AC3 in AVI

[ipanema]

I'm interested in writing a routine to store AC3 as an audio stream in an AVI file.

But I can't seem to find any details about how AC3 should be stored in an AVI file.

Is there a spec or some generally accepted rules about how to do this or is it a technique just adopted by a small number of tools?

Are the major commercial editing packages able to read AVI's which contain AC3 audio?

[MatLz]

Avimux, VirtualDub, VirtualDubMod can put ac3 in an avi

[ipanema]

Avimux, VirtualDub, VirtualDubMod can put ac3 in an avi

Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like the authors of these programs have come up with their own method, and there isn't a formal spec for storing ac3 in AVI files.

Do you need to install a special decoder to be able to read the audio from these AVI files?

I would like to be able to write AVI files containing AC3 which will be read correctly by Premiere Pro, Edius and other large editing packages, but it sounds like they probably won't understand this format.

It would be good to keep the video and audio together in a single AVI file, but would it be better for maximum compatibility to just store the audio in a separate *.ac3 file ?

[thewebchat]

There isn't a formal specification to put anything in AVI. Aside from that, AC-3 is no different from any other fixed-bitrate audio codec like MP3 or MP2 or LPCM.

[Midzuki]

Do you need to install a special decoder to be able to read the audio from these AVI files?

If you want to stick to the VfW/ACM interface, you need to install an AC3 ACM codec. Otherwise, the .AVI video with AC3 audio will be played through DirectShow.