Copying STEREO Sound onto a 5.1 Soundcard

[Guest]

Hi,
I just wanted to know if there is any way to play a stereo sound type file with my 5.1 soundcard that not only the frontspeakers but the rear, center and bass-boxes are used as well.

I ask because of my Medusa 5.1 Headset which will not provide me with any bass if only the frontspeakers are used.

With best regards
p90

[DJ]

Yes! I think so.

Preferences, Audio codecs, A/52 and tick the box marked "Enable internal upmixing" than press Save and close the player. Now I'm not quit sure how this will effect the real thing.

[Guest]

Hm, doesnt seem to work out as it should.
Tryed some music videos what make my medusa headset fall from my head if I use Winamp(the option in this prog is AFAIK called hardware acceleration ) but with VLC I have still no bass nor rear speakers.

[DJ]

Bass through the uses of four channels is derived through a matrix as is the center channel information. This is rather normal for ac3 (a/52). The file has a flag telling the program when to switch to stereo or 5.1. If the flag is missing the default is stereo as a few discontented users have discovered with 5.1 mixes that lack the flag. This forces them to right click on the player and manually select the 5.1 option from "Audio Device" there are also other options there for you to try.

There is also an Equalizer and a headphone vitalization function in the Extended GUI. Go to the Settings tab and choose "Extended GUI"

Now I'm assuming that the up mix circumvents the flag and allows the right front to be mixed to the right rear and the same for the left side, but you may need to play with the rest of the functions in order to find it.

[Guest]

Hm,
i havent fully understood you yet, but if I use the headphone vitalization function nothing happens besides getting the sound sound as if it is behind a wall or something like what.

I can also not change the audiodevice to 5.1 because this option isnt even visible if the movie doesnt have 5.1 sound at the start.

Maybe I didnt explain my problem in a good way.
I just want to copy the audiostream to the right front to the rear right and bass. same with the left front/rear speakers and the centerbox.

[DJ]

If the switch to enable internal up mix is not allowing this to happen it is possible that I have not understood the function or that it was never finished. This is the only option I am aware of that would do what you want. I hate the virtualizer too, but I also shut off the a52 (ac3) dynamic range compression and find that the sound is much better.

[p91]

Hm,
I just noticed what if you are using 0.8.5 the sound will be copied to every line but the bass line.

[tweezer]

The file has a flag telling the program when to switch to stereo or 5.1. If the flag is missing the default is stereo as a few discontented users have discovered with 5.1 mixes that lack the flag. This forces them to right click on the player and manually select the 5.1 option from "Audio Device" there are also other options there for you to try.

I have a setup with a RME HDSP audio card, wich has 8 analog outputs. I can select 5.1 in Audio menu, and everything is OK, but this has to be done manually, VLC does not detect the flag in the AC3. Soundcard is defined in Windows as "Use only", Device in VLC is 0, wich is the 2 first channels of the RME card, and those 2 channels is all I get when I start to play a 5.1 file. According to your posting quoted here this might be because of 5.1-flag missing in the file. But when I play the same file in PoweDVD it detects Dolby Surround - so I suppose the flag is there? Is there a way to force the player to use 5.1 as default? Will work with stereo also, because L+R is common...

[DJ]

Yes it does! But windows must be set to the correct number of speakers in Sounds and audio devices in your Control Panel. Not just assume that the software that came with the card does this correctly.