The VideoLAN Forums

Firstly, thanks to the VideoLAN team and community for providing such an incredible product.

I've recently started using VLC to play back movie DVDs over a 5.1 surround system in a studio environment (rather than a home theatre).

I'm a relative newcomer to surround sound, but understand that on a standard movie DVD, the audio is usually encoded in to Dolby Digital AC3 format. I also understand that the THX definition of 5.1 means that all 5 satellites channels should have full bandwidth (ie handle bass frequencies), although "bass management" in the playback system may redirect bass to the subwoofer channel (to be added to the LFE channel.

My questions are:

1. When I play back a movie DVD, presumably VLC decodes the AC3 Dolby Digital and outputs it as 5.1 .....right?

2. Does VLC also "bass manage" the 5.1 outputs so that bass from the satellite speaker channels (L, R, C, LS and RS) is redirected to the subwoofer, or does it output 5 channels of full bandwidth to the satellites, leaving your playback system to bass manage if required?

Thanks for any clarification.

Hi. Did you ever find out anything on this? I'm using VLC on a Macbook Pro and outputing via HDMI to a receiver. However, I don't have a subwoofer hooked up and am trying to figure out how to have VLC route the LFE channel to the front channels.

Thanks!

VLC will not route the LFE to anything but a LFE...