What exactly is "mpa" audio, anyway?

[absinthe]

I'm curious (and couldn't find an answer anywhere in the FAQ) ... what exactly is "MPA audio", specification-wise? I know it's "MPEG audio," but how is it different from MPG layer 2 or 3?

I'm just wondering why Cinema Craft Encoder seems to churn out MPA and only MPA as its default audio format. Some DVD authoring software will accept it (DVD Lab, for one), but I think some don't.

thx,

-abs

[gircobain]

mpa is nothing but an alternative extension name for mp2, which is mpeg layer 2 - you can safely rename a .mpa file to .mp2
most people prefer to deal with video only in cce, leaving audio for better mp2 encoders, toolame or mp2enc, for instance

[fccHandler]

The "MPA" files that CCE makes are MPEG-1 audio Layer 2, because this is the only MPEG audio format that DVD players support. But there are several variations of MPEG audio, including MPEG-1 audio Layer 3 (more commonly known as "MP3" files).

More info about MPEG audio can be found at mpeg.org (http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/audio.html)

[absinthe]

Ah, so it is mp2! That's what I suspected. Thanks very much for clearing that up for me.

Yes, I usually use other things for audio, but when I feed something through changing the framerate rate with AviSynth I like to let the same encoder handle it at the same time. That way I can depend on it not going out of sync. Works well with sources that aren't really pristine to begin with, and AviSynth always does an excellent job syncing the audio to the framerate. Be nice if BeSweet or Headache would open AviSynth files!

Anyway, so I guess I could in fact change the output extension for audio to "mp2" in CCE settings ....

Thanks again!

-abs