WAV to AC3 assistance

[Afterlife]

Ive spent the better half of 2hrs reading and searchin the forums now.

Besweet "sucks"
TMPGenc is only 2 channel
FFMpeg "sucks"

Ok so all I hear is "this program is aweful for AC3" so what do I use then?

I was going to use besweet but clearly ive read more than enough posts to suggest im wrong.

So if someone would like to point me in the rigth direction it woudl help.

Thansk!

[guns1inger]

I haven't used the freeware encoders, as I use the Vegas with mutli-channel AC3 output. Dolby certified and pretty good to use.

Of the freebies, my reading of the forums over time would suggest ffmpeg with ffmpeggui is probably the best of the free, with besweet and a suitable gui not too far behind. Many of the problems that plagued them early on have been resolved. Niether are certified, and may not be 100% compliant, but many use them successfully anyway.

Your other options are either the abandoned SoftEncode (which became the Vegas plugin) or Surcode's offerings. Surcode is good, but it is also relatively expensive.

A number of other editors offer AC3 encoding as well.

What is missing from your post is what you actually want to do with this information. What type of output (2.0, 5.1 etc) ? What type of source ? Target for finished project (AC3 in Divx, or DVD) ?

[Afterlife]

Finished product is DVD, as for output I dont really know too much, im guessing 2.0 as I dont really have a surround sound system.

So if I got my hands on vegas I could convert my wavs into AC3's no problem?

[guns1inger]

Vegas with DVD Architect, or Vegas with the AC3 plugin. Usually the price difference makes it more cost effective just to get the DVDA package, which gives you the lot anyway.

[hiptune]

Vegas with DVD Architect gives very good and flexible ac3 encoding. DVD-A by itself I found has less features for DD than the Vegas interface.

Looks to me like you do need them both. Sony really made a good system with this pair.

[jimmalenko]

Besweet with Belight GUI is fine.
FFMPEG with ffmpeggui is fine.