Buffering considerations

A Dolby AC-4 decoder must buffer at least six frame units until it starts decoding (according to the buffer signaling model, indicated by wait_frames in the table of contents).

To allow for possible jitter, we recommend a buffer size of seven frame units. Therefore, the minimum buffer size between a demultiplexer and a decoder can be calculated using this equation:

N = 7 × R_stream ÷ F_frame

In this equation, R_stream and F_frame are the total bit rate and the frame rate of a Dolby AC-4 stream, respectively.

For example, the data rate is 1,536 kbps and the frame rate is 23.976 fps, which makes the minimum buffer size 56.056 KB.