Reducing ac3 size

I have a 369mb ac3 is there any way to re-encode it inoto a 250mb ac3?

AFAIK AC3 is pretty well compressed already, a 6ch (5.1) stream being only 384 kbps, which is only the same as 3 stereo mp3 streams, ie 6 channels. Fair do's you do get some 448 kbps streams, but you see the point. I reckon you'll either have to put up with it or go to two channels MP3 or similar. Alex

@matter how low in bitrate can you go for a 2ch sourround encoded ac3 file? and, do you know of guide or downloadable manual that explains the options in softencode?

I agree with Dg on this one. Transcoding your 2ch(DPL) to anything other than Vorbis or MP3 may not be a good idea. My comment above about transcoding the AC3 to a lower bitrate(256kbps) AC3 only applies for 5.1 streams.

thanks :) souuu much

you can easily reencode a 5.1AC3 to a lower-bitrate 5.1AC3 with The AC3Machine together with BeSweet v1.4b1. get if from my webpage :o.

Yeah, cool, 1h30 AC3 384k to 224k with Celeron II 1.2G @ 1.448 Ghz 512Mb SoftEncode : total nearly 1 hour AC3Macine : nearly 15 min --> up to 4 times faster. Quality ? I have only 2 PC multimedia speakers :(

wow, that's quite the speed increase. with this tool and the xcd project, we could be looking at easy to make, high quality 800 mb 1-cd movies with 256 kbps dolby digital audio :) although i think that someone does need to test the quality of this encoder at 256 kbps (and other bitrates) much like the test that was done a while back with softencode (i think) to establish that 256 was an acceptable bitrate for AC3. i can't do this myself for two more weeks until i get my receiver and whatnot here... i'm moving and my stuff's currently spread over four states :(

DVDMaestro bitrate too high! How do I lower ac3 bitrate? 

Help, I am backing up Rules of Engagement. I have demux the ac3 track and it comes out unusable in DVDMaestro because the of variable bitrates. So, I demuxed the ac3 track using SmartRipper and the track has too high of a bitrate to fit with my video. 1) Is there a way to lower the bitrate on this 6 channel ac3 track? 2) Is there a way to demux the track at a CBR instead of the VBR? Help, KeithXP :confused: