I am new to VCD and I am also just getting into surround sound audio. Is it possible to get surround sound onto VCD (just audio) using AC3 encoded audio files. Many people I know have multi-playing DVD players(VCD/CDR/CDR-W) with 5.1 decoding and I would like to send them surround mixes for their evaluation. I am currently using a powermac ( but could possibly get access to a PC rig). Could anyone give me a few pointers on how to acheive this or indicate what software is required to do this.

-- Mike Baker (MikeyB@soundmessiah.freeserve.co.uk), November 02, 2000

Answers

VCD2.0 only supports Dolby ProLogic Surround Sound, it doesn't support Dolby AC3 Digital 5.1. You might get it to work on SVCD or on miniDVD, but I haven't tried. Sonic Foundry makes software that encodes Dolby Digital 5.1, I doubt that you could save an AC3 stream as WAV and convert it to VCD and have it be read by a Dolby Digital reciever as true Dolby Digital, but there is a chance that it could work. I sent a friend a disc that I encoded like that (VCD with AC3 audio converted to WAV and then to VCD Audio), but he didn't say anything about it.

-- Mr.Ian Roswell (cyberlien51@juno.com), November 02, 2000.

Yes, you can get a VCD with Dolby 5.1, but it's not that easy, you'll need to hook up a dolby 5.1 reciver to the dvd player, even if the dvd player has has 5.1 decoding because DVD's come with AC3 encoding but VCD's are only stereo, the way to do it is to use it like VHS, VHS has stereo sound and trough a mixture of the two chanels the 5.1 reciver finds out in witch speaker it's supose to sound it's very dificult and you'll need realy expensive software.

One example of this meathod is the Star Wars trilogy on VCD witch comes with THX sound.

-- Joe (im_joe@mailplanet.net), February 02, 2001.

5.1 and vcrs do not mix. a 5.1 receiver can ONLY do 4 channels at the most, only 2 of which are matrixed. L R are discrete, rear is matrixed as well as center.... the ONLY Way to get 5.1 is from a 5.1 digital source...

-- nguyendot (nguyendot@cox.net), September 14, 2003.