Semantics for the Enhanced AC-3 descriptor
The semantics of the parameters within the E-AC-3 descriptor for a Dolby Digital Plus bitstream are:
- The
descriptor_tag
parameter is set to is0xCC
. - The
descriptor_length
field specifies the total number of bytes of the data portion of the descriptor following the byte defining the value of this field. The minimum length of the descriptor is three bytes, but it may be longer depending on the use of the subsequent descriptor flags. - The
bsid_flag
value is set to1
when the optionalbsid
field is present in the descriptor. - The
mainid_flag
,asvc_flag
, andmixinfoexists
parameters are set to0
. - The
substream1_flag
parameter is set to1
when the Dolby Digital Plus stream contains an additional associated audio service in independent substream 1. If an independent substream with asubstreamid
value of1
is not present in the bitstream, thesubstream1_flag
is set to0
. - The
substream2_flag
parameter is set to1
when the Dolby Digital Plus stream contains an additional associated audio service in independent substream 2. If an independent substream with asubstreamid
value of2
is not present in the bitstream, thesubstream2_flag
flag is set to0
. - The
substream3_flag
parameter is set to1
when the Dolby Digital Plus stream contains an additional associated audio service in independent substream 3. If an independent substream with asubstreamid
value of3
is not present in the bitstream, this flag is set to0
. - The value of the
full_service_flag
parameter indicates whether the audio service in independent substream 0 (and any dependent substreams associated with independent substream 0) of the Dolby Digital Plus stream is full-service audio, suitable for presentation, or whether this audio service is only a partial service that should be combined with another audio service before presentation. The value is set according to these criteria:- If
full_service_flag
is set to1
, the audio service is sufficiently complete for presentation without being combined with another audio service (for example, a visually impaired service containing all elements of the program, including music, effects, dialogue, and a narrative description of the visual program content). - If
full_service_flag
is set to0
, the audio service is not sufficiently complete and must be combined with another audio service (for example, a visually impaired service containing only a narrative description of the visual program content, which must be combined with another audio service containing music, effects, and dialogue).
- If
- The
service_type
field indicates the type of audio service being conveyed in independent substream 0 (and any dependent substreams associated with independent substream 0) of the Dolby Digital Plus stream. Theservice_type
field is interpreted as listed in the table.Table 1. service_type field Field value Description Restrictions1 Full-service flag number_of_channels field 000
Complete Main (CM) Set to 1
001
Music and Effects (ME) Set to 0
010
Visually Impaired (VI) 011
Hearing Impaired (HI) 100
Dialogue (D) Set to 0
101
Commentary (C) 110
Emergency (E) Set to 1
Set to 000
111
Voiceover (VO) Set to 0
Set to 000
111
Karaoke Set to 1
Set to 010
,011
, or100
- The
number_of_channels
field (three bits) indicates the number of channels present in independent substream 0 (and any dependent substreams associated with independent substream 0) of the Dolby Digital Plus stream. This field is interpreted as listed in thenumber_of_channels
field table:- The
language_flag
value (one bit) indicates whether the language field (three bytes) is present in the descriptor. If this bit is set to1
, then the language field is present. If this bit is set to0
, then the language field is not present. - The
language_flag_2
value is set to0
. - The
bsid
field (five bits) indicates the Dolby Digital Plus coding version. If thebsid
field is included, the value of the field is set to the same value as thebsid
parameter in independent substream 0 of the Dolby Digital Plus stream.
Table 2. number_of_channels field Field value2 Description Restrictions3 Full-service flag Service type field 000
Mono 001
1+1 mode 010
Two-channel audio 011
Two-channel audio encoded in Dolby Surround 100
Multichannel audio (greater than two channels and up to 5.1 channels) 101
Multichannel audio (greater than 5.1 channels) Set to 1
Set to 000
110
Reserved for future use 111
Reserved for future use - The
- The
substream1
field (eight bits) indicates the type of audio carried in independent substream 1 of the Dolby Digital Plus stream. The value assignments of each bit are indicated in the Substream field bit value assignments table. If the Dolby Digital Plus bitstream contains an independent substream with asubstreamid
value of1
, the PMT includes thesubstream1
field. - The
substream2
field (eight bits) indicates the type of audio carried in independent substream 2 of the Dolby Digital Plus stream. The value assignments of each bit are indicated in the Substream field bit value assignments table. If the Dolby Digital Plus bitstream contains an independent substream with asubstreamid
value of2
, the PMT includes thesubstream2
field. - The
substream3
field (eight bits) indicates the type of audio carried in independent substream 3 of the Dolby Digital Plus stream. The value assignments of each bit are indicated in the Substream field bit value assignments table. If the Dolby Digital Plus bitstream contains an independent substream with asubstreamid
value of3
, the PMT includes thesubstream3
field.Table 3. Substream field bit value assignments Substream 1–3 Description b7 (most-significant bit) Reserved (set to 1
)b6 Reserved (set to 0
)b5 to b3 service_type
flags (see the service_type flags table)b2 to b0 number_of_channels
flags (see the number_of_channels flags table)Table 4. service_type flags Bit values Description Restrictions4 b5 b4 b3 number_of_channels field 0
0
0
Reserved 0
0
1
Music and Effects (ME) 0
1
0
Visually Impaired (VI) 0
1
1
Hearing Impaired (HI) 1
0
0
Dialogue (D) 1
0
1
Commentary (C) 1
1
0
Reserved 1
1
1
Voiceover (VO) Set to 000
Table 5. number_of_channels flags Flags Description b2 b1 b0 0
0
0
Mono 0
0
1
Reserved for future use 0
1
0
Two-channel audio5 0
1
1
Two-channel audio encoded in Dolby Surround 1
0
0
Multichannel audio (greater than two channels and up to 5.1 channels) 1
0
1
Reserved for future use 1
1
0
Reserved for future use 1
1
1
Reserved for future use - The
substream1
,substream2
, andsubstream3
field values are indicated in the tables in this section. The respective substream field may be ignored if other values are conveyed:- The language field (three bytes) defines the language of this audio
service. The language field is a three-character code as specified by ISO 639-2. Each
character is coded into eight bits according to ISO 8859-1 (ISO Latin-1) and inserted in order
into the 24-bit field. The coding is identical to that used in the MPEG-2
ISO_639_language_code
value in theISO_639_language_descriptor
specified in ISO/IEC 13818-1. - The
additional_info
field provides optional bytes for future use.
- The language field (three bytes) defines the language of this audio
service. The language field is a three-character code as specified by ISO 639-2. Each
character is coded into eight bits according to ISO 8859-1 (ISO Latin-1) and inserted in order
into the 24-bit field. The coding is identical to that used in the MPEG-2
1 The values of the
service_type
field are valid only if the conditions identified in the
restrictions columns are satisfied.2 For two-channel Dolby Digital Plus
streams, the
number_of_channels
field should be set
to 011
when the dsurmod
parameter is
set to 011
(encoded in Dolby Surround), and should be
set to 010
if the dsurmod
parameter
is set to any other value, or is not present.3 The values of the
number_of_channels
field are valid only if the
conditions identified in the restrictions column are satisfied.
4 The
service_type
flags bit values are considered
valid only if the conditions identified in the restrictions column are
satisfied.5 For two-channel
substreams, the
number_of_channels
field
should be set to 011
when the dsurmod
parameter is set to 011
(encoded in Dolby Surround), and should be
set to 010
if dsurmod
is set to any other value, or is not
present.