VLC 2.1.1 no longer allows me to change to stereo audio

[grivy]

Since VLC 2.1.1 I can no longer switch from default 5.1 audio to stereo audio. The Menu Audio > Stereo mode is blanked out.
Why is this removed?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

As a matter of fact, Stereo mode was called Audio channels in previous versions and was also greyed out for 5.1 tracks.

[grivy]

Yes, Audio channels.
But it was definitely never grayed out. I used it quite often to play all 5.1 audio channels through my front speakers only.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

You are wrong. Audio channels is greyed out when the active track has surround channel in VLC 2.0.

[Deten]

Rémi, I'm not sure I understand you correctly. Please look at these screenshots http://imgur.com/a/b4eQ2 of VLC 2.0.8 playing a .mkv movie with DTS audio track. I have a Creative X-Fi card installed so the first screenshot is the video playing over the inbuild decoder of the sound card (I''m not sure of the correct names so sorry if I name something wrongly) and the second one is just the A/52 passthrough to the receiver over S/PDIF.
So please advice how is this option greyed out for the multychannel playback if we see on the screenshots exactly the opposite?

[Deten]

https://trac.videolan.org/vlc/ticket/9522 this ticket seems to be related to the problem and https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... 4&start=20 this thread is also about this problem.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Rémi, I'm not sure I understand you correctly. Please look at these screenshots http://imgur.com/a/b4eQ2 of VLC 2.0.8 playing a .mkv movie with DTS audio track.

And this confirms what I just wrote: Audio channels is greyed out for surround audio in VLC 2.0, just like Stereo mode in VLC 2.1.

[Deten]

Oh, right. Now i see it Thanks for calrifying.
We'll still have to wait for the A/52 passthrough to get fixed though.

[grivy]

Ah sorry. So I was talking about Audio device. Now you can select a sound card instead of down mixing. I guess that might be useful. But the question remains, how can I now get 5.1 sound to be down mixed to stereo?
Or, where did the 'stereo' and 'mono'' buttons go to like shown in your link http://imgur.com/a/b4eQ2 ?

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

AFAIK, you should configure your system settings to stereo if you have stereo speakers. You can also force it in VLC DirectSound preferences.

[grivy]

So that feature (menu item) is not coming back then, that's sad
I'll revert to the previous version.
Thanx for your answers though.

Edit:
Btw why not just move the old Audio Device menu items to the Stereo mode menu, since it isn't used anyway for 5.1??
The 'stereo mode' for stereo sound you can then have (Stereo, Left, Right, Reverse stereo) and for 5.1 sound have (5.1, 2 front 2 rear, stereo mono)

[grivy]

Can this thread (or at least the edit of my previous post) be moved to a feature request? Or how does that work on this forum?

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

So that feature (menu item) is not coming back then, that's sad

Why do you need that?

[Eikka]

So that feature (menu item) is not coming back then, that's sad

Why do you need that?

On some videos that are mixed to 5.1 they have done a bad job at mixing that puts all the dialog in the center channel only, so it has no stereo image and the voice is very "dry" because none of it is playing through the LFE channel to the sub. Sometimes the surround sound is just annoyingly mixed overall, like how when stereo recordings came out they did hard panning with one instrument playing completely on the left and another completely on the right because they thought is was neat, so mixing it down to stereo just makes it more pleasing to listen to. This happens very often on shows recorded from television. Movies are usually properly mixed.

It is a problem especially on low end 5.1 computer speaker sets where each speaker on its own has a rather tinny sound but all together they don't have to play so loud to achieve the same volume, which makes the speakers more transparent to the sound. When only one speaker is playing the sound, in a manner of speaking you start to hear the loudspeaker instead.

In these cases it works much better to switch to four channel sound or stereo in VLC, because your sound driver automatically does the expansion to 5.1 speakers. If I change the sound card driver settings to 4 channels or stereo instead of 5.1, it won't output to the center/LFE channel or to the rear channels anymore, so I have to use VLC in switching between 5.1 and four channel sound depending on what video file I'm watching, and it would be very nice to not have to go through advanced settings and restarting the player every time to switch it.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

OK. Why not then.

[Eikka]

Oh, and also because I have my wireless headphone transmitter connected to the front channel output with a splitter cable, being able to switch to stereo in VLC saves me the effort of going through the sound card settings.

BTW. it would probably be a good idea to have some way to downmixing to stereo/quad AND expansion to 5.1 in case the sound card is stupid and won't do that automatically. It sounds like a "why would you do that?" problem until you run across one of those shoddily made surround soundtracks and your sound card driver doesn't do speaker expansion in 5.1 mode. (I'm looking at you Linux...)

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Oh, and also because I have my wireless headphone transmitter connected to the front channel output with a splitter cable, being able to switch to stereo in VLC saves me the effort of going through the sound card settings.

BTW. it would probably be a good idea to have some way to downmixing to stereo/quad AND expansion to 5.1 in case the sound card is stupid and won't do that automatically. It sounds like a "why would you do that?" problem until you run across one of those shoddily made surround soundtracks and your sound card driver doesn't do speaker expansion in 5.1 mode. (I'm looking at you Linux...)

Yeah. Those 2 usecases (stereo headset on a 5.1-detected-system) and (bad audio encoding issues that needs a new downmix) could need a forced downmixing dropdown menu.
All the other reports, so far, no.

[michabb]

dear developers,

please take a look to this picture:



and please let me know, how i can setup "2 Front 2 Rear" in version 2.1.2 ?
since the beginning of time i am using vlc i was able to setup the speaker here..
because i use "2 Front 2 Rear" and not 5.1 - i always use this setup and everything was fine... till version 2.1 ;-(((

so what is the reason to remove this ? because you think everybody today is using 5.1 speakers and "2 Front 2 Rear" is out of date ?

regards,
micha

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

You can override the physical channel mapping in the VLC preferences, but setting it in the Windows configuration panel is far better.

[grivy]

You can override the physical channel mapping in the VLC preferences, but setting it in the Windows configuration panel is far better.

The thing is that you want to be able to do that on the fly. Sometimes the 5.1 audio streams in a video are created very badly in which case stereo audio often sounds better (clearer voices). In such a case you do not want to go to the Windows configuration panel for just that one file.
Also the menu item is already there (stereo mode), but grayed out, and the code is already present in previous version.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

The case of stereo mode has been explained in this very same thread. It was renamed but otherwise unchanged.

As for the audio device, the old behaviour was clearly a bug inherited from ALSA/OSS and the times where computers had at most one logical audio output. A device is not a channel map and a channel map is not a device.

[grivy]

The case of stereo mode has been explained in this very same thread. It was renamed but otherwise unchanged.

As for the audio device, the old behaviour was clearly a bug inherited from ALSA/OSS and the times where computers had at most one logical audio output. A device is not a channel map and a channel map is not a device.

Yes, but evidently what you consider a bug is considered a feature by the many others watching this thread. Whatever the reason was for it to be implemented in the past it has found a new purpose and is able to solve other problems now.
Adding the new Audio Device menu is a gain, removing the old one is a loss. Especially when they can coexist so easily. Also Stereo Mode is even a better naming than its old name Audio Devices for the current purpose.

So I agree with the new namings. I do not want the new audio device items to be removed. The Stereo Mode name fits the purpose nicely of the Old Audio Device menu items. The Stereo Mode menu is not used for 5.1. The code is already there for the functionality (2 front 2 read, stereo, mono). So why not keep all features?

So like this:


Btw. It does not have to be named Stereo Mode, it doesn't matter. Something like Down Mixing is off course also fine. I just thought it fit the bill nicely.

[michabb]

thats the problem! when i listen to music, i have a "2 Front 2 Rear" setup - AT WINDOWS - ...but when watching a movie with VLC,
vlc "forces" me to use 5.1 - why ????? the windows setup gets overwritten ;((
so the notice "use the windows setup" is absolutely useless for me, i´m afraid...

the fact is, there has been an important feature in version 2.0.8 and it got removed... WHY ?
there is no need to remove a "FEATURE" )

please... in name of all people writing here: please give us the the old behaviour back, because vlc
forces me to use 5.1 even i use a "2 Front 2 Rear" setup at windows..

thanks!
micha

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Outputting 5.1 when the user configured 4.0 is a bug. If it is really so, the bug needs to be fixed. Adding a menu item is not the solution.

[michabb]

what´s the problem with choosing the stero type in vlc ???
why should i change my whole windows setup just because i want to watch something at vlc in a different mode ? i don´t understand your position at this point.
people are telling you, that your "unwanted feature" was a great thing for many people in the past - and you say: "we removed it, because we accidently found out,
that the menu-name is wrong" ??? wtf ? ) if the menu-name is the problem, call it what you like call it "the unwated feature we never wanted but people loved it and we don´t care so we removed it"...
but please let us choose things that have ever been existed and we are used to have it...
discussions like this make one of the best software, the worst ;-( people say "hey, it was ever there, it was great, it was useful, please keep it!"

the point is not: vlc is using a different stero type, the point is, we want to choose the type, as we have ever been able to do it... that´s very simple

regards,
micha