Audio encoding options question

[Octo-puss]

I encode most of my movies with mp3 audio. Question is, what's the "force decoding via directshow"?

[Southstorm]

It means using DirectshowSource() for the audio in you AviSynth script instead of a plugin like NicMP3audio() or BassAudio()

[Octo-puss]

I am not aware of any such plugins yet it works without this being ticked... Hm?

[Southstorm]

I'm sure these plugins are installed with MeGui.

[Octo-puss]

Oh.. Okay then.
Anyway, is there any benefit in using directshow? (for whatever it is)

edit: hm, no matches in file structure anywhere on my disk...

basically I am just curious - I mean, if it works, why bother..

[Southstorm]

Typically it's only used as a last resort, when AviSynth doesn't have plugins to deal with the audio/video stream natively.