Question about AC3 multichannel encoding and bitrate

[Nolonemo]

Say I'm encoding some audio using SoftEncode and I'm encoding to 2/0 (2 channels) at a bitrate of 128. I'm assuming that the 128 is the total bitrate for both channels. Is it?

Now let's say I'm encoding some audio and encoding to 3/2 (5 channels). Do I need to encode at 320 bps to get the same audio quality as above?

Thanks

[Nolonemo]

Someone must know the answer to this!

[BJ_M]

192 for 2ch
384 for 5:1

are the normal bit rates ...

128 is a bit low -- i would use that only for speech in 2ch ..

the bit rates stay the same if you use LFE enabled or not ..

[Nolonemo]

Thanks, BJ_M, the numbers I picked were just hypothetical, but glad to hear your recommendation. From your post, it sounds like the bitrate is the aggreggate for all channels.

Thanks again.