View Single Post
Old 9th August 2011, 05:41   #1  |  Link
Fala7er
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 4
AC3filter, FFDshow and FLAC questions

Hi!, I recently start playing HD content on my pc, after installing some decoders and learning about the codecs like TrueHD, AC3, DTS-HD MA, DTS (Core), I started to get some doubts, but before start this are the software that i use and my pc specs:

AC3Filter v1.63b (2009-08-11)
FFDShow (2011-07-18)

I have the Audigy SE with the mod drivers from daniel_k and a simple logitech x540 (5.1) speakers.

1) My first doubt is if there's a real difference between FFDShow and AC3filter decoding formats like AC3 and DTS, on my searches i found a lot of threads about this two decoders but from 2006-2009 and today maybe the things have changed.

Is there any difference on how both decode ac3 and dts audio? I mean should i be able to notice a difference?, 2 years has pased since the last update for ac3filter and if is has a bug about the +3db by default when it plays a dts audio perhaps have a few others 'problems' with other formats.

I have played the same videos with dts core and ac3 core on ac3filter (with the settings of normalize, normalize matrix, etc.. disabled and Gain set to 0 and -3db on dts) and then on ffdshow with livabcodec for dts and liba52 for ac3 and haven't noticed an audible difference. Since FFDShow decodes the same codecs, should i stop using and uninstall ac3filter?


2) My second doubt is about FFDShow and HD audio. Since i can't decode DTS-HD MA without using a specific commercial player, I have used eac3to with the ArcSoft's DTS Decoder to encode the HD audio to FLAC and also a TrueHD music video to FLAC to play on foobar2000.

The encode works great with dts-hd and truehd, but i wanted to know if FFDShow will decode this FLAC file perfectly because i found that a few people use another decoder called madFLAC and again, threads from 2009 and older but i can't find any comparison about that decoder and the ffdshow built-in decoder for flac files with HD audio, what is the difference? or is still any difference on decoding?

The main issue discussed is always the "ffdshow built-in FLAC decoder is limited to 16int.." on this thread http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=156966&page=3 people discuss this 'issue', but to make it simple, should i use madflac to not loose quality or is ok to use ffdshow to decode any type of HD flac file?.

Sorry for my bad english and the spelling errors hehe (1:35 am right now) and thanks for reading!.
Fala7er is offline   Reply With Quote