Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

General questions or discussion about HandBrake, Video and/or audio transcoding, trends etc.
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jlw4049
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Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by jlw4049 »

Just curious what the best options for encoding a DTS-HD 2.0 to? It's an older animation and I don't feel like keeping such a large audio file.

I am getting mixed answers reading all over the web. Some say Handbrakes AAC isn't that great, others say it's a lot better then AC3, and I just want to try to clear it up.
mduell
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by mduell »

On the latest release the AAC encoder is less bad, so I'd use that if you don't compile yourself to get fdk-aac which is actually good.
jlw4049
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by jlw4049 »

Sorry for the late response, a bunch of stuff going on. How much better is FDK-AAC over AAC? Does it have any compatibility issues with anything? Is it worth compiling?
mduell
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by mduell »

Depends on bitrate, more notable at lower bitrates.

FDK-AAC is just a particular AAC encoder. No compatibility issues.
jlw4049
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by jlw4049 »

I'm going to *attempt* to compile handbrake on my windows server via ubuntu terminal. I don't really know anything about it, but I'm gonna try.
mduell
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by mduell »

It's not very hard to follow the directions.
jlw4049
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by jlw4049 »

Yeah i'm currently building the libraries. Taking FOREVER.
jlw4049
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by jlw4049 »

Having trouble with this here:


add to your shell startup script (usually .bashrc or .bash_profile):
export PATH="/home/user/toolchains/mingw-w64-5.0-0-gcc-5.4.0/mingw-w64-x86_64/bin:{PATH}"


7. Use your mouse to copy the export PATH= ...etc... (whole line), and paste it into the Terminal. You might have to use the right-mouse context menu to copy/paste. This adds the MinGW compiler into the command search path.
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BradleyS
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by BradleyS »

There is a file in your linux home directory, likely called .bashrc, that sets up certain things when you open a Terminal (it's more complicated than that, but this should suffice for now). So you want to edit the file at ~/.bashrc and add that line at the end. Without it, nothing will find the mingw-w64 toolchain you built to build HandBrake for Windows. Make sure you use whatever mingw-w64-build told you and not what's in the documentation.

Hint: you can do this without even opening a text editor.

echo "whatever" >> ~/.bashrc
jlw4049
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by jlw4049 »

I'm not very advanced with it. I did successfully build it and get the .dll
I did this through VMWare on the latest build of Ubuntu.
I know have the FDK-AAC option in handbrake. When I encode something is media info supposed to say something like FDK-AAC for the audio or does it still just say AAC-LC?

When you encode,is FDK-AAC HE better or just plain FDK-AAC? How am I sure it's working?
mduell
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by mduell »

FDK-AAC only does AAC-HE at very low bitrates. So AAC is better quality wise, but if you're at low bitrates you'll get AAC-HE.
Deleted User 11865

Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by Deleted User 11865 »

mduell wrote: Thu Jan 17, 2019 9:55 pmFDK-AAC only does AAC-HE at very low bitrates.
s/FDK-AAC/all AAC encoders. HE-AAC is mostly useful at bitrates where AAC-LC reaches the limit of its efficiency.

tl;dr if you want good audio quality, use AAC and give it enough bandwidth to perform (128+ Kbps for Stereo, 192-256+ Kbps for 5.1, or quality-based VBR if available). If targeting very low bitrates while desiring acceptable audio quality, use HE-AAC (~64-80 Kbps for Stereo, ~160-192 Kbps for 5.1).
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BradleyS
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by BradleyS »

You can be sure it's working because you've selected FDK-AAC in the UI and the Activity Log says the audio encoder is FDK-AAC.
jlw4049
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Re: Handbrake AAC vs AC3 (2.0 ONLY)

Post by jlw4049 »

Thanks for the responses everyone!
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