Audio Bitrate of 256 v. 384

[Hojobey]

I am creating a NTSC DVD complaint movie (from my home movies)
I am converting my video in CCE 2.66.
I am converting my audio in TMPGenc.
I am multiplexing with TMPGenc.
I am authoring and burning with moviefactory 2.

The only way that moviefactory 2 does not re-encode is if I set the audio in TMPGenc to MPEG 1, Layer 2, 48000, stereo, bitrate 256.

If I change it to 384 (the standard bitrate), it re-encodes. When I use TMPGenc to do it all, it does not re-encode even when using audio bitrate of 384.

My question: Is it bad (in terms of audio quality) to reduce the bitrate to 256 from 384. Is there a noticeable difference? Thanks.

[DivXExpert]

I can hear the differance, with my very good sound system. Most people cant. Try it out for yourself. If your sound system sucks, then it dosn't make a difference.

[Hojobey]

Thanks for your reply. Do you have any idea why moviefactory 2 would re-encode one and not the other? Thanks.

[pijetro]

Perhaps using a bitrate of 256 is throwing things off. It seems that most people use either 224 or 384.

[thxkid]

when I check the audio on Store bought Stamped DVD's the audio reads like this

2 channel - 192
4.0 channel - 224
4.1 or 5.1 - 384

These seems to be the standards within the DVD community