MPEG-1 Audio Layer II compatibility

[numlock]

According to NTSC DVD spec, audio tracks should be in Dolby Digital or PCM. However so far I haven't had a problem playing DVDs with MPEG-1 Audio Layer II. My question is, is it safe to assume that 99.9% NTSC DVD players will play this type of DVDs (this is going to be distributed to 1000s of people) ? If that's the case then I could use cheap Ulead Movie Factory for authoring my DVDs.

[Arky]

NO, it is not safe to assume that 99.9% of NTSC DVD players will play MPEG1-layer2 soundtracks. Many newer DVD players (and particularly those of Far Eastern 'no-name' origin) are surprisingly tolerant of discrepancies in the DVD spec, but this does not mean that you can rely on 1000s of people having such overly-tolerant players, just because your player is. I do appreciate the financial benefits of using MPEG1-Layer2 audio compression, but to be honest, this may be a false economy if you go ahead and duplicate 1000s of discs, only to find that many of your target audience are unable to view the discs on their machines! :(

It's your gamble, but personally, I would contend that if the disks are important, or are supplied with the intention of generating custom, then you'd be well-advised to play it safe and invest in a suitable AC3 encoder (not forgetting that additonal royalties will be due, on a per-disc basis, for Dolby Labs Licensing).


Arky ;o)

[auenf]

the other part is (as ive said a few times before), the most common DVD + Amp setup is only use the digital connection. this works fine for PCM and DD (and DTS if the amp likes it), but almost noone has an amp that will decode mpeg layer2 audio (i even stumbled across an amp that decoded mp3, but not m2a, go figure).

Enf...