"BTW. when people talk about PCM uncompressed sound, we're talking about the wav file aren't we? I mean pre AC3'ing in Bewsweet. considered better because its uncompressed."

Not necessarily. The DVD has a PCM and a DD soundtrack. When you extract a WAV from an AC3 file, the resulting PCM file is not identical to the PCM file already on the DVD.

DVD ---> PCM = pure uncompressed

DVD ---> AC3 ---> PCM = a truncated PCM file from the AC3 file, which uses lossy compression.

Just compare the file sizes and you'll see. There are some DVDs, like Young Guns, where the PCM soundtrack actually has better depth and "surroundness" than the AC3 soundtrack.