AC3 vs MPeg audio vs LPCM audio question

[TBoneit]

Mods, if wrong forum, please move.

I just added the AC3 pack tonight to go with TMPGenc DVD author.

I guess my question is, since the audio from TMPGenc Plus is Mpeg or LPCM audio.....

Should I leave it as Mpeg audio which plays on my players, use LPCm which as I recall it is much larger, or let DVD Author convert to AC3?

Converting to AC3 would add time to the authoring process I'm pretty sure and introduce another step that could cause audio sync issues? I understand it is more compatable?

Since Mpeg audio plays Ok should I bother.

Oh yes, FWIW I added the AC3 pack since I needed to edit the DVD Rips off of the DVD+RW disks I'm capturing on my standalone DVD recorder. I couldn't hear the audio without it and needed to hear the audio.

My work path is pretty much a dual path. depending on the source tape quality either ADVC-100 & scenalyzer to capture, or capture with the standalone.

Encode with TMPGenc Plus or CCE Basic

Author with TMPGenc DVD Author or Ulead DVD MF2.

I've been thinking about getting the Womble Mpeg editor since it is supposed to do frame accurate edits on Mpeg video, but it's pricy.

Anythoughs/Suggestions?

Thanks
Roger T

[adam]

Mpeg audio is fully supported when creating a PAL compliant DVD. If you are an NTSC user then you may get better compatibility on other hardware using AC3 instead. Otherwise, I'd say either have your encoder output to uncompressed wav and then encode to AC3 or just stick with mpeg audio. Either way should take about the same amount of time.

LPCM is huge compared to mpeg audio or AC3. For most projects that space would be better used by allocating more bitrate to the video. Also, mpeg audio and AC3 can both offer excellent sound at a fraction of the space, so unless the audio source is very high quality and very important, LPCM is a waste for most projects.

[TBoneit]

Well I'm in NTSC land. If I capture through the Standalone Recorder it is of course AC3 audio. If I capture through the ADVC -100 it's DV AVI...

Simplicity says to me go with the TMPGenc Plus for encoding in batches and Mpeg audio, the other side of me says go AC3. Which as I understand it means save as wave or mpeg (?) and let the dvd author program encode which means overnight batch encoding ala TMPGenc Plus is out.

Is either more robust when editing? What i mean is I've had occasional audio sync issues when cutting with mpeg audio. What I mean by that is parts 1 and two may be in sync part three out of sync and part 4 in sync again. the four example parts are edits from one file with bits cut out causing the 4 parts.

Thanks
Roger T