.: FAQ about the DVD Audio Format
Play digital High Quality Sound!

Why DVD-Audio is needed

Many would doubt the need for a separate dvd audio (DVD-A) format when DVD-Video can provide audio, video, stills and navigation.

Virtually 85% of the total capacity on a DVD video disc is committed to containing video data thereby severely restraining the space allotted to audio data, such as a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Thus the industry has to resort to lossy compression techniques (i.e. compromise on audio quality) to enable audio information to be stored in the available space, both on standard CDs and DVD-Video disks. However DVD-audio has different content definitions that emphasize audio fidelity designed to appeal to the music listener craving for luxuriant sound effects

With the increase in penetration of surround sound systems in homes, dvd audio since its launch in 2000, is primed to become format of choice for use in car audio dvd players and home theater systems offering at least 74 minutes of very high quality surround sound music plus other features that are not available on CDs.

The main features of the DVD Audio specification include:

• General comparison with other media

• DVD-A lets content owner choose any of the several sampling rates or word sizes: 44.1, 48, 88.1, 96, 176.4 coupled with 16-, 20-, 24-bit word. 

• Although dvd audio format is designed for music, it can also contain other data like text used for the contents, artists' names lyrics etc providing listener with extra information. Menus and navigation can also be included. A variation on the format, DVD-AudioV, is designed to hold a limited amount of conventional DVD video data in addition to DVD-Audio.

How is Super Audio CD different from DVD-A?

Like DVD-A, Sony-Philips backed super audio (SACD) format offers 5.1 channel high quality surround sound in addition to 2-channel stereo. Both formats improve the complexity of sound by increasing bit rates and sampling frequencies but SACD doesn’t support images, video or interactivity. Further super audio disc handles data serially while DVD-A is parallel. A good reason to go with SACD discs can be hybrid and include a CD audio layer which will play on normal CD players, albeit at CD quality. SA-CD discs will not play on DVD-Video players unless they are designed to play SA-CD.

Can one playback DVD-A in CD player or car dvd system?

Unlike super audio discs, dvd-audio discs don’t offer CD compatibility. All DVD-A discs carry a duplicate Dolby Digital 5.1 channel mix, which means that DVD-A’s will play on any DVD player, albeit without the 96KHz sampling rate and 24-bit word lengths that DVD-Audio delivers. Nearly all DVD-Audio discs will also play on DVD-Video players, in full surround sound but using compressed audio.

DVD audio Authoring Tools

With the arrival of realistically priced DVD-Audio authoring packages, DVD-A has become an excellent way for music pro to exchange uncompromised reference discs during production and promotion. One such professional DVD-A authoring software from Sonic Solutions is Audio DVD Creator.

With this revolutionary tool one can create DVD disc compiled from normal Audio CDs and MP3 files, and play it on any DVD player since it's DVD-Video compliant. During title creation dvd audio creator allows you to customize the audio format from high quality (up to 6 hours PCM 48kHz/16bits) or high quantity (up to 45 hours AC3 192kbps). Moreover dvd audio creator software allow easy import of  Windows Media Format(.wma, .wmv, .asf), Real Media(.rm), OGG, FLAC, AC3 and AVI files via DirectShow Filters.

Burning movies, slideshows, data and music to CD or DVD is a breeze with dvd audio creator software as its wizard-style workflow makes disc creation fun and simple.

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