After much contemplation/comparison in regards to which bit rate mode would yield the best results, I've been thinking about another factor that may lead to more space available for video. I can only assume that a six channel Dolby Digital or DTS audio stream is fairly large, but I'm just not sure exactly how much space audio streams take up on a DVD-9 disc. Personally, I don't have a 5.1 or 6 channel speaker set, and since I'm basically downmixing to support two channel output, I'm thinking that selecting a two channel audio stream (non-director's comment ofcourse) would alot a little more space for video quality. Do you think the downgrade to two channel output would be worth it? Thanks.

With that said, I've tried to just use the AC3 2ch stream in A.I. I haven't tried burning this and testing on a stand alone player, but I don't have any audio playback when viewing the output .vob's in the latest version of PowerDVD XP. "Not available" is seen when checking "Show Information" during playback. Why is this?

When playing vob files directly with PowerDVD, it plays the
default audio stream (uasually 0x80).

Make a ISO and mount it to give it a test.




mike

Do not play the vob files directly, but play the ifo file video_ts.ifo (dvd from hd mode) and you will see that it works.

Erwin

wapazoid don't do it! .. . .. . . .Well you can if you want but..

If you take out the 5.1 now you can't put it back when you eventually do get your surround sound system and you'll be really sorry.

I'm sure that I'm not speaking for myself when I say that the addition of a HTK (home theatre kit) to a DVD player is the best thing you can do to to add to the 'movie experience'.

You are right. 5.1 (and particularly DTS) do take up more space than 2 channels but I personally would rather sacrifice some of the visual quality to save the audio.

Just my two penneth

JMP

That did it, thanks.

LOL, I can appreciate your passion for audio, jmp1963. I agree that actually having a quality 5.1 rig in your home (properly spaced), can really add to a movie's entertainment value. Currently, I'm quite content with my six year old setup: A Sony GX800ES amp along with 2 DCM KX12 loudspeakers. It cost me a fortune at the time, but the sound quality is still top notch. As it stands, I rarely get the opportunity to really enjoy a sci-fi movie with the stereo cranked (apartment living conditions...damn). To be honest, I'd rather sacrifice the 5.1 stream if it would allow for more bit allocation for video quality. I'd probably think otherwise when recordable DVD media capacity exceeds 4.7GB. Oh, one more thing that would be a great feature for the next DVD2One release: An audio stream preview. It would really come in handy when trying to avoid the director's comments 2 ch stream!

I've found the director's blah-blah is always listed second--but then, I always go for just the AC3-6 chan. You might too, since someday you may wish you had, and it'll play fine on your 2-chan set-up in meantime.
I saw a nice Kenwood 5.1 rec. on sale thru fatwallet recently for 85.!
If you encode an AC3-6 chan version of the same film you can side-by-side compare sizing--then you'll note it is generally small.
Greater savings would be had by cutting most/all of the credits at end--often 200-300 mb. I wish there was an easy way to do that in D2O...

Well, I just tested Spider-Man (movie-only, one audio channel, no subs, constant bitrate):

With AC3 6ch: 4.30GB (4,626,225,152 bytes)
With AC3 2ch: 4.08GB (4,389,842,944 bytes)

LOL, took a little extra time to get the correct 2ch. There's three of them, and it happened to be the last one. Somehow I doubt this is enough savings to have a dramatic improvement in picture quality. Maybe just a tad in longer movies. Maybe I will just stick with the 6ch stream. You guys are right...I'll be kicking myself later for it. Perhaps I'll invest in a quality 6ch speaker set in the near future. Oohhh...wireless...yeeeeahhhh...