Checking AC3 audio

RickZ wrote on 8/18/2006, 3:57 PM

Has anyone figured out a way to listen to 5.1 AC3 ? Currently, I render the .ac3 file in Vegas, then add it to a music compilation DVD in DVDA, burn a disk, then play it on a DVD player. I would be nice to be able to play the file in a software program, and see how it sounds.

In searching other Dolby Digital encoders, most seem to have a matching decoder for this purpose.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Rgds,
Rick Zentmeyer

Comments

jrazz wrote on 8/18/2006, 11:30 PM

If you don't have a 5.1 setup for your computer, it is pointless to try and listen to it for checking sound. If you do, Nero Showtime or any DVD player software should work as long as you have your speakers configured properly.

j razz

MarkWWW wrote on 8/19/2006, 3:18 AM

You may be able to use your DVD playing software to play the AC3 file.

I use Cyberlink PowerDVD XP and it will play AC3s quite happily - just drag and drop the file onto the player window. This pipes the AC3 bitstream out of the digital output on my soundcard and into one of the digital inputs on my 5.1 AV Amp where it is Dolby-decoded, amplified and sent to the 5.1 speakers.

If you don't have an external decoder/amp you may be able to get it to work using the Dolby decoder built into the DVD playing software, though I haven't tried doing it this way so I can't be sure if it will work.

Mark

RickZ wrote on 8/21/2006, 4:31 PM

Mark,

Thanks for the info on Cyberlink, I did buy the PowerDVD with expanded audio, and it sounds the best of the software DVD players I've tried, but doesn't deal with a multiple output sound 'card', like Vegas does. I use the RME Multiface, which has 8 channels total, and I can monitor the 6 channels of 5.1 easily from Vegas. DVD Architect seems to output to ch 7 and 8 only, which isn't that helpful. Minnetonka has a decoder for all channels, but it's part of their $999 encoder, yipe.

Rgds,
Rick Z