01-10-2012, 09:12 PM
Many DVDs of older or TV-based productions are just 192 kbps AC3 2.0 (ie: stereo only AC3). Listening quality comparisons have generally set similar sound quality for 192 AC3, 160 MP3 and 128 AAC.
Converting to 160 AAC will result in minimal loss of quality though as always there is a slight reduction in quality as a result of recompressing the data. I try to recompress the video only and keep the audio in it's original AC3 for computer playback, though you need to convert to AAC for iThing playback.
For more recentl releases, there are encodes which use 256-384 AC3 stereo or 448 5.1 surround. 256-384 AC3 is higher quality and if you see that, use a similar bitrate for AAC to realize the incremental improvement in quality. 448 5.1 is about the same as 160 kbps stereo as it contains 5.1 channels, but if you are doing a stereo (or analog Dolby surround) mixdown, I use ~256 kbps.
Handbrake will tell you the bitrate of the original, use that as your guide.
Converting to 160 AAC will result in minimal loss of quality though as always there is a slight reduction in quality as a result of recompressing the data. I try to recompress the video only and keep the audio in it's original AC3 for computer playback, though you need to convert to AAC for iThing playback.
For more recentl releases, there are encodes which use 256-384 AC3 stereo or 448 5.1 surround. 256-384 AC3 is higher quality and if you see that, use a similar bitrate for AAC to realize the incremental improvement in quality. 448 5.1 is about the same as 160 kbps stereo as it contains 5.1 channels, but if you are doing a stereo (or analog Dolby surround) mixdown, I use ~256 kbps.
Handbrake will tell you the bitrate of the original, use that as your guide.