.ac3 versus .wav?

[jonx2]

hi all,
ive been ripping for a while now,always using smartripper,then dvd2avi to get a .wav file,then encode using tmpgenc to an mpg.
ive discovered you can stream directly off smartripper and get an m2v file and an ac3,my question,is it worth it? is it right you keep the 5:1 surround information in the ac3 file?and why is the file a lot smaller than the usual .wav file then?

thanx for any input.
jonx

[Baldrick]

The ac3 is compressed(about 192-448 kbit/s) and the wav is not(about 1,4mbit/s).
And yes it is worth to use ac3 if you are making dvd but note that not all authoring tools support ac3.

[jonx2]

thanx for that speedy reply!
1 more question,ive just tried to re-encode the m2v file,because the original m2v file i ripped is 5.2gig,so i open the file with tmpgenc,choose a bitrate that will make the new m2v file about 3.9 gig,choose video only,hit start,and it gives me an estimate time of 10 hours to encode the new m2v file!,im running an 1800+ athlon,256 333 memory,and encoding to a seperate drive than the original m2v,so i now it should be quicker than this,so i stopped it,restarted the wizard,and chose the m2v again but this time i didnt choose video only,i left it as a standard mpg encode, and to my surprise i get a time of 3 hours to encode!! why? is an m2v file really that much better quality than an mpg file? but at the end of the day the files will be both the same size,so why the difference?
i presume the finished mpg will have no sound,can i drag the mpg into spruceup and the ac3 file?

thanx for any input
jonx

[BJ_M]

both are the same type of mpeg2 file .. except in your second option you will have to demux the file in tmpgenc tools back to a m2v file ..