VLC 2.1.2 - Stereo sound on rear speakers

[testifix]

Hi all,

Upfront: Merry Christmas to all of you!

I am fighting with the settings of VLC but I somehow cant work it out. I am trying to play mp3's (stereo) through my front boxes, as well as through my rear boxes.
Everything works for movies that come with 5.1 sound, but when I want to listen to stereo files, only the front speakers have sound, the rear is silent.

Is there a way to specify that for any file that only contains stereo sound, the front channels should be duplicated to the rear? (e.g., front-left to be duplicated to rear-left and the same for the right side)?

My receiver is connected to my Mac mini (OS Maverick) through HDMI. As I said - for 5.1 movies everything works, therefore I guess my OS and Hardware are configured in correct way. I tried to fiddle with Dolby settings in VLC (2.1.2) but no luck...


Thanks for any pointers!

Best,
testifix

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

So far, I don't think you can do that, because this is upmixing.

[sojkovec]

While Jean is technically correct, solution does exist. Check your mp3's in windows media player (assuming you use windows), whether they play via rear speakers. If they do, all you need to do is force VLC to use DirectSound output. This can be done in main settings (basic mode) - Sound - Output module - select DirectSound (or DirectX audio output or something like that) - another selection box will pop up - In there, select the default sound card you use. If this does not work, then upmixing option is not enabled in your sound card driver settings. These settings are vendor and model specific, so if you don't find it on your own, contact your sound card vendor's support.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Sure, but that is driver specific.

[alexw-]

foobar audio player can upmix from stereo.
you can also install ac3filter and configure it to upmix from stereo and then use a media player that uses codec, e.g. not vlc.