The VideoLAN Forums

hi,

when i play an mp4 with aac 8ch sbr, in the menu "audio/audio channels" stereo is checked. why that?

when i play an ac3 avi there is no such problem. the menu above is greyed out and the ac3-led on my onkyo amp lights up.

i hava a mac mini intel with optical out & tiger 10.4.8.

thx for your help.
chris

hm... is it correct, that vlc can play multichannel aac audio only in stereo?

wow... i am the only one with such a problem?

AAC is not a format that can be sent over your Digital connection. at least not usually. Perhaps you have such an advanced amp that you can, but I doubt it.

Only AC3 and DTS are usually supported. sometimes MPGA. All other sources will be transported to your receiver as 2ch decoded audio.

Hi DJ,

thanks for your answer.
you are absolutly right, m Amp onl decodes AC3 & DTS.

I thought it might be possible, that VLC decodes AAC 5.1 and sends it this way to the Amp.
Isn´t that the way it works on my old XP-Machines?

Best regards
Chris


PS: Thanks for your great project! I am using vlc for some years now with XP and now with MacOSX, too. I always tried other Players and i always came back to my beloved VLC!

I do have a similar problem. Nero Recode 2 CE is now able to include 5.1 multichannel sound when converting DVDs to mp4. At a first glance, not even Nero Showtime seemed to be able to play such files correctly (it only had a 4 channel and 6 channel option, but no 5.1 option), until I realized that of course the 6 channel option corresponds to 5.1 (stupid me). With 6ch, it sounds just precisely like the original DVD, wonderful surround sound and strong bass, although I don't send it via SPDIF. So, obviously Nero Showtime somehow remixes the AAC multichannel input to another multichannel output which can be correctly interpreted by the external amplifier (which as such only supports AC3 or DTS).

When I play the same mp4 on VLC player (which definitely is my favourite player), I can only choose between stereo or 4 speakers. When I choose stereo, the rear speakers are coupled with the front speakers (e.g. rear left gets the same signal as front left). When I choose 4 speakers, I get quadrophonic sound, but the center speaker gets no signal, bass is weak and the entire sound is very muted.

So, obviously it is possible for VLC to atleast convert the AAC sound to quadrophonic sound. Wouldn't it be possible to further expand this to 6 channel (or 5.1) output?

That'd be super great

Cheers
- spit