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Can AC3 be a problem?
I have been warned by our audio department not to use AC3 audio and only use PCM for DVD authoring. I was told that you need a Dolby decoder to hear the audio and not all players have this.
Any insight on this? I would prefer to use AC3 for the smaller file size but do not want to risk some people not being able to hear the audio.
Thanks in advance.
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9 Replies
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Go down the hall and slap the person in the audio department that told you that.
ac3 is by spec, included in every DVD player that has ever been made. It is 100% compatible. Every Hollywood DVD has ac3 audio on it, every one. The only thing you will see with PCM audio is professionally mastered music DVDs or people that don’t know any better.
The key to using the ac3 decoder in Compressor (or whatever you use) is to make sure that Dialog Normalization is set to -31 (which turns it off) and Compression in PreProcessing tab is set to NONE.
Use it on every DVD you make.
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Plus, now 99.9% DVD Players have AC3 decoder built-in
And 90% users have AC3 receiver -
Maybe the audio guys were referring to software players on the computer, where the AC3 license may be an extra cost option?
I dunno, as mentioned, AC3 is the DVD spec
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor -
Well, as a rule-of-thumb, when in doubt, smack an audio guy! Even if it is a video problem. As a group they are a pain in the ass. 🙂
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Truth is actually the opposite. PCM audio can cause DVDs to skip because of its higher data rate and can cause unpredictable sounding playback on older DVD players. AC3 is the proper format, always.
Noah
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Thanks guys. It sounded odd to me too but just wanted confirmation.
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Ah yes, but can you leave off the aiff file? As it is quite large and with my projects right up to 2 hrs it is a real pain to have to re-encode for a couple hundred megs when I I need to do is to leave off the aiff.
So, can I just use the AC3 file and leave off the aiff to save space?
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Ah yes, but can you leave off the aiff file? As it is quite large and with my projects right up to 2 hrs it is a real pain to have to re-encode for a couple hundred megs when I I need to do is to leave off the aiff.
So, can I just use the AC3 file and leave off the aiff to save space?
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normally nobody uses both. The only thing you will find with PCM (AIFF or WAV) is big name music concert DVDs, then the ac3 is normally 5.1
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