New issue with Sony DVD Architect.

Using Sony DVD Architect 5.0 to produce playable 24/96k discs...

1) Open DVD Architect.

2) Once open, use File/New... and select "Menu Based" (don't worry, we will make this work, and pretty easily).

3) In File/Properties..., make sure that PCM audio is selected, with a bit depth of "24" and a sample rate of "96,000".

4) In the bottom "Explorer" tab, drag desired file names upward, one at a time, so they appear below "Menu 1 (Page 1)". When you've completed that, the entire content of your desired DVD should be listed in playing order below "Menu 1 (Page 1)".

5) Move the cursor to the first playable selection below "Menu 1 (Page 1)", right click on it and select "Set Start Item"...you should see a small star appear on top of a little "film frame" icon. This makes this the first selection the completed DVD will play. While the cursor is still over the first playable selection, left double-click on it. On the far right of the screen you should see "Menu Page Properties" change to "Media Properties". Below "Media Properties" click on the "End Action" Box.

6) In the "End Action" contents, you should see a list of items, "Command ..., Destination ..., Destination Item ..., ...". Immediately to the right of "Command", it should say "Link"...if it does not say "Link", left click on it and change it to "Link". Immediately to the right of "Destination", you probably see "Most recent menu"...but whatever appears, left click on it and a list should appear with "Most recent menu" for the first item and "Menu 1" for the final item...in between the first and final item you should see the same files listed as appear on the left side of the screen. From this list appearing to the right of "Destination" select the file you wish to have play immediately following the still highlighted selection on the far left of the screen.

7) In turn, double left-click on each playable file listed under "Menu 1 (Page 1)", and carry out Step 6, above, for it until you come to the final playable selection listed.

8) For the final playable selection listed under "Menu 1 (Page 1)", double left-click on it. To the right you can make a choice that suits your desires for what happens once the final selection completes playing. If you just want playing to stop at that point, to the right of "Command", on the far right of the screen, change "Link" to "Stop". If you want the DVD to start playing from the beginning, leave "Link" in place, but change the selection to the right of "Destination" to be the initial playable file.

9) Select "Make DVD" from the top of the screen. Then select "Prepare" or "Burn" depending on how you like to proceed. Then create a "prepare" folder or use the default, however you prefer to progress. Then select "Next" from the bottom of the "Make DVD" pop-up.

10) Once you've selected "Next" you will have a pop-up showing a great number of messages to review. You can review them if you wish, but it's better to go to "Show 'All Messages'" immediately above the message list and change it to "Show 'Only Errors and Warnings'". If you have carried out all the steps above correctly, the message list contents should change to only a single message reading, "No messages to display".

11) Click on the "Optimize" button on the "Make DVD" pop-up and make sure the audio will be PCM at 24/96k, if it is not, you can correct things with the "Project Properties..." button showing on the "Make DVD" pop-up. Once you are happy with the audio format, click on the "OK" button and you should be taken back to the "Make DVD" pop-up for "Review Message List". (It should still show only "No messages to display".) Click "Next" when satisfied.

12) You should be brought to the "Make DVD" pop-up page for "Check Subtitles and Menu Highlight Masks". If everything has gone correctly, you should see on it "No messages to display". Then click "Finish".

13) You should be presented with a "Rendering" pop-up which should go to normal completion.

14) Once processing fully completes, you should be presented with a pop-up which states successful completion.

Once you have a completed DVD, try it out. And you can let me know if you have had any problems along the way. I know I've put a lot of steps in the process, but it's all more simple that it might read...especially once you have a few DVDs behind you. (As is my usual, I've tried for a good level of completeness.)

 

Thanks for the lengthy response that is very informative. The answer from Sony is to pull each of the files into SoundForge and stack each track end of track 1, beginning of track 2 and so on and try and burn that lengthy single-track "compilation" and see if that burns. I am going to try that, but, the fact that it worked before and doesn't now is most troublesome.

I linked to person from Sony tech support to the Hoffman Forum and told him about our thread and that he might find your comments most informative as you are well above the learning curve, more than I am.

We have started our high school year this week and am quite busy with getting student schedules corrected and really ready with all of this admin stuff so school classes can begin on Monday. It takes the kids about 2-3 days to get into "school mode" anyway. If I am not back right way don't think I've lost interest, as I haven't, but I am sure tired today.

Going to set up my continuous 4 track compilation and see if that works. Back in a while. Thanks for your hard work.

 

Oh, you are going to love this....I laid the 4 tracks end to end as one large track. At the end of track one silence, and then I thought it was going to work, and wala, white noise left channel, then to the right, then together, then silence and then the next track played. I am now listening to track 2 to the end. White noise again, but this time it is replaying track 2.

What a mess this is.

 

Jim, I know you have not lost interest, and I know you won't lose interest. I understand this to be an important issue for you for making high quality 24/96k DVD media of your own personal recording work, and I know you are happy when you can make your work available to others by such means. Also, if I may add this, as a high school mathematics teacher you are one of my personal heroes.

I'll watch for any updates from you (or from Sony), and if there are things I can help investigate, you and I can see what results we might get. The "packed track" approach was interesting, but seemed to me rather doomed. However, everything provides further information...so from that perspective the track packing provided another learning tool. Learning is good.


Should you get the time, get the rest, and have motivation, give the procedure I outline at the top of this page a try. Report back, and we will have learned some more.

 

Followed your directions to the T and all the tracks play in order, but there is that burst of white noise Left then Right between ever track break. I will try again now that I am home from school. I let the earlier one burn when I left for school today. Dang!

 

Just now, just to make sure my directions had no built-in flaw I might have overlooked in haste, I burned a fresh 24/96k DVD with DVD Architect Pro 5.2 (using my top of this page instructions) containing 27 selections with a bit over 83 minutes of music in total. I set the "Command" item to "Stop" for the 27th selection since I didn't want an infinite repeating disc.

I did get a warning message after I selected "Show 'Only Errors and Warnings'", so I had to cut the video rate down to fit the DVD. Of course, video rate for an audio only DVD is something that really doesn't matter, so cutting the video rate down is not a problem. After I did that, I had no warning messages and I was able to write the data to a folder sucessfully. Once that was completed, I quit DVD Architect and used a third party program to burn the appropriate folder contents to a DVD. The DVD played through perfectly on my Oppo 93...no white noise anywhere. For my personal use, my special procedure works perfectly with DVD Architect 5.2 (and 6.0). I certainly believed it would work for you as well, but it seems that is not the case.

Now when my "white noise" occurs, it is always over a playable track, and it only starts at the instant the selection starts...it is also in both channels equally. If I read your posts correctly, your white noise occurs between tracks, and it changes sides. This is certainly a dilemma. Does your white noise continue once a selection itself starts playing?

I've been assuming you are using an Oppo player (based, perhaps, on some mistaken memory), but I just looked at your equipment profile and I see no Oppo in your digital front end. I see a Yamaha S-1800 and I see a Philips DVD recorder listed. It may not matter if I cannot match your player exactly, but what specifically are you using to listen to your DVD Architect burned DVDs? Do you also try things like listening to them on the computer? If you have more than one DVD player (the Yamaha and the Philips certainly suggest that) do you also try the DVDs on other front ends? If so, what are the results?

During this testing, are you trying to burn any other complete sets of 24/96k files to DVD via DVD Architect? If so, I assume your bad results are the same, but are they?

The next stage might be a full parameter comparison between us, and we should do that if we need to. At this point my feeling is that your DVD player is responding to something DVD Architect places between selections. Unfortunately, the situation might not only be a response difference in our respective players, there may also be some differences between the processing of DVD Architect 5.0 and DVD Architect 5.2.

 

I was up at 4am this morning so I tried burning another disc, double checking every setting from your great directions. It burned fine with no errors and it plays fine except for a "tick" sound at the end of each track. What is interesting is that the display on my DVD player goes blank for a second and comes back on with the new track number and the chapter 1 number displayed to the right. Other than the tick it plays just fine.

I am now wondering if over the last few months there has been embedded in one of the Windows 7 Updates some change that has affected DVD Architect? I have had a number of updates over the last few months.

I appreciate all you have done and shared with me and I can live with the small, audible, "tick" if that is all I have to deal with. It would be great if it was not there, but....

I am going to pass along to Sony what I now know and will give up on compilation discs for the time being as I just want them to play anyway. I will report back on what Sony has to say. They have be helpful, just no solution yet.

Thanks. I will probably write more over the weekend as I try and burn more discs.

 

I went back and burned a new OceanWay Audio disc from their 4 track download off their site and the disc plays in order, but the white noise is still there. I am going to ask them if they have embedded some white noise to stop pirating of their music. I am only burning them for my use, but I do understand how they would want to be careful.

 

I really appreciate Sony's help with this and we are making some progress that I thought I would share:

Hi Jim,

Thank you for writing back and providing your project files. I was able to successfully reproduce the noise between tracks by simply burning the project with associated media. Going back to the project I then changed the properties to be 16 bit depth and 48K sample rate. This burn did not have the noise between tracks. I'm going to escalate this to our QA and development team for further research.

I'm glad you were able to find a work around and we appreciate including the forum thread as that will provide QA additional information as well.

Because this incident involves very detailed technical aspects of the programming and design of our software, I will be consulting with our Development and QA team to try and resolve this issue.

Please understand, that because this issue is so technical in nature, and because these other teams have a rather large workload, it may take some time to solve this problem. I will be setting this incident to development status during this time and will update this incident once I have further information from them. Thank you for your patience while we continue to research this matter.

If you still have a follow-up question on this particular incident, please feel free to update it. If you have a completely different question, please create a new incident.

Sincerely,

Jacob C.
Customer Service
Sony Creative Software Inc
www.sonycreativesoftware.com


To Be Continued......

 

Jim, I was just going to give you a quick update as a prelude to a deeper update when I saw your latest from Sony. (It's 4:22 a.m. here, as I write this, and I really need to get to bed.)

I downloaded the set of OceanWay Audio files...and eventually determined there is a fundamental problem with each of them. DVD Architect responds to that problem differently in its timeline display and in its DVD preview than in its "make DVD" process. I'll explain to the extent of my knowledge once I can put more time into the writing. But, what I'll say for now is that I believe you can "fix" the situation and burn a DVD without the white noise.

Here's what to do. (This worked for my Sony Sound Forge Pro, I expect it will work for your Sound Forge.) Bring the original OceanWay files into Sound Forge at 24/96k, then re-save them, in turn, at 24/96k to files with a modified name. Don't make any modifications to the files, just save each to a new name. (The name change is mostly to keep from overwriting your OceanWay originals.) After you have the new set of files, bring them into your DVD Architect and follow my procedure to make a DVD. That DVD should be free of the white noise.

The explanation for this will have to come several hours from now.

 

I had done that with each of the 4 files, but I don't know if I gave them new names. I will do that tonight and give it whirl. I also asked OceanWay if they embedded some "watermark" so the files could not be pirated, which was not my intent, as I told them.

I should add that my own files from my recordings still have the "tick" that should not be there.

 

Nope. Renamed the files and saved them to a new location. Burned the new tracks onto a disc and after track 1, white noise left, then right, then right, then left, then the next track plays.

 

Jim, it is not a matter of renaming files, it is a matter of using Sound Forge to read in OceanWay original files, then to write out copies of the files (using Sound Forge "Save As") to new names. Next post contains my full write up, now that I have completed it. Now, I do have to say I used Sound Forge Pro, not Sound Forge, so maybe there is a Sound Forge issue Sony also needs to look into.

 

Jim, Sony does have things to correct regarding both the Studio and Pro versions of DVD Architect. A confluence of circumstances, encountered by you, has made this very apparent. Fortunately you have gotten Sony's attention and they are showing a willingness to understand and, ideally, correct things. I come in because have related Sony software, and I tend to lend my chops as I am able.

The "tick" both you and I have heard looks to be related to a break in the 96k sampling rate between distinct audio selections on our DVD Architect results. I've seen on my Oppo 83, that when I have the "display" feature set and video is going to my HDMI connected HD screen, that the indication of the sampling rate which is normally "4.7 Mbps" during an audio selection (4.7 Mbps is very close to stereo 24/96k results, but a bit of video sampling is added in), will briefly go to "0 Mbps" between selections. This, I believe, gives rise to the "tick". Also when I route the digital out from my Oppo 83 to my Wadia 121 DAC, between selections I hear relay clicking in the Wadia which indicates to me it has lost lock on the sample rate. This may be a consequence of DVD audio/video format standards, but it still seems to me that any valid DVD Architect correction is in Sony's domain.

But back to the OceanWay files. When I used my DVD Architect procedure to burn the set of four OceanWay files to a DVD (I used DVD Architect Pro 5.2 on my Windows 7 Professional 64 machine), I got exactly the white noise bursts you described when I played the disc my Oppo player. I had not heard anything like that before. I got the same noise bursts on my Panasonic Blu-ray player. Okay, now I had something to dig into.

Using my copy of "DVD Audio Extractor" (which operates both on DVD discs and, fortunately, the DVD format folders that end up being copied to the discs), I pulled out the audio that DVD Architect prepared for writing to disc. Time for some pictures...

Following are two screen caps made from Sony Vegas Pro. It offers a splendid way to line up audio tracks as parallel files. The first screen cap shows in blue the "entirety" of the original OceanWay "Carnivale" file. In red, the "Carnivale" file as it was extracted from the DVD Architect preparation via DVD Audio Extractor. You should see a small bit of "extra stuff" at the end of the red display.




The second screen cap is zoomed in to the end region of the same set of "Carnivale" files. You should see that the "extra stuff" in the "red" file is the white noise as you have described it.




Interestingly, in Windows Explorer, the "blue" file shows 18 more bytes than the "red" file. That's right, the "red" file, which looks bigger from the screen caps, is actually a slightly smaller file. This indicates to me that the original OceanWay "blue" Carnivale file actually contains the same data as the "red" file, but that data is only visible (and audible) once it has been processed by DVD Architect.

Here is what that means to me. I have done some quick exploration of Microsoft "wave" file formats, but what I have come across has not been as clear as I'd like (one site--on stanford.edu--even hinted that Microsoft was not fully disclosing...but it could be that the companies who really need to know have to sign non-disclosure agreements), so what I'm to write should be read with "as if" firmly in mind. It is as if wave files contain a header which states the entire data length, but it is actually possible that sound data extends longer than the header describes. In wave files I've worked with that has never been the case, but the OceanWay files act that way. When you bring an original OceanWay file into Sound Forge, or Vegas Pro, or the DVD architect preliminary processes, the wave file header is what gets the attention--any extra data beyond the header defined length does not get attention paid to it. The header governs.

However, it is as if the DVD Architect "Make DVD" process pays attention only to the data itself, not to the header definition. In the OceanWay case, the extra "white noise" (outside of the file header range), gets written to the DVD. The data governs.

Now, when I suggested you bring original OceanWay files into Sound Forge and write the files to new file names (use Sound Forge "Save As"), if you use Windows Explorer you should see that the newly named files have fewer bytes than the OceanWay originals. When Sound Forge writes the files to new names, it pays attention to the file headers and only writes out the header specified amount of data. This chops off the white noise "tails". Once these new "tail free" files are brought into DVD Architect, there is no white noise in the files it is working with. It's able to write out clean DVDs (except for between track "ticks" caused by breaks in the 96k sample rate).

Once again, this is a lot of stuff. You can probably see why I wanted to wait to write it. If you'd rather I wrote less stuff, well, you should probably try to avoid these fun problems that draw my attention!

 

I will go back as I did, and always do, exactly as you say. I do save as, but tonight I will look at the file sizes of the matching files and see if "I" have the differences you describe. It is amazing what a complicated process this is, but I still believe that it is some windows update over the past 6 months that has changed something in Win 7. It worked before, just not now. I wonder if theses problems exist in Win 8?

I really appreciate your hard work and insight into these issues. I have not heard back from OceanWay and am eager to know if they heave embedded something. Regardless, the tick should not be there either.

I will spend more time tonight studying your comments, but we have a huge meeting with the state about the Common Core Math Standards that I am not missing as I have much to say.

Thanks,

 

Say it and say it well, Jim.

I really wish we were both in a location where we could sit down together and I could pick up your insights concerning modern educational practices. In my mind what you have chosen for your life work is vital. (Both my degrees are in Mathematics and without good teachers that certainly wouldn't have been the case.)

 

I went back and looked at the file sizes and there is only a slight difference; 272,760,968 vs 272,761,044 and the disk space values are identical at 272,764,968. it may be that what we might call my "lite" versions of the Sony programs is certainly not of the quality of the full pro versions of Sound Forge and DVD Architect.

To me at this point the only things that have changed are the Windows updates. Once I started getting the "ticks" between tracks I should have known something was amiss. It may also be that Sony's top software developers will have access to some Win 7 knowledge that will allow them to get to the bottom of this. The track shots you have provided are really interesting.

***************************************************

As for education, once we gave up the notion that 4 & 5th grade students no longer must memorize single digit times tables and their perfect squares we have been doomed. I require all students to take a 100 question, single digit multiplication test, assorted 2-9's and they get 5 minutes. What was interesting was that all of my 6th graders who could do this test with no errors were always the A students, without question. The academic performance of the others fell right in line with their performance on this test. Just as the keys to the English language are memorization of the alphabet, phonics, spelling, and vocabulary growth; the same applies to all the basic math skills. If you sat in my 9th grade classes and watch nearly every student struggle with solving 2x + 7 = 17 you would understand my great sadness. They have no cognitive understanding of the most basic of math principles and lack reasoning skills on any level. They are 9th graders no less.

And here we are this year with only 36 out of 97 students able to get at least 90% correct on this 5 minute test and these are 14 & 15 year old students who can't even multiply. Half of them couldn't even do half of them. Even if I prompt them in trying to solve 2x + 7 = 17, to move the 7 to the other side, applying -7 to both sides, they can't come up with 2x=10. They are using a calculator to perform 17 - 7. These simple basic skills that any 4th and 5th grader should know "stone cold" is totally absent. Most competent adults can do those 100 multiplication questions in 2 minutes 30 seconds, and that is really a function of writing dexterity and not knowledge.

The biggest issue I see is a lack of concern the students show in that if they discover they do not know something it does not move them to further investigation or a desire to do some home work to improve. It is this "oh, well" attitude that is most distressing. A poor grade is not motivation. So when our 9th grade End of Course test scores came back with only 10% to 40% for a passing rate for high schools across the state you would have thought there would have been a major cry from somewhere. Silence is all that came and no call to arms. The U.S. will remain in our 27th place ranking in the world on Math skills unless some serious changes are made. If you review the Common Core Standards that drive the curriculum no improvement will be forthcoming in 4th and 5th grade. 4th and 5th grade are where our failures begin. The fact that in 2014 in elementary and middle school here it is an automatic promotion, pass or fail carries no weight. We have "do-overs in our high school. What a rude awakening that is. We have sophomores redoing 9th grade math (coordinate algebra). We have juniors redoing Advance Geometry.

When you couple that with the fact that in elementary and middle school here a passing grade on their End of Course test is 50% it is no wonder where we are. 70% in our school is a "D" grade, a reflection of your performance. Not quite ready for prime time.

If I could get students to spend even 25% of the time they spend playing with their cell phones doing math I could accomplish something. Students now know this year that the game is on...that if I even see their cell phone out in class it is a write-up and a phone call home. Twice is an in school suspension. Time to get serious.

But, most telling last night was who was not here at this public hearing on Common Core. No major player from the State Department of Ed was on hand, not even a lieutenant from the math section came and this was a hearing on the Math standards. Did any one really care what a classroom teacher thought? Evidently not.

That old commercial still pops in my head from time to time....I see on your resume that you shot down 2 billion aliens from the planet Bongo. I see you know a lot about computer games, but what do you know about computers? Sorry for the short dissertation.

 

Thank you for your write-up, Jim. You describe a very distressing situation indeed, and I do not question your experiences and perceptions in the slightest. In fact, what you have passed on is in alignment with what I have heard from a friend, a recently retired English teacher (in California) at the college level.

There will always be bright notes among the young, I fortunately know a few, but they (and everyone else) deserves a school system that supports their growth...as the school system itself deserves teachers, administrators, a community, *and* students who understand what a mature and educated society is all about.

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To get back to the overall thread...

Time for a bit more arithmetic. My OceanWay file sizes differ from yours a bit. Perhaps that is a side-effect of our respective download practices to get the OceanWay files (I wasn't able to download them till I first downloaded a third-party "download manager"). Or, perhaps OceanWay made modifications to the downloadable files between your access and my access. I would have been happier if you and I had precisely the same file sizes. Anyway, my original OceanWay "Carnivale96_24.wav" file comes in at 274,265,190 bytes; as retrieved from the DVD Architect "Make DVD" result by DVD Audio Extractor, that file came in at 274,265,172 bytes (this was true for both "Menu" and "Compilation" modes); as written by my Sound Forge Pro's "Save As", the file came in at 270,000,044 bytes. Converting the byte delta between the OceanWay original "Carnivale" file and the Sound Forge Pro "Save As" Carnivale to playing time, I came up with approximately 7.405 seconds. That is, 7.405 seconds of white noise "tale". Using Sony Vegas Pro to measure the time difference of the files pictured in post #39, above, I came up with 7.4 seconds of visual difference. I think it's safe to conclude that the white noise "tail" is contained in the original OceanWay "Carnivale96_24" file--it is not something mysteriously "added" by DVD Architect's Make DVD process. Since the tail is actually in the file as it has come from OceanWay (and the other three OceanWay files each have their own white noise tails--but each tail is somewhat different from the other tails), it is clear OceanWay is responsible for the extra data. I hope OceanWay tells you what is going on, Jim. They have every right to produce files exactly the way they want, especially since they are supplying the selections for free, but some transparency would be nice. However, if they do not know they are doing this, OceanWay has some problems.


Oh, should you be open for more experimentation...according to the manual for Sound Forge Studio 10, Sound Forge Studio can perform audio "trimming" and "cropping". That seems to mean an audio selection can have portions removed. Should that be the case, you might be able to cut off white noise "tails" before doing a Save As. Looking at file size should show whether this works. If it does, you just may be able to make an audio DVD.


I hope Sony has been paying attention to all this. We can try things, you or I may throw our efforts into various work-arounds, but it's much, much better if the software we are using works correctly and naturally.

Sony has released some tremendous software, but there are problems with both DVD Architect Studio's and DVD Architect Pro's "Make DVD" process. The Make DVD process needs to work correctly for both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems, the process needs to better utilize source file header information, there needs to be no breaks in sampling rate between selections (for both Compilation and Menu modes), there should be no "strange" data injected between selections (possibly this is a side-effect of the loss of sample rate between selections).


For the moment, I think I have done all I can. I'm keeping my eyes open, however, for further thoughts and developments.

-- Ed

 

I think you have done a great deal and deserve a break. I do think that Sony would be enlightened by your research and posts, just as I have. I would agree to let's wait and see what both Sony and OceanWay have to say and if I do not hear from them I will call and see if they would be kind enough to talk to me about this. I do value their time as time is money in their business. Thanks again for the education and I really appreciate all your hard work.

For my potential college students today I showed them the opening scenes of The Paper Chase with John Houseman to give them a glimpse of college life. They all found it interesting and informative. Just what $82K per year can provide in 2014 at Harvard Law School.

Cheers,
Jim

 

Sony has just request a complete "write" of my system info which took a little while to compile and save as a document which if forward to them as an attachment. We will know something soon I think. I also told them to review your new posts in which you provided some great info and file shots.

Jim

 

The final reply from Sony.....

Hi Jim,

Thank you for contacting Sony Creative Software.

QA has now logged this issue as a bug for DVD Architect Studio 5, build 186. At this time, unfortunately, there isn't a fix for a project set to be a 24 bit / 96K sample rate music compilation. Workarounds appear to lie in either creating a menu based project, or setting the project to a lower sample rate. These seem to resolve the loud white noise between tracks.

We sincerely appreciate you bringing this to our attention and apologize for any inconvenience caused.

If you still have a follow-up question on this particular incident, please feel free to update it. If you have a completely different question, please create a new incident.

Sincerely,

Jacob C.
Customer Service
Sony Creative Software Inc
www.sonycreativesoftware.com