Why 256+ Kbps Audio?

[Bix]

Has anyone ever gotten any sort of explanation as to why DVD recorders generally record with 256 Kbps audio (some do 384 Kbps in higher quality modes) when the standard on commercial DVDs is generally 192 Kbps for 2 channel audio?

Thanks.

[Cornucopia]

They're not all that way--my Pioneer recorder does 192kbps.
It's all a matter of what the engineers considered to be adequate quality, given the A/D and encoding chips/algorithms used. Some want to err on the high side (giving more priority to audio quality), some want to err on the low side (giving priority to video quality/playlength).

Scott

[FulciLives]

My Pioneer DVD recorder (model DVR-531H-s) does 2.0 AC-3 at 256kbps

Not sure why the DVD recorder maker's went with 256kbps vs. 192kbps other than they thought the extra bitrate was needed ... maybe since the AC-3 is done "on-the-fly"? Maybe because the quality level of audio is not as good or as "clean" as commercially produced audio? Those are only a guess though as I've never really read anything definative about why they use 256kbps.

Also I should point out that I have seen some commercial DVD discs with 2.0 AC-3 at 224kbps and once in a while even at 256kbps although yes it is true that most seem to use 192kbps.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[energy80s]

The BBC also uses 256kbps for their TV audio via satellite & DTT - it just keeps the quality up in this age of so called CD Quality 128k encodes!