Confirmation for AC3 passthru

General Support / Questions Profiles
1

Encoding a bunch of recordings to 265 but wanted to preserve the existing AC3 track. It looks like the following lines got it to work, but I just wanted to make sure.

ffmpeg-audioac3=-acodec copy
handbrake-audio=-E copy -a 1,2,3,4,5

Also, why does the existing MKV HQ profile re-encode AC3 to AC3? As I first tried copying the lines from that profile, but it was just re-encoding what was already there.

And I know most of the profiles convert to the more efficient AAC, but looking online and it appears that most people say it’s better to keep an existing AC3 track in tact, even if it will take up a bit more space, as it should be more compatible. As stereo equipment might not be able to read the AAC 5.1+ track.

2

Here is what I use:

ffmpeg-audioac3=-c:a copy -map 0:a
handbrake-audioac3=-E copy -R auto

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3

You’re missing the AC3 at the end. Your profile is saying that it applies only to non AC3 audio for handbrake conversions.

4

It seemed to work fine for me, as log doesn’t show it’s encoding the audio anymore.

2022-02-27T20:44:57 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → [20:44:57] Starting Task: Encoding Pass
2022-02-27T20:44:57 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → [20:44:57] Skipping vfr filter
2022-02-27T20:44:57 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → [20:44:57] Auto Passthru: allowed codecs are AAC, AC3, E-AC3, TrueHD, DTS, DTS-HD, MP3, FLAC
2022-02-27T20:44:57 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → [20:44:57] Auto Passthru: fallback is AAC (avcodec)
2022-02-27T20:44:57 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → [20:44:57] Auto Passthru: using AC3 Passthru for track 1

2022-02-27T20:44:57 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → [20:44:57] * audio track 1
2022-02-27T20:44:57 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → [20:44:57] + decoder: English (AC3) (5.1 ch) (384 kbps) (track 1, id 0x101)
2022-02-27T20:44:57 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → [20:44:57] + bitrate: 384 kbps, samplerate: 48000 Hz
2022-02-27T20:44:57 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → [20:44:57] + AC3 Passthru

1 Like