Sonic Foundry Soft encode and DTS Surcode DVD Pro encoder

[edo1080]

Hi, does anyone know if the following DD and DTS encoders:

Sonic Foundry Dolby Digital Ecoder and DTS Surcode DVD Pro encoder

keep the bit resolution of the .wav files I am feeding them?

For example if I give 6 wavs at 24bit 48khz each, is the resulting ac3 or dts file still 24 bit 48khz or do such encoders reduce the bit resolution of the source wavs to 16bits only?

[nautilus7]

Both DD and DTS audio tracks don't have a parameter like bit depth. Bit depth doesn't mean anything to DD, DD+, DTS, DTS-HD.

But when you decode those formats to .wav, usually the output is 24bit. It depends to the decoder.

Of course, you can feed them either 16 or 24 bit .wav.

[edo1080]

if I use belight for decoding an ac3 file I obtain 16 bit wavs even if the original AC3 stream was created bby feeding 24 bit wavs. Anyway you are right , if for example you examime a tream either dts or ac3 with delaycut you won't see any info about bit depth. I hope those algorithms will keep the bit depth; for example if I have wavs 24 bit 48khz is it better to encode in DD or DTS or maybe to downgrade the bit depth of wavs to 16 bit and keep them as wavs? I suppose it's better to encode preserving the bit depth than downgrading the bit depth.

[nautilus7]

You got it right as i can see... Output bit depth depends on the decoder. For example, the decoders eac3to uses output 24 bit, whether the ones Belight uses, 16 bit (maybe there is an option for 24 also, don't know).

Keeping your files as wavs even if they are 24 --> 16 bit downgraded, they would be (by far theoretically) better than compressed DD or DTS audio. Look at the filesizes/bitrates and you will understand. Typical DD bitrate is 640 kbps for 6ch, dts 1536 kbps, while 16 bit wav is 6912 kbps. Difference is huge in numbers, but everything depends from your ears/speakers.