I have just started to convert my Ripped DVD collection to Xvid but I have a question about my audio playback. When I ripped my DVD's and then copied them onto DVD using DVD Shrink I would always choose the 5.1 audio option over the 2.1 audio. Even though I have a "bog standard" telly with cheap built in speakers I was thinking of possibly buying 5.1 speakers in the future. SO far this hasn't happened and probably never will however I may connect a good set of 2.1 speakers in the near future. At the moment I am converting my VOBs to Xvid and I'm trying to include the AC3 audio format in the hope that I will keep the 5.1 surround sound. Now here's my question. If I'm probably never going to have a 5.1 Surround Sound system am I wasting my time doing this? My next question is if I ditch the AC3 and convert to MP3 sound quality would I still have a sterio effect if I ever want to attach a 2.1 sound system? Would I actually make any savings in overall file size of the AVI file swapping from movies with AC3 and movies with MP3 audio. Cheers
Firstly, you are really in completely the wrong forum for this question. This is for High Resolution Audio - which Dobly Dirgital & MP3 are most decidedly not. They are as piss-poor in terms of quality as it is possible to get, IMHO. I'll try to deal with the question though. Trying to go from AC3 (Dobly) to MP3 is a pointless thing to do. For a couple of reasons. 1 - an AC3 5.1 stream will probably contain a downmix. Converting this to a stereo MP3 will save you so little space it is futile trying, and the resulting quality drop from expanding a massively reduced file like AC3 to WAV and back to MP3 again will give you a horrible audio quality. 2 - At best, you will get a downmix. At worst, you will get the L & R streams only, and lose the rest. Don't bother. It's not worth your time spent doing it.
