Currently CDs and MP3 are dominating the audio market, but there are new technologies coming up, such as the Super Audio CD, DVD Audio and Ogg Vorbis. Also AC3 is a new technology that should enhance your audio experience. Till now it worked only on special devices and equipment, but a website has posted information on how to use this technology on a CD-R:
Dolby Digital is a data compression standard that takes the 6 channel of 5.1 surround audio, and produces a single data file in AC-3 format with about a 12:1 savings in file size and bandwidth. This AC-3 file is what's encoded on a DVD disc and will eventually be decoded by a Dolby Digital equipped receiver. Up to a few months ago you needed to buy a dedicated encoder (such as the Dolby DP569) to make this file. But now Sonic Foundry (and a few others) are selling software versions of the Dolby Digital encoder, and the price has been dropped to less than a thousand dollars. Still, now that you've got your 5.1 mix encoded as an AC-3 file, what do you do with it? |
Up to this point, there were only two ways to hear your AC-3 file back on a consumer system; #1) have your project mastered into a DVD disc at great expense and then find out after the deeds been done as to whether you like the mix. Or #2) Output the AC-3 data stream through an AES/EBU port and record it on a DAT deck. You could then play the DAT back into the digital port on a Dolby Digital equipped receiver. Right now, a DVD mastering station is about as expensive as CD-R recorders were 5 years ago. That is, they cost ten's of thousands of dollars for the hardware and software. What this does is put the actual production of DVD masters into the expensive stratosphere of audio projects. You're not likely to get your experimental 5.1 mix on a DVD disc anytime in the near future. And not many home systems have DAT decks to playback the AC-3 data stream. So what's a mother to do?
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Source: SonicEngineering
