Audio bit depth on DVDs?

[cljsf]

Are all sound tracks on DVD-Videos 16-bit, or are there 20-bit and 24-bit sound tracks?

I ask because I want to preserve the highest quality audio in my rip but there seems no point in re-encoding at 24-bit if the source file on the DVD has a max of only 16-bit.

Everything I've looked at so far seems to be 16-bit but I was wondering whether this is the spec for soundtracks on DVD-Video or whether I just haven't ripped anything with a 24-bit soundtrack.

Thanks,

C

[jggimi]

Hello, and welcome to Doom9's forum.

There are five different audio formats that might be found on DVD-Video: Dolby Digital, Linear PCM, DTS, SDDS, and MPEG-2 Audio. For the technical specifics of each standard, please see FAQ 3.6.2 (http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.6.2) in the Official DVD FAQ.

[cljsf]

Thanks. Much appreciated!

[Awatef]

While most DVDs have 16-bit audio, there are some that use 20-bit or higher. If you convert those using non floating point methods, you will notice an annoying scratch.
So just make sure you always convert in floating point mode, so that the dithering to 16-bit works well (you don't have to preserve the audio in 20-bit or 24-bit, you won't notice any difference anyway).