Question about Blu Ray audio

Hi, I have few blu ray audio discs that contain both 5.1 and 2.0 mixes of an album. While I love the 5.1 mix, I find I don't get many opportunities to sit and listen to it. I would like to be able to import the 2.0 mix into itunes and have it on my ipod, so I can listen to this music more often.

Is this possible? Is this legal? I don't see the difference between importing a regular CD (which I purchased) into itunes, and importing a blu ray audio disc (which I also purchased) into itunes. But maybe I'm wrong.

Any help or insight would be appreciated! I'm not looking to commit any piracy, I want this all to be legit

thanks!

 

If you have a Blu Ray drive, you can use DVD Audio Extractor to extract the high rez files to your computer HD. If you do not have a Blu Ray drive, you can hook-up the analog outputs of a Blu Ray player to your computer and do a laser-drop.

 

If you rip from a Blu Ray drive, you may also need something like MakeMKV to copy and decrypt the BluRay first. Any chance the latest version of DVD Audio Extractor does this now?

 

As far as I know DVD Audio Extractor has been able to rip the PCM tracks off of Blu Ray discs for well over a year, but I am not sure about DTS HDMaster Audio or Dolby TrueHD.

 

I can confirm that the latest version can pull off DTS HDMaster Audio and/or Dolby TrueHD and it even gives you the option to downmix them to 2.0 if you wish.

 

If the blu-ray player has coaxial (RCA) audio out (no analog outputs, just coax & hdmi), could that be captured on a standalone CD-R recorder (that has a coax input)? Or is that stream copy-protected coming off the blu-ray?

 

Yes, the analog (RCA) audio outputs should be recordable on a standalone CD-R recorder. Of course you'll be capturing at 16-bit, 44.1-kHz and not at the native resolution of the source media. And going through an additional analog > digital conversion. And capturing in real-time. Think of it as a "digital" needledrop.

 

DVD Audio Extractor will extract the audio from DVD-Video, DVD-Audio and Blu Ray and also allows you to change sample rate / bit depth / down mix 5.1 to stereo as desired. I think it is very useful, having been ripping audio from numerous concert discs for playback in the car / on an iPod for years.

It doesn't defeat copy protection. Personally, I use DVDFab to rip the whole disc to my hard drive and then run DVD Audio Extractor on the resultant files. The legality of this will vary from country to country.

 

You could try it. The coaxial audio can carry 24/96, so it should be worth a try.

 

Oops. Seems that I misread VeeDub's post above. The question was about a coaxial digital output.

It might work. But you might also be stopped by SCMS copy protection, especially if you're using a consumer-level CD recorder.

 

The coaxial digital output from a Bluray is limited to 16/48 or less; only the HDMI will pass higher resolution. Coax out is available up to 24/192 from a DVD-A, though.

 

Whether coax out from a DVDA goes up to 24/192 depends on the copy protection on the disc, and whether the player fully implements it. Strictly speaking, the coax outputs are meant to be limited to 16/48 to prevent ripping, but it has been noted that more recent players with DVDA playback capability (some Oppo players) ignore this. I guess as DVDA is regarded as a legacy format manufacturers aren't too fussed about following the rules.

I'd still advocate ripping the audio using software where possible. You can be assured of a bit perfect copy, and ripping software generally splits the chapters on the BD/DVDA/DVDV into separate files with the right track number and title (if you put the metadata in at the time of ripping), so you don't have to spend ages doing it yourself afterwards. I do sometimes use Audacity to remove e.g. title music or intros but in general the results from a rip are ready to go in one stage.

I have used the optical out on the only CD player I had that would play the CD side of the one Dualdisc I have (Collideoscope by Living Colour) to capture the audio from the disc onto a Macbook to import into iTunes, and the process of chopping it up into tracks was a PITA, particularly as I don't even like the album that much. I subsequently found when I changed computer that the new BD drive was able to read the CD layer and dBPoweramp ripped it with artwork and metadata in one go!

Similarly, I have used Audio Hijack Pro on a Mac to capture audio from a DVD, but again you end up with a huge audio file that has to be chopped up into tracks with e.g. Audacity.

For CDs: dBPoweramp every time.
For DVDV/DVDA/BD: DVDFab to rip onto a hard drive, DVD Extractor to get the audio.
I don't have an old PS3 to rip them or any means of playing DSD on a computer, so I just play my SACDs the old fashioned way to get the surround mixes and rip the CD layers.

The only other disc I have that eludes capture is an old CD video single of The Big Money by Rush. As I don't have an LD player I have never been able to play the video, but I guess I like buying music in weird formats.