Neil Young archives high res

[wgscott]

I was almost tempted to buy the $8000 McIntosh bluray player to get the accompanying $25 off coupon for the Neil Young archives on bluray, but then I decided to be more modest and bought but a single DVD (24bit/96kHz) of the Massey Hall performance, which I can play on my mac mini. The DVD arrived today, and I have absolutely no clue as to how to scrape the music off and put it onto my hard drive. Any suggestions?

 

[firedog]

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=150.0

 

discussion group of hirez, including "how to" instructions

 

[wgscott]

Seems kind of windows/payware oriented.

 

I tried with vobcopy and ffmpeg, which are free unix/linux utilities, and therefore can work on OS X.

 

Two problems:

 

1. Although the DVD claims 24/96 audio, the best I was able to get out was 16-bit, 96 kHz. Either the software or Neil Young is hosing me.

 

2. They are obviously going out of their way to encrypt this. I'm now trying with "MacTheRipper" and "HandBrake" and converting it to a movie i can put on my iPod. Unfortunately this forces me to use AAC. I'd prefer FLAC or at least ALAC.

 

What a headache just to avoid having to put a DVD in my computer every time I want to listen to music. Glad I didn't buy the whole archive.

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

I was able to rip Neil's Greatest Hits 24/96 album no problem. Do you have that one to try ripping? I'm wondering if it uses the same encryption scheme.

 

[ted_b]

I ripped it and play it through my Weiss (or LIO-8) via my Mac server. Same with his other 24/96 PCM (standard DVD's) like Greatest Hits, Sugar Mountain, etc. The above forum is mine (I formed and moderate the HiRez Circle). The main reason the tips and techniques are mostly Windows-based is simply cuz this is a blind spot for the Mac. As posted before, there is little on the Mac to do this. I use Windows (DVD Audio Extractor or DVDFAb) and have no problems then moving the files to my Mac. For protected DVD-Audio (MLP) discs I use DVDFAb or DVDAExplorer.

 

[kamil]

Has anybody used this software on a Mac, from Minnetonka Audio? I'm wondering how it copes with encrypted DVD-A. I have a number of disks from Chesky and Denon.

 

[wgscott]

Ted and Chris -- thanks.

 

The sad reality is I really have no idea what I am doing.

 

I should probably find a windows machine at work or something.

 

I did manage to get a combination of MacTheRipper/Handbrake to make a video with a fairly high-quality, unencrypted audio, albeit 16 bit and AAC, but at least that indicates it CAN work.

 

Using the same VOB files extracted by MacTheRipper, I have also tried XLD, which works well in my hands to convert from FLAC to ALAC. I was surprised to see it will also do VOB to ALAC, and let me set the bit depth to 24 and the sampling rate to 48000 (not ideal, but I don't have a DAC that can use better than that, so it is good enough in practice for me). The good news is it produces a lossless ALAC 24-bit 48kHz file. The bad news is it is just a nasty hiss with audio barely detectable. I've byte-swapped but to no avail. Either I am still doing something stupid (an excellent possibility) or it is some encryption thing that HandBrake was able to get around but I haven't (although I thought MacTheRipper did that part).

 

I'm sort of determined to get this to work on a Mac platform, especially if I can use free tools to do so.

 

[firedog]

Windows oriented? I guess so. You didn't say you were limited to Apple.

 

But not payware oriented. Apparently you didn't read the thread carefully,as the most used software there is DVDAExplorer, which is totally free and works.

 

I've also used #1 DVD Audio Ripper(not freeware). It works well, and has a nice user interface, but is limited to rips of 96K.

 

[firedog]

sorry, mistake

 

[gcorley]

Different encryption.

 

I ripped "Sugar Mountain" using DVDAexplorer, but have not been able to rip "Fork in the Road" yet. Spent a few hours trying - quite frustrating actually!

 

 

 

[Shadorne]

I have not ripped a DVD for about 8 years - I used something called DVD extractor and it was quite painful back then with several steps.

 

This should be a simple task nowadays as there is plenty software that can grab audio and capture it. So just play the DVD and use audio capture.

 

For example "audio hijack pro".

 

BTW - the same company makes Airfoil which is a fantastic program - if you are like me and love watching Youtube of your favorite artists and want to pass the audio out to your speakers wireless via an Airport Express/DAC combo then airfoil overcomes the restriction of playback via only iTunes.

 

I get the impression this forum is for older folks who love music and who are dabbling (struggling) with PC/MAC's for the first time. My kids (the next generation) seem to know all about this kind of thing and take it all for granted.

 

The kids really like Grooveshark. You can even find stuff there that is not available anywhere else - for example go to http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/search/songs/?query=Adam%20lambert and click on "Mad World (American Idol Studio Version)" and you will find that this is not available anywhere else.

 

[ted_b]

To rip high resolution music (i.e 24/96, etc) and make sure it's clean enough for hi-end DAC playback is NOT simply grabbing Airfoil or using simple audio capture. The kids in our lives love things like grooveshark, MP3's, iPod Shuffles and youtube audio....that's great...but not great audio. The "dabbling/struggling" we're doing here is making sure bit perfect master-tape-quality audio is handled with kid (pun intended) gloves, from the disc to computer, to the DAC, to the amp, to the speakers. This forum centers mostly on steps 1 and 2, but all are important.....just not to our kids.

 

[Moses]

Ted, are you saying that recording using Audio Hijack can't give a bit-perfect copy of the original file? It's a shame if it can't since it would be a great native Mac way of doing this.

 

Thanks,

John

 

[Shadorne]

Since you do not dabble here, the DVD-A should be played at 24/96 bit perfect through Apple Core Audio without any EQ, or sample rate alterations (if you have an earlier version MAC that does not support 24/96 then you really are dabbling).

 

If you set the Audio Hijack Pro to capture this and set the recording bit and sample rate correctly (the same) then you should get a bit perfect copy (provided you do not route anything else through Core Audio at the same time). There is no A to D conversion going on so alles klar Herr Kommissar - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTkg-gsnVl0. Kids play (pun intended).

 

[ted_b]

24/192 MLP-based DVD-Audio to core audio in the first place? Does a Mac Mini DVD drive support that (i.e DVD-Audio playback)? I assume this is realtime (ugh!).

 

[Moses]

Shadorne, it looks to me as though the recording rates on Audio Hijack Pro max out at 24/48 on AIFF, is that right?

 

Thanks,

John

 

[Shadorne]

You are correct - it obviously won't be bit perfect on a 24/96KHz stream - as the max recording rate is at 24/48Khz (and sample rate conversion can be bad). Ted is correct - my bad - it is obviously not so simple that any kid can do it. It really does need some of us old goats to figure out and I'm stumped!

 

[Audio_ELF]

Really guys - why try all this real time recording of DVD-A ... use DVD Audio Explorer under Windows will allow perfect extraction (ripping) of the audio off a DVD Audio including decryption of MLP. Unfortunately the Mac versions (that I've found) have no MLP decryption.

 

Eloise

 

[ted_b]

Shadorne challenged my "Windows can do this fairly easily; I run a forum that has full instructions/primers" approach and we went down this other path.

 

[Audio_ELF]

You're right Ted ... I guess I (a) didn't completely read the thread and (b) was backing you up.

 

And no offense taken Ted ... I often wonder why people repeat the advise I give!

 

Eloise

 

[Moses]

Maybe this should be in a different thread, but I am curious as to why people are aghast at the idea of real-time digital recording. What's the problem? Is it just that it's more susceptible to interference since it happens over such a long time, so imperfect recording is more likely? Straight off it seems like a valid technique that I, for example, might want to use occasionally, so I'd be interested to know what the problems are.

 

(At this point I feel the target in a Bateman cartoon - 'The Man Who Couldn't See the Problem with Real-Time Recording' - but anyway.)

 

Thanks,

John

 

[agentsmith]

It's strange that the Live at Canterbury House that I have is in file formats and needed no ripping and simply requires a straight copy to get the files out.

 

The Massey Hall album that I have is in regular CD format, I tried to get the hires one but couldn't find one at the store.

 

This is the sort of confusing as Neil Young himself who is a hires advocate seems not to be able to make up his mind on what format to commit on.

 

So now we have Neil Young on Blu-Ray, DVD Audio, DVD Video, Computer files and redbook CD. Boy I wonder what a non-audiophool has to know to buy an album these days.

 

[wgscott]

What's the likelihood Neil can hear anything above 10kHz these days?

 

You have to buy the high res stuff on his website (I think):

 

http://neilyoungarchives.warnerreprise.com/shop/vol1/

 

I think I have convinced myself it is too much bother. Doesn't mean that much to me to mean that much to him.

 

[Audio_ELF]

Sonically there is nothing wrong with real time recording, but the big problem is in the title - it's recorded in real time. Not only that but you then after wards need to split the single file into individual tracks, edit the start and end points and then manually tag each file. Also, with real time recording, the computer has to work at decoding the audio in real time, something we can see from variance in CD playback is not 100% efficient.

 

If you use non-real-time (such as DVD-A Explorer) then all except the tagging is automatic and a hour long DVD-A takes at most 15-20 minutes to extract. Also any CRC errors in the reading can be read multiple times to ensure the best accuracy of reading the disc.

 

I'm sure you don't record your CDs in real time, so why record DVD-A in real time when there is an alternative?

 

Eloise

 

PS. wgscott - if you can get access to a Windows PC (or boot camp your Mac) then it's literally a half hour job to extract the audio from a DVD-A - can be a good source of High Resolution material for contemporary / rock artists. You commented you could only do up to 48k - but I thought the Peachtree Nova would do higher via Optical?

 

[Moses]

Thanks, Eloise.

John