Which audio for DVD project in PAL?

[Johan Forssblad]

Hi, I'm a bit confused about which audio to have on a DVD project in the PAL countries here. Is it enough to have one track with Dolby Digital encoded in the Compressor?

I think, according to the DVD standard, that at least one channel should have PCM audio for PAL DVD. This means 48 kHz, 16 bits .AIFF, right? AIFF files are about 8 times bigger than the Dolby AC3 files.

Can't modern DVD players play Dolby sound even in Europe? Or will old players not cope with Dolby?

But I cannot play or simulate the files in DVD Studio Pro if it is Dolby only. The sound (through the Apple Pro digital optical output) to my AJA Io box will give a terrible switching sound in the loudspeakers. Guess I need a Dolby decoder in between those boxes to listen to the Dolby files. But the sound plays well after a burn to a DVD, using the DVD-player. Do you know a good setup to be able to listen to the Dolby files in DVD?

The sound is stereo. Should I use the Dolby 2.0 or Dolby Auto in Compressor?

Please feel free to give any advice. Thank You!

[Matt Davis]

Originally Posted by Johan Forssblad

I think, according to the DVD standard, that at least one channel should have PCM audio for PAL DVD ... Can't modern DVD players play Dolby sound even in Europe? Do you know a good setup to be able to listen to the Dolby files in DVD?

First off, for the last - crumbs, 3 years - I've been using the Dolby AC3 for audio, and I'm in PAL-land. It's very necessary so you don't blow your bandwidth budget. I haven't ever run into 'must have AIFF' situations. Just use the Dolby settings.

Secondly, I understand that it's really difficult for US folks to get a player that will do PAL, though most PAL players will do NTSC. Sorry - that's the global market for you. One can purchase multi-standard region free DVD players for GPB10 in the UK... (Asda - £9.99)

If you want to test your audio without blowing budgets, best get a nice cheap playback system. Your edit setup is for testing the best quality. A cheap playback system will give you an almost worst case scenario (a cheap PC laptop will give you the second worst scenario, and a cheap 7" portable DVD player the worst, and you should have all of them (: ).

Now, as a fellow Mac user, you're having problems playing back the true 5.1 experience, even though Compressor will do an automatic two channel version for you? If you want to author a 5.1 soundtrack on a Mac, you'll need to go beyond SoundTrack Pro. In order to listen to one, again I think you'll need a high end audio package, or invest in Windows XP, BootCamp and a $99 set of speakers as a PC will do this with Windows Media Player 9 and up. Or burn a DVD, transfer to your cheap DVD system and play from there, which I believe is a better route.

So IMHO,
- Don't bother with PCM, stick to AC3
- Test on cheap consumer products, inc laptops, set-tops, CRT and LCD monitors, with internal sound and the cheapest 5.1 money can buy (within reason and sensibleness).
- Author with high end kit where necessary. Don't replay your compressed files on it, just author on it.