[Mambosenior]

Members,

Could someone please share with me the process of recording audio files to a Blu-Ray disc using a Mac. I am not looking for recording hi-rez audio but recording a number of operas on one disc. I have previously recorded wav files to regular DVDs and enjoyed the ability to have a lot of music on one disc.

1. What type of file conversion is necessary?
2. I have the Burn application. Do I need another application for Blu-Ray?

I have a blu-ray recorder and recordable Blu-Ray media.

Thank you for your consideration.

 

[PurpleAngel]

Check out the website Majorgeeks.
It's loaded with free software, some of it for Macs.

 

[Mambosenior]

Thank you kindly, PurpleAngel. Unfortunately, I could only find Windows solutions to my issue at Majorgeeks. It appears that there are programs to record video blu-ray discs on a Mac but I can't find anything that will record audio. I'll keep looking or wait for someone here who may have/discover the answer.

I am willing to buy whatever the software may be.

 

[Mambosenior]

Much searching and still no answers. Postings on Steve Hoffman's site from 2009 yielded some ideas but no firm conclusions. Maybe because it's Mac related (?).

 

[pinnahertz]

Members,

Could someone please share with me the process of recording audio files to a Blu-Ray disc using a Mac. I am not looking for recording hi-rez audio but recording a number of operas on one disc. I have previously recorded wav files to regular DVDs and enjoyed the ability to have a lot of music on one disc.

1. What type of file conversion is necessary?
2. I have the Burn application. Do I need another application for Blu-Ray?

I have a blu-ray recorder and recordable Blu-Ray media.

Thank you for your consideration.

What do you plan to do with the finished Blu-ray disc? How will it be used?

 

[Mambosenior]

Thank you for asking.

I'd like to burn BDs of all Mahler symphonies by one conductor to just ONE disc. Ditto: Wagner's Ring cycle; Bruckner Symphonies; and, yes, my Pink Floyd collection, among others. Have used normal DVDs for DVD-A but they don't hold as many files unless I use the double layer DVDs which are not as reliable (only my experience).

I do use external hard drives with computer but find them not as easy to navigate (read: old fart) as inserting a disc into my Cambridge BD player. It plays the few BD music discs I own very well (i.e. Solti's Ring).

I'll leave the better/same audio quality discussion to others. My interest is the convenience.

 

[pinnahertz]

The problem with the idea of burning a BD is that to play as a BD music disc the disc must be "authored", which means all the files must be encoded (not necessarily compressed, though) into a format with a means of navigation - the menu, similarly to making a video DVD or DVD-A. That requires BD authoring software. My only experience burning BDs is using Final Cut Pro, which is Mac only, and I have to say given may more extensive experience authoring DVDs, FPC is quite limited. I've never tried what you're attempting, I don't think FCP would be optimal though.

Real BD authoring software is expensive and complex. Sony just discontinued DoStudio Authoring, which could have done this (again, it's a pro app, not easy). Pro applications like Sonic Scenarist ($5k) will do the trick, but clearly not in budget. Perhaps there's a consumer solutions, but I didn't turn one up in a few minutes of googling.

Two suggestions, the first is cheap and easy. Grab yourself a USB Flash Drive. Get a good fast one like this, it's cheap to try. Copy all your files to it, you might put all CD tracks into a directory/folder, tracks numbered in order. Stuff the Flash Drive into the USB port on the front of your Cambridge player, see how it navigates all of that. You may have to adjust how you copy files, etc. If you rip your CDs correctly, and end up with files the player can recognized, this will likely do what you're after.

Second idea is a bit more expensive, get a BD burner and test-burn a data disc with the files on it like you did for the Flash Drive. Many players will read data discs and navigate them via a generated tree-menu. It won't be as elegant looking as DVD-A with menus etc., but may work.

However, clearly you're already dealing with audio on a computer to burn discs. Because of that, and for simplicity and convenience of use, I strongly suggest looking into keeping all your audio on a computer and using PLEX to serve it to a playing device. PLEX makes it easy to navigate your entire library, includes cover art and track listings, etc. PLEX is a media server application, so it can do video as well, and navigation is through your video display. Players are cheap/free, and you already own one! The Cambridge will play media served by your PLEX server. PLEX is free, capable, and easy to set up. It can run on any computer, Mac, PC, Linux, and is not a demanding application. In use, you'll never handle a disc again, and have original quality audio.

https://www.plex.tv/downloads/

 

[Mambosenior]

Pinnahertz, thank you for your detailed explanation! I will look into the PLEX suggestion as I had never heard of it (again, read: old fart!).

Best regards.

 

[obobskivich]

I'd also vote "pass" on this idea with Blu-ray. I get the concept in principle - big storage and you can throw hours (maybe even days) of CD (or beyond) quality audio at it, but as pinnahertz pointed out, the software support is just not there, not to mention I'm skeptical if a conventional Blu-ray disc player would even accept the disc as created. What I mean is, there's pretty good support on most "modern" DVD and Blu-ray players for throwing a bunch of .wav or .mp3 files at a CD or DVD as a data disc and having them read it, but BD-ROM is kind of a stillborn format outside of bulk data archiving on M-Disc, so there's a good chance the player would just go "nope" (like an old CD player with a CD-ROM disc containing audio files). The commercial "Blu-ray audio" discs out there aren't (as far as I'm aware) actually built on the HFPA standard (which wants to throw 7.1 24/192 LPCM on a disc - basically "DVD-A with a lot more capacity"), but instead are built just like commercial movie/TV show releases on Blu-ray, and quality-wise that's just fine - you can already do lossless 5.1-7.1 audio out of the box (with DTS-HD or TrueHD) and there's still a lot left over for menus and other interactivity, basically the overall quality is good enough for everything, unlike the case with CD and DVD (where you can either have lossless audio and no video or lossy video and audio together).

That all being said, lots of modern Blu-ray players (and other devices) will happily take a USB mass storage device loaded up with said mountain of audio files thrown at it. So I'd probably suggest going that route too, especially if your goal is a one-and-done thing (I'm guessing that's the idea behind using a Blu-ray with its large storage capacity).

As far as networked solutions, Plex is an option, but frankly it isn't the only game in town, especially since you've got a Mac. You can use AirPlay to do the same thing, and away you go. More info: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202809 You'd need a compatible "end device" for the output at the TV, but you'd also need such a thing for Plex too. I'm assuming there's a TV at the end point, since you've got a Blu-ray player there, so AppleTV is the easy option.

 

[Mambosenior]

obobskivich, many thanks to you also for the explanations and suggestions. Appreciate your consideration.

Best regards.

 

[pinnahertz]

As far as networked solutions, Plex is an option, but frankly it isn't the only game in town, especially since you've got a Mac. You can use AirPlay to do the same thing, and away you go. More info: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202809 You'd need a compatible "end device" for the output at the TV, but you'd also need such a thing for Plex too. I'm assuming there's a TV at the end point, since you've got a Blu-ray player there, so AppleTV is the easy option.

I suggested PLEX because he already has a Cambridge player with DLNA capability, so the player side is done. I also use iTunes with AirPlay to an Apple TV, and that is just OK. The PLEX interface is way better and much more file-type agnostic. With the Cambridge PLEX will play files in their native sample rate where all AirPlay devices resample to 48k, which is not an big deal frankly, but some will obsess.

As to other network options, DLNA players will also work with NAS storage units with DLNA or UPnP built in. So loading files up on a NAS and parking the thing on your net will also work, though without the spiff of a full media server. PLEX can also be installed on select NAS devices and run that way too. The list of capable NAS units is on the PLEX site. Those solutions are not locked to a PC operating system.

I run PLEX on an 10+ year old Mac Pro, but it would run on just about anything. The limitations to PLEX and the device it runs on are dictated by the number of simultaneous players. So, serving 1080p video to 5 players simultaneously requires more server horsepower than 96K or 44.1K audio to one player. PLEX is free, but if you pay for it you get streaming to your devices outside your home net anywhere you have Internet. I can stream my entire A/V library to my summer home 350 miles away, and to my iPhone while driving down the road. Nice to have your full library available on your memory-challenged smart device. I bought the lift-time license for I think $150. Well worth it.

The downside to PLEX is that it does take a bit of setup if you want outside net access. And the occasional update has broken that part, but otherwise if the server is up, so is your entire media library.

 

[obobskivich]

I suggested PLEX because he already has a Cambridge player with DLNA capability, so the player side is done. I also use iTunes with AirPlay to an Apple TV, and that is just OK. The PLEX interface is way better and much more file-type agnostic. With the Cambridge PLEX will play files in their native sample rate where all AirPlay devices resample to 48k, which is not an big deal frankly, but some will obsess.

As to other network options, DLNA players will also work with NAS storage units with DLNA or UPnP built in. So loading files up on a NAS and parking the thing on your net will also work, though without the spiff of a full media server. PLEX can also be installed on select NAS devices and run that way too. The list of capable NAS units is on the PLEX site. Those solutions are not locked to a PC operating system.

I run PLEX on an 10+ year old Mac Pro, but it would run on just about anything. The limitations to PLEX and the device it runs on are dictated by the number of simultaneous players. So, serving 1080p video to 5 players simultaneously requires more server horsepower than 96K or 44.1K audio to one player. PLEX is free, but if you pay for it you get streaming to your devices outside your home net anywhere you have Internet. I can stream my entire A/V library to my summer home 350 miles away, and to my iPhone while driving down the road. Nice to have your full library available on your memory-challenged smart device. I bought the lift-time license for I think $150. Well worth it.

The downside to PLEX is that it does take a bit of setup if you want outside net access. And the occasional update has broken that part, but otherwise if the server is up, so is your entire media library.

I did not know the Cambridge player would run PLEX - I've only ever seen it run as a client on game consoles or PCs. I know the server isn't very demanding (I've seen *that* run from netbooks with no problems for 1-2 clients - a Mac Pro would make quick work of it). In that case, I'd agree with that configuration (Cambridge player + PLEX) unless PLEX itself is undesirable for some reason (e.g. preference towards iOS/iTunes UI, dislike of setup, whatever).

Side note: Time Machine can function for AirPlay in a similar fashion as the NAS + PLEX (or other DLNA + NAS configurations), if one already has Time Machine (I would not, however, run out and buy a Time Machine just for this though).

 

[pinnahertz]

I did not know the Cambridge player would run PLEX - I've only ever seen it run as a client on game consoles or PCs. I know the server isn't very demanding (I've seen *that* run from netbooks with no problems for 1-2 clients - a Mac Pro would make quick work of it). In that case, I'd agree with that configuration (Cambridge player + PLEX) unless PLEX itself is undesirable for some reason (e.g. preference towards iOS/iTunes UI, dislike of setup, whatever).

The Cambridge player is a client, it doesn't run PLEX.

Side note: Time Machine can function for AirPlay in a similar fashion as the NAS + PLEX (or other DLNA + NAS configurations), if one already has Time Machine (I would not, however, run out and buy a Time Machine just for this though).

Time Machine is the backup software included with OS X. You can't buy it. When running it can automatically backup a Mac. Time Machine isn't a media server.

You may have been thinking of Time Capsule, a HDD-based backup drive that works with Time Machine, but the current Time Capsule device is not an AirPlay client (not sure about older ones, I've avoided Time Machine as an over-priced solution to a really basic problem: external storage). Apple's only stand-alone, audio-only AirPlay client is AirPort Express. Apple does not currently make a stand-alone device that will function as a media server.

iTunes, on the other hand, can work as a media server. With Home Sharing turned on you can view/stream your iTunes Library to any AirPlay device. It works two ways: first in iTunes on a Mac, PC, or IOS device you can select media and play to an AirPlay destination (Apple TV, AirPort Expres, or third party devices like AVRs), second, as a server that some AirPlay clients can look back at and browse and play media. If you wish to navigate your library from an AirPlay device it must have that capability (not all AirPlay devices do), usually via a video display connection. AirPlay has limitations, but the core technology works well. For example, AirPlay is not available on the Cambridge player.

iTunes is also included with OS X and IOS, but is also a free download for Windows systems. It's a media library system that can organize music, movies and videos, create playlists, and play media, but is tightly coupled to the iTunes Store for movie rentals and media purchases. It also functions as an IOS device synch/backup system. If you have an iPhone, for example, you will want iTunes to run local backups and synch the phone.

The nice thing is if you started building your library with iTunes (like I did 15 years ago) then wish to add a PLEX server it can directly work with the existing iTunes library, no need to do anything over. If you want to add media to PLEX only, or add files iTunes doesn't work with, you can point PLEX at any number of additional folders which you can organize as desired.

PLEX is a real media server that is file-type agnostic and works with any DLNA and UPnP client, across all platforms and devices.

 

[obobskivich]

Yes I meant Time Capsule, to the rest: oh lordy, I'm not even touching that pedantic semantics argument, and don't think your post adds anything that we haven't already touched on and agreed on. And blocked.

 

[pinnahertz]

Yes I meant Time Capsule, to the rest: oh lordy, I'm not even touching that pedantic semantics argument, and don't think your post adds anything that we haven't already touched on and agreed on. And blocked.

Ok, well, sorry then. Just seemed like your post contained ....um...well...a bit of inaccurate information, and should be elaborated upon:

"I did not know the Cambridge player would run PLEX"... wrong.
"Side note: Time Machine can function for AirPlay in a similar fashion as the NAS + PLEX (or other DLNA + NAS configurations),"....wrong.

Why would anyone think that adding correct information plus additional information was not adding anything useful? How is correcting completely wrong and misleading information pedantic? I don't recall agreeing on the above statements. But if someone with limited knowledge wanted to set up a media server and followed the info in the above statements, they'd at very least be frustrated. Who wants that?

I guess it takes all kinds....

Block away.