What to make audio bitrate when converting?

[hiimbored]

Hi, I'm using TMPGEnc to convert an AVI to MPEG2. I had to use AVI Audio Decompressor to get the audio to work for the file. When I go to "Other" and go to the Audio tab, the audio bitrate is always set to 384. Is that where it should be or is it unnecessarily high? I know it's kind of a stupid question, but can somebody please tell me what bitrate I should use for my audio? Thanks!

[guns1inger]

It depends on the number of channels and the quality of the source.

2 channels, unless you have very high quality uncompressed source, rarely if ever requires more then 256 kbps. If your source is some compressed format, such as mp3 at 128 kbps or lower, you can probably get away with 192 and certainly 224 kbps.

If you are working with 5.1 then 384 kbps is the minimum you want to go to, and 448 is preferable.

I would also strongly consider encoding your audio separately using ffmpeggui to get ac3 output. Much more compatible than mp2.