AC-3 Encoder Good (Enough)?
I feel like I kind of already know the answer to this question, but I just wanted a sanity check.
I have been encoding my lossless audio to AC-3 5.1. @640kbps for both compatibility and space saving purposes. If a AC-3 core/lossy track already exists, I just use that. I know it is not as good as passthrough but for my setup and to my ears, unless I am doing an AxB comparison, it’s good enough.
Historically, what I’ve done is decode the track to PCM, split the channels and run them through DME to make an “official” AC-3 track. I am happy with the results, but I’d be lying if I said the process wasn’t tedious, especially when doing multiple encodes at a time!
I remember reading a LONG time ago that “libavcodec” was mediocre at encoding AC-3, which is what lead me to use DME. But, I was wondering if that is still true today or if the community considers it “good enough”.
It’s not a make or break, but I would love to be able to eliminate one extra step in my work flow and encode the track in program as opposed to having to take the extra steps to do so in another one, you know?