video (Reading is more spectacular to watch, better comedy from the band and better setlist. Blame it on the rain!

316 maybe?

14 Dec 2004, 21:49

Only you would take two minutes of his time to post such a useless message.

TOO MUCH TIME ON YOUR HANDS, MAYBE ?

In any case, 311 is a crap band from the U.S. who got played heavily in college radios for some reason and who have been known for their cover of The Cure's Lovesong. :ohwell: