DVDWS AC3

[Ted222]

Just finished the download..will post results.

Ted

[Ted222]

Just re-encoded a DVD for testing, haven't tried playing it.

Same Specs(8000 VBR) & same project.

DVDWS 1.3 Files total = 2.04 gigs
DVDWS 1.4 Files total = 1.59 gigs

Looks like about a 20% savings in space when using AC3 audio.

Ted

[Dr Mordrid]

What encoding method did you use in the non-AC3 project?

Dr. Mordrid

[Ted222]

I am just dropping an edited timeline from Premiere in Matrox DV format right into DVDWS for both DVDs, if that's what you are asking?

I just selected the AC3 audio option in creating the DVD on one and LPCM audio on the other. No other differences.

That is quite a savings in real estate, I wasn't expecting 20%.

Ted

[Dr Mordrid]

LPCM (linear pulse code modulation) is an uncompressed audio format akin to what you see in normal *.avi's so the size difference is to be expected.

You'll see a bit of a difference between AC3 and MPEG audio, but not near as much and some renderings may show one smaller and others the other.

The big difference between MPEG audio and AC3 is quality.

Another is that NTSC decks by default prefer AC3 audio since that was the original DVD standard. MPEG audio was an afterthought that came into the paper standard later on but was supported (more or less) in most decks of the day.

The use of MPEG audio and the playing of it on older decks that marginally support it is one of the compatability issues people run into without knowing it.

Dr. Mordrid

[Flying dutchman]

... which is hardly understandable anyway since just about every DVD player on the market plays VCD, which uses mpeg-1 level 2 (MP2) audio as standard.

There are freeware AC3 encoders around, has anyone ever tried one?

[Dr Mordrid]

Yes they do, but unfortunately many of the decks made before 2002 had VCD and SVCD compatability issues of their own.

I've used some of the freeware ones and to varying degrees they can be pretty good, if a bit annoying because of all the extra maipulations you have to go through to use 'em.

I prefer just encoding AC3 in MSPro7.

Dr. Mordrid

[davpen]

Originally posted by Dr Mordrid
I prefer just encoding AC3 in MSPro7.

I was just about to ask if MSPro7 included AC3 encoding. And my next question is do you need the AC3 version of DVDWS to author MPEG2 compressed using AC3 by MSPro7? I am not too keen on forking out another US$200 just for an additional bit of audio compression.


Cheers,

David.

[Ted222]

Just an interesting additional note. The included DVD Player you can put on disk with DVDWS does indeed NOT support AC3 audio.

Ted

[Dr Mordrid]

MSPro7 allows AC3 encoding to the 1/0 (center) and 2/0 (stereo) profiles when encoding to the DVD presets at audio bitrates from 32 to 640 kbps.

The DVD preset can be used with resolutions of 352x240/288, 352x480/576, 704x480/576 or 720x480/576 (NTSC/PAL).

Both 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios are supported and you can mix sources in the same timeline and have them properly handled on output if you select non-square pixel rendering in the project settings.

Ex: 16:9 will be letterboxed in a 4:3 project and 4:3 will be pillared in a 16:9 project.

Dr. Mordrid

[Elie]

The third party AC3 encoders are good however DVDWS 1.3 will not support importing AC3 files, not even DVDit SE supports AC3.

I think AC 3 is a great addition to DVD WS and it was about time they included it.

Regards,
Elie

[Jerry Jones]

As Ted mentioned, the Ulead Runtime Player that comes with the Ulead DVD Workshop AC-3 PowerPack upgrade does not support AC-3.

But I just tested the software.

I like Ulead DVD Workshop a whole lot better than Ulead DVD MovieFactory because there is so much more flexibility.

In my opinion, DVD Workshop is worth the extra money.

However, the lack of AC-3 support in the included Ulead Runtime Player is a bit disappointing.

*Prior* to the AC-3 PowerPack upgrade, Ulead DVD Workshop did not offer the option to burn a DVD using an MPEG-2 file encoded with AC-3 audio in MediaStudio Pro 7.0.

(Although Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2 did offer that option.)

In addition, I tried the Ulead Runtime Player and the menus/controls worked fine.

The only problem is I like to encode my DVD-R discs with CBR@8000 for high quality playback on stand alone players.

When I tested the Ulead Runtime Player on one of these DVD-R discs in my Panasonic LF-D321, the drive seemed to be too slow to play the video/read the Ulead Runtime Player at the same time.

Intervideo's WinDVD plays the disc contents just fine, however, with no jerkiness.

More testing to follow.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Doc said:
The big difference between MPEG audio and AC3 is quality.


What is AC3? Does it sound a lot better than MPEG audio at the same bitrate?
How do you use AC3 with TMPGEnc?

[Dr Mordrid]

You most likely know AC3 as Dolby Digital. Done properly it delivers better quality/bitrate than MPEG audio.

With TMPGEnc you would encode the video only (*.m2v) and then encode *.avi with an AC3 encoder (BeSweet for one), muxing the resultant files together in a program like IImuxer.

Dr. Mordrid