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|HeadAC3he's documentation by Dark Avenger |
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|website: http://darkav.de.vu              |
|  email: darkav@gmx.net                   |
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Special thx go out to MaTTeR for spending so much time for beta-testing!

I also would like to thank my other beta testers, as they helped me a lot
to stabilize HeadAC3he and make it much more bugfree.


=-Introduction-=

Have fun with my new tool! Please see KnownIssues.txt.

I named it HeadAC3he (speak "headache"), because the first (non-public)
versions just had the AC3-WAV target, so my proggie basically added a 
WAV HEADer to the AC3, but it nevertheless gave me a headache....


If you have suggestions, found bugs, email me, but keep to the rules in
EMail.txt. Don't forget: If you find bugs and don't report them, I'll not
be able to fix them!

This software is free for private (non-commercial) use. Read Legal.txt
for detail.

Don't forget to read the terms and conditions of the optinal components (DLLs).

What may and what may not come in future, can be seen in Future.txt.



=-Installation-=


Just unpack this archive to a directory of your choice. HeadAC3he doesn't
use registry settings.

Make sure you copy the DLLs into HeadAC3he's dir (or in w9x/w2k's path).


***Don't forget to read the docs (esp. KnownIssues.txt)!***



=-Usage-=


In 2 channel downmix mode you should use the DS2 ("Surround 2") matrix I found, as it
a) takes advantage of DPL2/Logic7 and thus gives you rear channel separation
b) is compatible to normal DPL
c) has better separation (of rears on front speakers..) in stereo mode.

The only drawback is higher processing time, as I have to manually do the downmix.


Delay: usually it is automatically detected by the filename and set to the value

Size: Destination filesize (in VBR guessed) and total space needed

Select your source AC3 file and then select your target:

AC3: To basically cut your AC3 and fix it (in future).

AC3-WAV: Adds a WAV header and padds the AC3 with 0 bytes so you can make
         a DD CDDA out of it and listen to 5.1 with your amp. Make sure you
         connected you CD-player digitally to your amp, otherwise you will
         get noise which may be harmful to your speakers. Unfortunately
         the amp will play even 48kHz source AC3s as 44.1kHz, so it will
         sound slower. But it is still not so bad with some DD or THX intros.

WAV: Decodes to PCM WAV. Use the Azid configuration screen to set
     up the decoder and select the appropriate 2-pass mode.

MP3: Decodes to WAV and encodes on-the-fly to MP3 using the LAME engine.

Vorbis: Decodes to WAV and encodes on-the-fly to OGG using the Vorbis Audio engine.


2-Pass Mode: Only used for "WAV" and "MP3" target: 

Unchecked only one decoding pass is done using the global gain value to
amplify your WAV. Within 2-pass modes, the global gain parameter is
ignored and the WAV is normalized to 100% (unless you changed it).

dumb: *not recommended for <=2ch output*
      Same like DVD2AVI's 2-pass mode, ie. on first decoding cycle it searches
      the WAV's peak and on the second run it normalizes the output using the
      found peak.

hybrid: *recommended* for WAV target
        On the first run WAV output is written with current max gain and
        values are stored in mem. On the second run the WAV is corrected by
        amplifying the WAV with
        (min of max gain)/(current max gain).
        Though dumb/float mode are theoretically a little bit more precise, hybrid
        mode is a lot faster and you won't hear a difference, unless you can
        hear 1/2 bit difference on the average...

float: *recommended* for MP2/MP3/OGG target
       On first pass output is written as 32bit floats and peak is searched
       On second pass desired output is calc'ed from float data. "float" mode
       will result in the exact output like dumb mode, except float mode should
       be way faster. Nevertheless, "hybrid" is always faster than "float" mode.
       Keep in mind that "float" mode needs as much (temporary) free space as if
       you would have a 32bit target decode.

When doing a 6ch decode, you probably need NTFS or try to use dumb mode, if you encode 
to Vorbis. Otherwise you will easily come to the 4GB barrier of FAT32 and then it will
error out. 

Or in a few words:

speed (usually): hybrid > float > dumb
quality : dumb = float >= hybrid
additional temp disk usage: 0 = dumb = hybrid < float = 32bitPCMdecode-targetfilesize

The total space needed is now shown beside the destination file size. (Keep in mind that
the destfile size is a good(?) guess only in VBR modes.)


BEWARE: If you have a very fast CPU and very slow HD (->notebook) "dumb" mode
        could be the fasted mode on your machine. So what do you learn? Instead
        of spending loads of money to get the ultra fast high-end CPU, make sure
        your hd-subsytem is fast: RAID-0 is a nice thing, fast and cost-effective.
        So instead of buying one big HD, get two smaller ones and make a RAID-0.
        A RAID-0 controller (more software than hardware...) will only cost you
        about €50 or is even onboard on a lot of (non-el-cheapo) motherboards.


Normalize to: Set the % to which the WAV should be normalized on 2-pass runs.


Start/End Frame: If you only want to process a selected piece of the source,
                 choose beginning and ending frame and activate it.

resample: If you like to stay in the past, you can use SSRC resampling.

boost: Uses Ligh's boost funtion, which is a compressor, so it is an addition/
       alternative to DRC. It auto-selects the apropriate limit.

BEWARE: Using too high boost values will lead to sound distortion!

About: Well, just credits. 
       For the info: The picture shows the Hindu Goddess Saraswati,
       the Goddess of Art, Culture, Language and Education.


This should be enough explainations for the start. If you need information about
azid options, get the azid package (eg. doom9.org) and read the docs. Same applies
to LAME. Get the Ligh's WaveBooster package to learn more about the boost function.