setting 5.1 as default device

[MrJosh86]

Hi,

Im new to the forums, so hello to y'all!

Im really hoping someone can help with this as im getting fed up with this very small, but highly annoying problem.

I use VLC to play a lot of .DTS and other such 5.1 audio files (and .MKV video files), very rarely do i play anything in stereo with it.

What i'd like to know is: is there any way to set 5.1 as the default audio device for VLC player? Im getting fed up of having to change the audio device back to 5.1 at the end of each track (it switches from 5.1 to stereo).

I have spent ages trawling through forums looking for an answer to this, as well as searching through VLC players preferances, but, obvioulsy to no avail. Alternativly, does anyone know of any other program i can do this with? [i'd rather not use something other than VLC, but frankly its really bugging me.]

Really hoping someone can help, thanks in advance!

Josh

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

This really depends on your system... On some systems, you have to configure the speaker layout globally (for all apps), e.g. Linux with PulseAudio. Thus it does not really make sense to have a VLC configuration. And on other systems, we can typically detect whether the audio card supports 5.1, but not whether the attached speakers do...

As of today, this remains an open issue on the feature tracker. Hopefully, it gets implemented in VLC 1.2.

[MrJosh86]

As of today, this remains an open issue on the feature tracker. Hopefully, it gets implemented in VLC 1.2.

i hope so!

This really depends on your system... On some systems, you have to configure the speaker layout globally (for all apps)

im using Win7 64bit, and a decent soundcard (ASUS Xonar D1). my "global" settings are set to 5.1, 6 channel audio (both in the ASUS audio manager and the Win7 control panel), but anything i play in VLC always comes out in stereo. if im listening to a DTS album, everytime a track changes i have to change it back to 5.1

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

That might be a bug in the DirectSound plugin.

[MrJosh86]

its just annoying, i would have thought that by now VLC player would be able to "see" what the prefered audio output for some media would be.

example: if your're playing an .MKV, that has the option to have 5.1, and your control panel/audio manager is set to 5.1, VLC should be able to switch from stereo to 5.1 automatically.

I guess i'll just have to grin and bear it for the time being and hope that this can be solved in the next release....

[MrJosh86]

ok - seems after removing my PCI ASUS Xonar D1 sound card that VLC player now knows when something is in 5.1 or stereo, and automatically switches itself to the correct audio output. Must have been a conflict somewhere with the hardware?! As much as i love that sound card i guess i stick with the onboard audio for now. I shall put the Xonar card in my media centre when i get round to fixing it.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Upgrade your drivers.

[MrJosh86]

The Xonar drivers i was using where the most up to date ones available - really not sure what was going on there?! oh well...

[jmc302005]

VLC requires that you have your sound card set to 5.1 audio. That includes those of us with 7.1 audio. For some reason VLC thinks it cannot play 5.1 audio on a 7.1 system. This is something that the developers need to change in the code due to the advent of 7.1. People shouldn't have to change between 5.1 and 7.1 on their sound cards to have default surround on their music or videos being played in VLC. We should be able to just set it to 7.1 and leave it alone. If there is no output to the extra 2 channels then 7.1 plays like 5.1, no difference in sound or quality or distribution of channels.