Whats the difference between Dolby Digital (AC-3) and DTS encoding?
Both methods are what’s known as lossy data compression schemes where some information that is masked by more prominent data is thrown away. This is done in order to fit a lot of data through a small data pipe. Dolby Digital (formerly called AC-3) takes 6 channels of 48kHz/24 bit information and compresses it at about an 11 to 1 ratio to an a maximum bit rate of 640kbps, although 384 is the average data rate used. The payload data rates for DTS are 1.2 Mbps for music discs and 1.5Mbps or 754kbps for DVD. The compression ratio varies according to the input word length; 3:1 is about right for 20 bits, 48 kHz, at 1.5Mbps.
