Some AC3 Questions

[m2master]

Ok what exactly is AC3. I know it is an audio format. Is it 5.1 surround sound or what. Anyway when i rip a DVD i get the AC3 audio but then when i convert to SVCD and include the AC3 sound i don't get surround sound when i play the finished SVCD back on my DVD player. This has nothing to do with my DVD player, i just want to know what AC3 is persay and how i can take advantagte of it in my future projects. Am i totally confused about AC3 or what. I hope i did not post in the wrong place.

[banjazzer]

AC3 sound is Dolby Digital sound. On your PC the audio is stored as AC3 files. There are various formats, the latest being 5.1. 5.1 provides 2 surround channels to Dolby Surround’s one. You can find out more here. http://www.dolby.com/digital/

If you look at the specification for SVCD you will see that you can have 2 audio channels, so any conversion of Dolby Digital audio must convert the audio to 2 channels.