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The Unofficial DVD-Audio Specification

Hardware Player Requirements

The only absolute sector pointers in a DVD-Audio image are those in the AUDIO_PP.IFO file. All other pointers are relative. Therefore there are two steps required to burning an AUDIO_TS directory to DVD - setting the pointers correctly in the AUDIO_PP.IFO file, and ensuring that the files are written contiguously in the correct order. It is probably possible to have padding between sets of files (e.g. between the AMG and the first ATS), but in practice there is no need to take account of that situation.

Experiments have shown that a "smart" DVD-Audio player (i.e. a combined Audio/Video player) does not appear to use the AUDIO_PP.IFO file for playback. i.e. an AUDIO_TS directory can be relocated (without modification) to any part of the disk and still be playable in a hardware player - as long as the files are written contiguously and in the correct order.

mkisofs is able to create a correct UDF file image with the following command-line:

mkisofs -o image.iso -udf -sort sort.txt DVD/

Where sort.txt contains the following sorting criteria (see the file README.sort in the cdrtools source distribution for more information).

DVD/AUDIO_TS/AUDIO_PP.IFO 8003
DVD/AUDIO_TS/AUDIO_TS.IFO 8002
DVD/AUDIO_TS/AUDIO_TS.BUP 8001
DVD/AUDIO_TS/ATS_01_0.IFO 8000
DVD/AUDIO_TS/ATS_01_1.AOB 0
DVD/AUDIO_TS/ATS_01_0.BUP -8000

A -dvd-audio switch has been added to the standard distribution of mkisofs to perform the above sorting. It replaces both -udf and -sort.

An Example Disk

The following listing is the output of the isoinfo -l command on a simple DVD-Audio disk. The lines have been re-ordered so that they appear in sector order.

Directory listing of /
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Feb 10 2005 [    259 02]  .
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Feb 10 2005 [    259 02]  ..
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Feb 10 2005 [    260 02]  VIDEO_TS
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Feb 10 2005 [    261 02]  AUDIO_TS

Directory listing of /AUDIO_TS/
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Feb 10 2005 [    261 02]  .
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Feb 10 2005 [    259 02]  ..
----------   0    0    0          131072 Feb 10 2005 [    687 00]  AUDIO_PP.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0            6144 Feb 10 2005 [    751 00]  AUDIO_TS.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0            6144 Feb 10 2005 [    754 00]  AUDIO_TS.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Feb 10 2005 [    757 00]  ATS_01_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0        37990400 Feb 10 2005 [    759 00]  ATS_01_1.AOB;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Feb 10 2005 [  19309 00]  ATS_01_0.BUP;1

Directory listing of /VIDEO_TS/
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Feb 10 2005 [    260 02]  .
d---------   0    0    0            2048 Feb 10 2005 [    259 02]  ..

As can be seen from the above file structure, a DVD-Audio disk shares a lot of similarities with e DVD-Video disk. There is a large .AOB file which contains the actual uncompressed LPCM audio data (in this example a single 48KHz track), plus various .IFO files and their backup versions .BUP.

Another Example

The following output is from a commercial DVD-Audio disk:

Directory listing of /
d---------   0    0    0             176 Aug 19 2004 [    259 02]  .
d---------   0    0    0             176 Aug 19 2004 [    259 02]  ..
d---------   0    0    0            1376 Aug 19 2004 [    260 02]  AUDIO_TS
d---------   0    0    0            1376 Aug 19 2004 [    261 02]  VIDEO_TS

Directory listing of /AUDIO_TS/
d---------   0    0    0            1376 Aug 19 2004 [    260 02]  .
d---------   0    0    0             176 Aug 19 2004 [    259 02]  ..
----------   0    0    0         3145728 Aug 19 2004 [    320 00]  DVDAUDIO.MKB;1
----------   0    0    0          131072 Aug 19 2004 [   1856 00]  AUDIO_PP.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0           36864 Aug 19 2004 [   1920 00]  AUDIO_TS.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0        34506752 Aug 19 2004 [   1938 00]  AUDIO_TS.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0           36864 Aug 19 2004 [  18787 00]  AUDIO_TS.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [  18805 00]  AUDIO_SV.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0         1980416 Aug 19 2004 [  18807 00]  AUDIO_SV.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [  19774 00]  AUDIO_SV.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [  19776 00]  ATS_01_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0      1073709056 Aug 19 2004 [  19778 00]  ATS_01_1.AOB;1
----------   0    0    0      1073709056 Aug 19 2004 [ 544050 00]  ATS_01_2.AOB;1
----------   0    0    0       755673088 Aug 19 2004 [1068322 00]  ATS_01_3.AOB;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [1437303 00]  ATS_01_0.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [1437305 00]  ATS_02_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [1437322 00]  ATS_02_0.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [1437324 00]  ATS_03_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [1437341 00]  ATS_03_0.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [1437343 00]  ATS_04_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [1437360 00]  ATS_04_0.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [1437362 00]  ATS_05_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [1437379 00]  ATS_05_0.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [1437381 00]  ATS_06_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0            4096 Aug 19 2004 [1437398 00]  ATS_06_0.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0         3145728 Aug 19 2004 [1437408 00]  DVDAUDIO.BUP;1

Directory listing of /VIDEO_TS/
d---------   0    0    0            1376 Aug 19 2004 [    261 02]  .
d---------   0    0    0             176 Aug 19 2004 [    259 02]  ..
----------   0    0    0           22528 Aug 19 2004 [1438947 00]  VIDEO_TS.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0        33073152 Aug 19 2004 [1438958 00]  VIDEO_TS.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0           22528 Aug 19 2004 [1455107 00]  VIDEO_TS.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0           38912 Aug 19 2004 [1455118 00]  VTS_01_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0       656951296 Aug 19 2004 [1979603 00]  VTS_01_2.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0           38912 Aug 19 2004 [2300380 00]  VTS_01_0.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0           18432 Aug 19 2004 [2300399 00]  VTS_02_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0           14336 Aug 19 2004 [2300408 00]  VTS_02_0.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0       189581312 Aug 19 2004 [2300415 00]  VTS_02_1.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0           18432 Aug 19 2004 [2392984 00]  VTS_02_0.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0           18432 Aug 19 2004 [2392993 00]  VTS_03_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0           14336 Aug 19 2004 [2393002 00]  VTS_03_0.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0       231970816 Aug 19 2004 [2393009 00]  VTS_03_1.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0           18432 Aug 19 2004 [2506276 00]  VTS_03_0.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0           32768 Aug 19 2004 [2506285 00]  VTS_04_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0          360448 Aug 19 2004 [2506301 00]  VTS_04_0.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0       949022720 Aug 19 2004 [2506477 00]  VTS_04_1.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0           32768 Aug 19 2004 [2969867 00]  VTS_04_0.BUP;1
----------   0    0    0           18432 Aug 19 2004 [2969883 00]  VTS_05_0.IFO;1
----------   0    0    0           14336 Aug 19 2004 [2969892 00]  VTS_05_0.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0          620544 Aug 19 2004 [2969899 00]  VTS_05_1.VOB;1
----------   0    0    0           18432 Aug 19 2004 [2970202 00]  VTS_05_0.BUP;1

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