Is there a way to get surround sound with vcd / svcd.....

If so, could you please tell me how to do it?

thanks!

Yes. Encode your audio with headac3he.
Here's a link to get you going:
http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic....ight=headac3he

Also search this forum with the keyword headac3he and you'll find many threads.

-kwag

Thanks a lot, but....

If I encode the video with TMPGEnc, do I encode the video first and by itself? Then I do the audio....then what..? And wont surround sound audio be bigger than the other audio formats in TMPGEnc, so will the file size be very unpredictable?

Thanks

You encode the video separately from the audio. The audio file size is predictable, because it's encoded CBR. When you open a AC3 file with headac3he, it calculates and tells you immediately the mp2 audio size that it will make. Your final step is to multiplex the audio/video streams with BBmpeg.

-kwag

So if I knw my audio size, how will I know how big my video file without the audio will be. TMPGEnc gives my an approimate size but it will always be different (most of the time smaller than estimate). Is there a way to find out how big the video file will be just like the audio file? I have always had this problem of not getting the file size just right form the start. It would be nice to have the final file between 700-800 megs each time, without having to worry about it being too small or too big.

Thanks

kwag,

From what I have gathered from reading other posts is....

Get .vob's on my HD, then frameserve in DVD2AVI, then encode video, then encode audio, then multiplex, then burn. Is this correct??

What audio options do I set in DVD2AVI to preserve the surround sound?

Could I multiplex by doing simple multiplex under TMPGEnc?

Thanks

When you run DVD2AVI, you select "demux" in the audio tab. Don't select "decode". This will demux the AC3 file to your hard disk. Then you open this file with headac3he and encode it.
Here's a link for headac3he usage:
http://www.doom9.org/audio-guides.htm

Look for this:
"AC3 to MP2 guide - last updated 05/26/02
How to create an MP2 from an AC3/MP2/MP3/WAV using HeadAC3he"

In the link above.

-kwag

Ok, i get it now - sort of......

In dvd2avi, what should i set the channel format to?

And is there a way to find the exact or close to exact file size of a mpeg file that I will be encoding using TMPGEnc with your templates. TMPGEnc tries to estimate this, but the file size for me is almost always off of the projected size. Is there a way I could find the file size of a file before I encode so I can make changes to it?

Could i multiplex in tmpgenc by using SImple Multiplex?

And in that guide, it never specified what channel mode i should use with headac3he, which one should i use?

kwag would the quailty of an ac3/mp3 conversion be better than an ac3/mp2?