AC3 ->? Is this its own format, or a wave, or pcm or what?

[ritmo2k]

I am little unsure of something here?

I have been reading the guides, and the only way i can see how to get an AC3 file is by using graphedit. This file is considerably smaller then a wave file, what exactly is it? And is the wave from using dvd2avi and letting it downsample then using tolame to encode to mpeg the best quality methode?

What are you guys opinions on the highest quality?

Thanks

[DSPguru]

ac3 is an audio compression format.
most of the discussions in this forum deals with this format, since it's the most popular audio stream to be found on dvds.
most of the tools in the audio section at the software download page, deals with transcoding this ac3 format into another formats like mp2/mp3.
i suggest that you go and visit the audio-guides (http://doom9.org/audio-guides.htm).

[ritmo2k]

I am just a little confused, some of the guides dont detail what is happening, and i cant understand a few... I dont follow in places...

I am still trying to figure some of them out, but now i know for sure some aspects. Thanks!

Some guides say AC3 extraction and you get a wave. But they dont say they are encoding to wave, so i am a little puzzled.

Still reading...
Thank you