WAV[6chnnls] - AC3 5.1[correctly]

chronicking

New member
hello. i'm trying to convert some of my movies to Divx with the best possible audio possible. instead of making mp3's for my avi files, i'd like to make ac3 audio for them. some of them are in 5.1 surround sound. some might ask " why don't u just use the ac3 files that came on the original movie?". well the original ac3 files are very big and i'd like to maintain the 5.1 surround sound with smaller ac3 files. [like 256kbps maybe].
i've been using Headac3he to convert the original ac3 file to a WAV file. this seems to work but, i'm not sure i created the wav file from the original ac3 file correctly. in the option section on Headac3he, i chose 6 channels. this made a much bigger wav file then just selecting surround 2 [which i guess i'd use for converting over to mp3 or ac3 2/0]. i've read that selecting surround 2 stores the surround sounds [frequencies] to the left and right channels for later use. i'm not real sure on that.
i've also used besweet and its gui to create ac3 files [2/0 and 5.1] but they sound very low compared to the original. ffmpegui does the same thing [low volume] and only has an option for 2/0 ac3. are the ac3 encoders in ffmegui and besweet any good? should i use them to make ac3 files?
i read in a besweet faq that the ac3enc.dll included in the package is no good and should b used for testing only. is this true?
i also loaded the wav file that was created from the film's original ac3 file into virtual dub, then chose full processing mode, and chose the ac3 acm codec inthe list. it seemed to work and the volume was pretty much close to the original. but i wonder in the back of me mind if it actually re encoded the wav to a proper 5.1 surround sound ac3 file.
am i using the correct software for what i need to do?
am i heading in the correct direction for creating correct 5.1 ac3 files?
is it possible to make a wav file [one not 6 mono wav files] with 6 channels of sound stored in it, so it can later be recompressed correctly to 5.1 ac3 files?

thanx for taking the time to read this thread and i'd appreciate any helpful advice..........thanx!:confused:
 
Top