Multimedia Glossary - What is AC3?
AC-3 (Audio Code number 3) refers to a multichannel music compression technology that has been developed by Dolby Laboratories. The goal of this digital compression technology is to produce a digital representation of an audio signal which, when decoded and reproduced, sounds the same as the original signal, while using a minimum of digital information (bit-rate) for the compressed (or encoded) representation, providing true surround sound.
Over the past years Dolby Laboratories has used the term Dolby Digital to refer to this digital system in the film and theatre industries, and has used the term Dolby Surround AC-3 to refer to the system in the home theatre market. In practice both the cinema and home theater applications are variations of the same basic technology (slightly different data rates). So to minimize the possibility of confusion by consumers the Company has decided that Dolby's consumer multichannel digital format will be known by the same name used in the film and theatre industries ie Dolby Digital
The AC-3 can carry from 1 to 5.1 channels. It provides five full range channels (3 Hz to 20,000 Hz) in what is sometimes referred to as a "3/2" configuration: three front channels (left, center, and right), plus two surround channels. A sixth bass-only effects channel (3 Hz to 120 Hz), also called sometimes "low frequencies enhancement channel" (LFE), is also provided, giving rise to the term "5.1" channels. As AC-3 is mainly designed for providing true surround sound, it also includes information about the room size and differences in dB between the channels levels.
AC-3 utilizations
Dolby AC-3 is used intensively in the cinema at 640 kbps data rate. The THX quality label is also in 95% of the cases based on some AC-3 installations. It is used on laserdiscs at 384 kbps bitrate, and now in DVD at similar bitrates. The 5 channels of the old Dolby Pro-Logic are extracted from the 2 stereo channels, so they only reproduce parts of the audio spectrum range. As AC-3 provides only full range channels, its sound is really much better in terms of quality and spatialisation. You can notice that an AC-3 bitstream can carry a Pro-Logic signal in its two front channels for compatibility with old systems.
One of the main advantages of AC-3 is its utilization: since several years, it has intensively been used, so it became a real world "standard".