A52 Codec 1.5 review

A52 Codec is a AudioUnit component to decode A52/AC-3 audio.

License: Freeware OS: Mac OS X File size: 253K Developer: Shepmaster Productions Price: $0.00 Updated: 04 Jul 2005

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A52 Codec is a AudioUnit component to decode A52/AC-3 audio.

It is a CoreAudio component that can decode stereo and 5.1 surround sound from A52 and AC-3 audio.
This type of audio is often found in DVD movies.

A52 codec is a simple wrapper around the open-source library liba52. The wrapper merely adapts the library to Apples CoreAudio framework. It also handles getting some information from the A52 stream and setting it, so other units farther down the line can be well informed.

Technical Information About A52 Codec
We have successfully been able to play 2-channel AC-3 files with Apple-provided software. Apple's AC-3 AudioFile component has a bug which makes it unable to detect LFE channels, so applications will need to provide their own stream loading services for full decoding. The media-encoding application 3ivx Crush utilizes this component fully to successfully decode full 5.1 channel data.
The filter is constrained to decoding either stereo or full 5.1 sound. Applications like 3ivx Crush will then encode this using QuickTime 7 for full fidelity sound.

Requirements:
Mac OS X 10.4
QuickTime 7.0.1.