[FFmpeg-devel] Default dynamic range compression on AC3

[Wiebe Cazemier]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "madshi" <madshi at gmail.com>
> To: "FFmpeg development discussions and patches" <ffmpeg-devel at ffmpeg.org>
> Sent: Thursday, 26 March, 2015 8:49:28 AM
> Subject: Re: [FFmpeg-devel] Default dynamic range compression on AC3
> 
> Doesn't really matter. What does matter is a reasonable default choice. And
> it's currently wrong, IMHO. Screw the AC3 spec which wants it to be on by
> default. That's just stupid. Just my 2 cents, of course.

Is it even in the spec? If so, Dolby seriously shot themselves in the foot. No wonder DTS won the audio war on DVD.

I remember about 10 years ago that I found this setting in WinDVD. After switching to Linux and Xine, I discovered that AC3 can actually sound very good. Guess what: I found out that even with WinDVD set to full range, DRC was still applied!

This wrong default and the fact that a lot of people (developers, audio philes, etc) don't know about the DRC metadata has been following me for years. 

So who can decide this (or whom can I persuade :))? I can write a patch, shouldn't be too hard :). 

And then I have to also take it up with Libav? I'm confused about libavcodec in ffmpeg and libav.