Is Aften AC3 superior to ffmpeg AC3?

[stonesfan187]

I did some encode jobs with Staxrip and am noticing something weird going on with audio encoded using ffmpeg. The source audio is DTS-HD MA 5.1. I am encoding to AC3 5.1 640. I am noticing crackling audio on some of the encodes. I do not get the same results when I switch the encoder program to Aften for the AC3 encoding. Is there any reason why Aften would produce a better encode than ffmpeg? I thought both adhere to the standard and are considered excellent quality compared to the commercial, paid, Dolby encoders.

[Selur]

afaik aften was once based on ffmpeg and offered better quality, but ffmpeg was updated more and more and overtook aften (which is nowdays not further developed).
I would suspect what you are encountering is a bug in StaxRip and you should post your problem in the StaxRip thread (https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/369913-StaxRip) or in the issue tracker over at https://github.com/staxrip/staxrip.

Cu Selur

[stonesfan187]

Well I know I have tried encoding with both BD Rebuilder (which I thought used Aften for AC3 encoding) and VidCoder which I thought used ffmpeg and I do not really hear any differences there using the same source and encoding parameters for the audio tracks.

[Selur]

I use Hybrid regularly which allows to use both which is why you reporting that you got 'crackling audio' with aften and not with ffmpeg seems like it's a bug in StaxRip.

Cu Selur