Dolby 5.1 vs AC-3 dual channel stereo

Moderator: Ken Berry

Post Reply
User avatar
Ken Berry
Site Admin
Posts: 22481
Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 9:36 pm
operating_system: Windows 11
System_Drive: C
32bit or 64bit: 64 Bit
motherboard: Gigabyte B550M DS3H AC
processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
ram: 32 GB DDR4
Video Card: AMD RX 6600 XT
Hard_Drive_Capacity: 1 TB SSD + 2 TB HDD
Monitor/Display Make & Model: Kogan 32" 4K 3840 x 2160
Corel programs: VS2022; PSP2023; DRAW2021; Painter 2022
Location: Levin, New Zealand

Dolby 5.1 vs AC-3 dual channel stereo

Post by Ken Berry »

I have been asked this question by someone, and confess I don't know the answer. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! :shock:

If you have an mpeg-2 file which has _only_ Dolby 5.1 AC-3 audio on it, can VS9 actually open the audio, given that it only handles AC-3 dual channel stereo?

I have just experimented with a commercial DVD I have which I know has Dolby 5 channel audio. And indeed when I use 'Insert DVD/DVD-VR' and choose one of the chapters, the audio shows up on the Insert panel as being exactly that. But I can import that chapter and it plays back fine. When I click on the properties for that chapter in the VS9 Library pane, however, I am advised that it is 'Dolby Digital Audio, Attributes 48000 Hz, 2/0 (L/R), Bitrate 448 kbps' i.e. dual channel AC-3...

I further confess that I simply don't know whether it is possible to have only 5.1 audio on a file (as I suspect there might be a 'legacy' dual channel version on it as well which is imported at the same time) or whether VS9 can 'read' 5.1 audio but converts it to dual channel for output.

The person who has this problem, by the way, has a file from some unspecified source which will play both video and audio in other players, but not in VS9. The Video Wizard will show it has AC-3 audio, but clicking on Properties within VS9 shows it has no audio... So I was merely surmising it might have only 5.1 Dolby, and then realised I didn't know the answer to the above questions... :lol:
Ken Berry
maddrummer3301
Posts: 2507
Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:24 pm
Location: US

Post by maddrummer3301 »

Ken,
Many times I'll have videos with pcm audio or mpeg audio. I'll convert
the audio in them using another program to 5.1 Dolby audio.

Then I would either use VS dvd module or MF module to import the mpeg files and always have the "Do not convert" option checked on.

Previewing the videos VS or MF doesn't play the audio but the 5.1 tracks are on the resulting dvd since the mpeg2 files aren't re-rendered.

Hope that helps,

MD
Post Reply