LEAD AC3 Encoder User Interface

The LEAD AC3 Audio Encoder Filter is a DirectShow Ň filter for compressing  audio data using the AC3 compression standard (A/52 - Digital Audio Compression Standard (AC-3)). AC3 is the sound format for digital television (DTV), digital versatile discs (DVDs), high definition television (HDTV), and digital cable and satellite transmissions. AC3 is a 5.1 format, which means that it provides five full-bandwidth channels, front left, front right, center, surround left, and surround right. A low-frequency effect (LFE) channel is included for the sound needed for special effects and action sequences in movies. AC3 also has a down-mixing feature that ensures compatibility with devices that do not support the 5.1 format.

Key features of the LEAD AC3 Audio Encoder:

You can use the encoder with your existing converter or DVD creator application, if it allows you to select the audio encoder. The AC3 encoder supports unchanged audio input, Force Mono, Force Stereo or Force 6 Channels. This audio encoder is needed in order to create DVDs that have 5.1-channel surround sound.

Options for the LEAD AC3 Audio Encoder can be set manually through the encoder property page, which is shown in the following figure:

Changes will be applied only when the filter's state is stopped with the ability to set them permanently by clicking Apply or OK, or to abandon changes by clicking Cancel. Positioning the mouse pointer over a control displays general information for that control.

The following table shows the controls and their descriptions:

Control

Description

Input channels – static text

Shows the number of input channels.

Output channels – static text

Shows the number of output channels.

Output Bit Rate - list box

Specifies the output bitrate of the compressed audio data. Bitrate denotes the average number of bits that one second of audio data will take up in your compressed bitstream. The unit is in kbps. To calculate the number of bytes per second of audio data, divide the bitrate value by eight. Bitrate represents the strength of compression. Also the bitrate has influence on quality. The higher the bitrate, the higher the quality.

The valid bitrate values are: {32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, 320 , 384, 448, 512, 576, 640}.

Output channels - list box

Specifies the number of the output channels of the compressed data. If this flag is set to “Unchanged”, the number of the output channels equals the number of input channels. Otherwise, the number of output channels will be forced to be as specified in this flag.

Simulate surround – check box

Enables\disables surround feature simulation. It will simulate surround sound on 5.1 system from a stereo or mono source.

This feature is enabled only if the output channels flag is “Forced 6 channels”.