How to examine DVD Audio

[craigja]

I want to know if the DVD Images I have burned have actually got 5.1 surround sound? I know some of them say they are in 5.1 but I have my doubts. Is there a way to look at the audio say as a graph of the waveform or something to confirm that there is data in the surround channels?
Thanks

[jimmalenko]

You'd know the origins of the source files, no ???


The latest GSpot Beta (2.52 AFAIK) can open VOBs directly, and should be able to tell you the audio format. Normally 5.1 will show up as 448kbps AC3 (Dolby Digital). I guess the easiest way is to play them on a 5.1 capable system and see what happens.

[craigja]

They say they are 5.1 source but somtimes I wonder if they are stereo and they just encode it to 5.1 thats why I would like to actually confirm there is audio information in the surround channels

[manono]

Short of actually playing it in a surround system, as Jim suggests, you could separate it or a part of it into the 6 Mono WAV files using BeSweet, and then either play the surrounds, or open one of them in a WAV Editor and check out the waveform.

For what it's worth, I've never heard of DD 5.1 having no surround information at all. Seems like a waste of bits to me. Some don't have much, for sure, and I've heard of Mono or Stereo audio being duplicated in the surrounds, but never empty surrounds.