Dolby

[geordiex]

Excuse my ignorance but being a newbie to movies, codecs etc., I would like to know about the following:
I have a movie whose audio is AC3 which I believe is Dolby 5.1, and I wish to make a VCD of it.
Is it possible to put the AC3 sound on the VCD instead of uncompressing it and converting to a wave file?
Then playing it back on a TV which has a Dolby decoder.
Many thanks for any comments on this.
geordie

[Cornucopia]

1. No, it's not possible. You have to convert AC3-->WAV-->MP2, or if you can swing it, AC3---->MP2 directly. You can't even make a Non-standard VCD (XVCD) of it, as the MPEG1 muxers won't accept anything except Mpeg1layer1 or Mpeg1layer2 audio (MPEG2 muxers could though).
----edit----
They might also accept Mp3 audio
----end edit----

2. AC3 (aka Dolby Digital) can be 5.1, but instead may be 3ch, 2ch (Stereo / Dolby-matrixed-surround) or even Mono. Just because it's AC3 doesn't automatically mean it's 5.1.

HTH,
Scott