MPEG-2 & AES/3

[davidmarlow]

So I preface this with being somewhat new on the video/audio codec front... I am hoping that someone can assist me in figuring out how to export video/audio to be supported on my Christie IMB for the theatre that I run. So, the format to go to is MPEG-2 TS, which is seemingly simple. My issue is getting to surround. I have a 7.1 sound processor and want to be able to play this content in full surround if possible. AC3 is not supported on the Christie IMB, and Christie tells me that only AES/3 is supported for MPEG-2 alternate content.

So in that, AES/3 from what I can see is more about transmission of audio than the codec. Can anyone help me in figuring out how to include the surround into an AES/3 format?

Thanks,
David