Transfer of music on Blu-ray to audio CD

[Stanfordian]

I hope someone can help or point me in the right direction please. I have Blu-ray disc of a concert that includes a work by Wolfgang Rihm that is not available on CD. If possible I wish to transfer 15 minutes or so music on the Blu-ray disc to an audio CD-R so I can play it on the CD player at my local Recorded Music Society.

[Bryn]

The Blu-ray spec. includes some pretty strong anti-piracy features. There are various software solutions available which seek to defeat those features. However, for your purposes the simplest solution would probably be to take a feed from the analogue stereo output from your Blu-ray player and record that with your computer or some other convenient recording device. The resulting recording could then be burnt to CD-R.

[johnb]

I hope someone can help or point me in the right direction please. I have Blu-ray disc of a concert that includes a work by Wolfgang Rihm that is not available on CD. If possible I wish to transfer 15 minutes or so music on the Blu-ray disc to an audio CD-R so I can play it on the CD player at my local Recorded Music Society.

I have ripped the audio from a Blu-ray a number of times (so that I can stream it with the rest of my music collection) but it is quite a while since I did it so I will try to remember how I went about it and get back to you.

[Later edit]
On reflection, there are three processes that you would need to contend with if you want to extract the audio and burn it to a CD:

1) Extract the audio (this is possible and I have detailed instructions for the method I used seven years ago)

2) Use audio editing software to resample the audio from 48 or 96 kHz to 44.1 kHz and (probably) to change the bit depth from 24 to 16.

3) Burn the audio to CD

So, as this isn't a push button solution, the question is whether you want to go through the process.

[Flosshilde]

Does that (& Bryn's suggestion) work for ordinary DVDs as well? I've always thought it odd that a DVD of an opera costs less than the CD version of the same performance.

[richardfinegold]

stan, given the complexity involved, is it possible you could use the blu ray drive of a PC, or perhaps just bring a cheap blu ray player to the presentation and hook it up to whatever audio system you are using? BRP are going for around $60 here, and then you could obviously use it any way you wish going forward. You could probably get one for peanuts at a pawn shop

[Dave2002]

Richard

Blu Ray players are not yet quite "cheap as chips" over here, and modest ones probably cost £50 or more. Some of the cheaper ones sold in stores may be adequate, but not necessarily high quality - I'm not an expert here. However, at the present time, if anyone does shop in Tesco, and collects their rewards points, there is effecively a half price offer which applies to this type of product which is currently active - http://www.tesco.com/direct/technolo...-0344_350-0344

To return to flosshilde's question - recording from analogue should always work, but takes time, as the whole Blu Ray or DVD has to be played. For a short extract, as requested in the opening question, this is not unreasonable, but as a regular process would be tedious. I believe there are software tools which can extract the files from DVDs, and then demultiplex the audio and video, which wold then enable the DVD audio tracks to be burned to CD if that is desired. As noted, there may be a requirement to resample the audio to 44.1kHz and 16 bit samples. OTOH, once the audio has been extracted it is should then be possible to play directly from a computer or server without the need to resample or change the bit depth, but if CD-Rs are required that extra step will be necessary. Some CD burner software may just do it anyway.

Possibly useful links for DVD and/or Blu Ray extraction include:

http://www.aoamedia.com/DVD-to-WAV.htm

http://www.guidingtech.com/5729/13-free-software-rip-audio-from-video/

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/extract_content_from_a_blu-ray_disc.cfm

http://www.macworld.com/article/2154782/how-to-extract-audio-from-a-blu-ray-disc.html

Note that converting from Blu Ray may be more complicated, and also possibly illegal. The last of those links emphasises that point.

[P. G. Tipps]

I have often extracted audio from DVDs (not Blu-Ray) and the best and most versatile method that I've come across is via the marvellous open-source Audacity app as featured on Dave's "guidingtech" link.

I've never quite understood what role an empty 'audio' folder is supposed to play on a DVD so you need to extract the sound from where it actually lies, and that is inside the appropriate individual vob files in the 'video' folder. You only need to concentrate on the vobs which are much larger than the others (1.1GB typically but sometimes the odd couple of hundred or so MB file too).

Audacity will do the ripping for you and, once extracted, the sound can be edited (eg, deleting silent parts, boosting levels etc). Then the separate files can be joined together and saved in numerous sound formats containing various quality options, MP3 being the most obvious and suitably-sized for burning to CD.

And, of course, it's totally free ... and great fun!

[Stanfordian]

stan, given the complexity involved, is it possible you could use the blu ray drive of a PC, or perhaps just bring a cheap blu ray player to the presentation and hook it up to whatever audio system you are using? BRP are going for around $60 here, and then you could obviously use it any way you wish going forward. You could probably get one for peanuts at a pawn shop

Hiya richardfinegold,

Would it be possible to just plug the Blu-ray player in an ampifier; if so that might be the easiest solution.

[slarty]

Of course. if you have analogue outputs (L&R) then just plug it into the Aux in your Amp, and record on whatever medium you normally use.
Then it can be burned to a CD.
That's how I have always done it, but then I am still very much "analogue man".

[richardfinegold]

Hiya richardfinegold,

Would it be possible to just plug the Blu-ray player in an ampifier; if so that is the easiest solution.

As Slarty says, as long as the BDP has an analogue out, it will plug into your amp.
Some BDPs only have Digital out, usually both HDMI and optical. If your amp excepts either of these digital inputs then you are good to go. If not, you will need a DAC probably for the optical output of the BDP.
And you don't have to record the excerpt, merely play it during your talk.

[Dave2002]

I have often extracted audio from DVDs (not Blu-Ray) and the best and most versatile method that I've come across is via the marvellous open-source Audacity app as featured on Dave's "guidingtech" link.

I've never quite understood what role an empty 'audio' folder is supposed to play on a DVD so you need to extract the sound from where it actually lies, and that is inside the appropriate individual vob files in the 'video' folder. You only need to concentrate on the vobs which are much larger than the others (1.1GB typically but sometimes the odd couple of hundred or so MB file too).

Audacity will do the ripping for you and, once extracted, the sound can be edited (eg, deleting silent parts, boosting levels etc). Then the separate files can be joined together and saved in numerous sound formats containing various quality options, MP3 being the most obvious and suitably-sized for burning to CD.

And, of course, it's totally free ... and great fun!

Thanks for that PGT. Good to know that it works with Audacity - never tried it myself. Might give it a go in a while (a week or two) - for example to extract the audio from some Alban Berg Quartet DVDs I have - though perhaps no real need for those, as I do have their CDs.
I do have other operas with tracks which could go on CDs or at least to digitised files.

Also nice to have a less controversial exchange, as per CA&P.

Best wishes!

[richardfinegold]

Another thought Stan. Although most of the PCs being sold these days don't have any optical drive, there were many that had Blu Ray Drives. If you could borrow a PC with such a drive, then you could also either attach that to your amp, if your amp accepts the connections, or use your Nu Force cube, which should accept the usb from the computer, to demonstrate the piece.
If you send an email to audience members beforehand you may find on that has a Blu Ray drive on their PC

[Dave2002]

Although most of the PCs being sold these days don't have any optical drive, there were many that had Blu Ray Drives.

I wonder if this was something that largely passed the UK by. Clearly Macs of any variety don't/didn't have any Blu Ray drives - due apparently to Steve Jobs concerns about Blu Ray - but I don't recall seeing any other type of computer sold over here with integral Blu Ray drives either, though Blu Ray writers have been available as accessories for some years.

[richardfinegold]

I wonder if this was something that largely passed the UK by. Clearly Macs of any variety don't/didn't have any Blu Ray drives - due apparently to Steve Jobs concerns about Blu Ray - but I don't recall seeing any other type of computer sold over here with integral Blu Ray drives either, though Blu Ray writers have been available as accessories for some years.

Sonys were plentiful with Blu Ray drive, which considering they invented Blu Ray, isn't a shock, but I have an old Hitachi that also has a Blu Drive

[Bryn]

I wonder if this was something that largely passed the UK by. Clearly Macs of any variety don't/didn't have any Blu Ray drives - due apparently to Steve Jobs concerns about Blu Ray - but I don't recall seeing any other type of computer sold over here with integral Blu Ray drives either, though Blu Ray writers have been available as accessories for some years.

The Acer Aspire 5740 which has been my mainstay for the past few years was purchased precisely because it had a built-in Blu-ray drive (read only, though it burns CD-R and DVD recordables well enough).