AC3 audio encoding with Compressor...??

Does anyone know of a good link for an in depth explanation of the Dolby 2.0 AC3 encoder for Compressor?

I'm working on a DVD that has three tracks of audio and I'm getting a vide bitrate too high error on the build when I use AIFF 48:16 audio.

It works when I test it with the default AC3 settings, but the audio then sounds too low sometimes (i burned a comparision DVD with the aiff on audio track 1 an the ac3 on track 2 to see the difference).

So basiclly I'm looking for a good link or any tips on explaning the diferent options of the Dolby encoder and what they mean to figure out the best settings to use for my project.

It's a standard miniDV project originating in FCP. Two audio tracks of the dvd with be composite mixes (on normal, and tv censored) and th other will be a commentary track.

I noticed a commentary option under the Bitstream mode drop down menu in Compressor- not sure on how this performs and if it's a good idea.

Also I'm not sure of what to use for Dialogue Normalization -27db seems pretty low. Does this have any relation to if you used -12db tone to calibrate the mix?

In the Bitstream tab, what should i set for Dobly surround mode? We never did a surround mix so should i put not encoded or not indicated?

Also in pre-processing tab, should i change the Compression drop down to NONE? I think I read that somewhere before.

Any help or steering in the right direction would be great! Thanks.

Ken Stone has some stuff on this

Ken Stone

Koz

I had a minute to read the latest stuff. I've read all the A-Pack stuff many times.

You can't listen to the work as you do it?

I hope you're joking. In the article, all the levels and positions of the various sounds and instruments all worked out perfectly with one burn of a DVD.

Write that down. That may be the first and last time that happens. "The fiddles are too loud, the cars are going the wrong way in the back two speakers, and I can't hear the actor's voice over the engine noise. With that sentence, I'm inaugerating many hours of cut and try, burn and listen, curse and cry. About half-way through, I'm going to start getting punchy and miss steps and need to start over.

Of course, nobody is going to pay for all that because "It's only audio."

Koz