Help doublecheck my entire audio process

[Kent Wang]

OK, let me know if I'm doing any of this wrong:

1. DVD Decrypter, no stream processing.

2. DVD2AVI, preferring 2.0 AC3 tracks over DTS over everything else. Also setting DVD2AVI to only demux not decode. Since I'm demuxing, the settings I choose for "Dynamic Range Compression" and "Pre-Scale Decision" should not matter.

3. With the .ac3 file that DVD2AVI generates, I azid it using the BeSweet GUI. These are the only settings that are checked:

Downmix Levels: LFE to LR Channels: -3db
Output Modes: Stereo: surround
Dynamic Compression: normal
Normalize to: 98%

I then hit "AC3 to Wav" and pass the .wav to LAME. These are the same settings I always use, whether it's 2.0, 5.1 or whatever.

4. LAME, I'm gonna make a whole other thread about LAME settings. I usually do VBR of some sort. I'm thinking about moving to Ogg too.

5. After encoding the video, I use vdmod to mux audio with video. The only changes from default vdmod I make are the audio skew delay correction based on what the filename of the .ac3 track generated by DVD2AVI uses.

[TelemachusMH]

Everything looks pretty good, but I do have two suggestions.

1) BeSweet has the ability to go directly from ac3 to mp3 (or ogg) without creating the intermedate wav file. The audio guide should show you how to do this.

Downmix Levels: LFE to LR Channels: -3db
2) You shouldn't use this if your source is 2 channel. That is supposed to move the LFE channel into the left and right channels. That way when you encode a 2 channel file it still has the bas audio included. If your source is a 2 channel file, it will only distort the audio. (although, I don't think it is very noticable)

TelemachusMH

[pacohaas]

@TelemachusMH:

1. Right, in fact it can go directly from the vob's to mp3 or ogg
2. I believe that the LFE 2 LR will be ignored if there is no LFE information to begin with, however I myself choose to be "rather safe than sorry" and leave this off any conversion of 2 channel audio.


@Kent Wang: check out the audio FAQ on some recommended settings for audio encoding, then based on your needs, use the recommended command.