Upmixing stereo to surround and playing WMVHD surround (1 Viewer)

[Wizzing]

MediaPortal Version: V1.1
MediaPortal Skin: Streamed MP Beta v0.9.601 [02 Sep 2009]
Windows Version: Windows 7 Ultimate x64 NL
CPU Type: AMD Athlon II X2 235e / 2.7 GHz Energy Efficient
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F2 1TB
Memory: Kingston ValueRAM - 2 GB ( 2 x 1 GB )- DDR3 - 1333 MHz / PC3-10600 - CL9 - 1.5
Motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO - ATX - 785G
Video Card:
Video Card Driver:
Sound Card: Onboard
Sound Card AC3:
Sound Card Driver:
1. TV Card: Hauppage HVR-2200
1. TV Card Type: Analog
TV: Panasonic TX-32LX70
TV - HTPC Connection: HDMI > TV | Optical Out > Receiver

Hi I am using the latest non-experimental SAF codecs on Windows 7 64 bit and it works very good. I have only one problem, WMVHD files won't play surround sound but only stereo. Is there a way to upmix it? And how?

Also is it possible to upmix stereo files like MP3? I have a 5.1 surround set and my little sattelite speakers arn't good enough to play the whole sound field. I need my subwoofer to help.

 

[Owlsroost]

I don't use SAF, but FFDShow (part of SAF) audio decoder can do upmixing - look at the 'mixer' section in the FFDShow audio config. It also can do auto preset switching based on number of channels, so you can enable upmixing only for stereo.

Tony

 

[Wizzing]

I tried some different setting but nothing changes in the sound. I have some screenshots. Maybe they will help to explain what I have to do:.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

(aac filter doesn't seem to matter, also adjusted to monogram aac withou surround)

#6

 

[Owlsroost]

It all looks OK (but you need to tick the 'Automatic preset loading' box to enable the preset switching).

With a file playing, open the FFDshow audio window from the sys tray icon, check that input and output stream info is correct, then play around with the settings to see if anything changes.

Tony

 

[Wizzing]

It all looks OK (but you need to tick the 'Automatic preset loading' box to enable the preset switching).

With a file playing, open the FFDshow audio window from the sys tray icon, check that input and output stream info is correct, then play around with the settings to see if anything changes.

Tony

That was a good tip. When I play a file using DTS the systray icon of haali splitter and ffdshow audio decoder are visible in the tray. I see input DTS ...Khz... output spdif.

When I play a WMVHD file (or mp3) the filter icons won't show. So I guess that mediaportal isn't using them with those files. So the new question is how do I get mediaportal to use ffdshow audio decoder with the other files.

 

[Owlsroost]

If you want FFDShow to do processing on all audio from MP videos, enable the 'raw' codecs (bottom of the codec list) in FFDShow audio decoder and then add it to the video 'Post Processing' section in MP config.

Tony

 

[ALD]

You have to tick the Dolby decoder box to upmix stereo.

 

[Wizzing]

Oke I'm a little bit further in de process. After I added FFDSHOW audio decoder as a postprocess filter.

When I play a WMVHD movie I get Mediaportal to postprocess it with the FFDSHOW audio decoder. So thats progress. The problem is that my surround set gets it as a stereo PCM file.

When I move my move over the FFDSHOW audio decoder icon in the taskbar; it says:

ffdshow audio decoder:
Input: 48000 Hz, 6 channels (uncompressed)
Output: 48000 Hz, 6 channels 16-bit integer

It does something, but I still have stereo. Does some-one know what I have to change?

You have to tick the Dolby decoder box to upmix stereo.

Thnx for the help but this doesn't work. But sure that would be an obvious solution. I tried it with a WMVHD file.. (not really stereo file) and a mp3-file (stereo file).


For the record: When I play a mkv with surround sound I have no problem. It plays with surround.
Here a mkv file with DTS sound the output is:


ffdshow audio decoder:
Input: 48000 Hz, 6 channels 1535 kbps DTS (bitstream)
Output: S/PDIF (1401)

 

[Owlsroost]

Try ticking the 'LFE' box in FFDShow mixer section maybe ? (you have the AC3 encoder set up to only encode 5.1ch - FL/FR/C/RL/RR/LFE - streams).

The DTS bitstream works because it is just doing pass-through to SPDIF, not decoding/re-encoding.

Tony

 

[Wizzing]

Try ticking the 'LFE' box in FFDShow mixer section maybe ? (you have the AC3 encoder set up to only encode 5.1ch - FL/FR/C/RL/RR/LFE - streams).

Still the same stereo output.

The FFDSHOW icon now tells me:


Input: 48000 Hz, 6 channels pcm (uncompressed)
Output: 48000 Hz, 7 channels 16 bit integer



Oke learned something new. LFE is the subwoofer channel. So put the channels to 5 + LFE (real 5.1) and now I get the:


Input: 48000 Hz, 6 channels pcm (uncompressed)
Output: 48000 Hz, 6 channels 16 bit integer


Still no surround from my surround set. What does the propper output has to be (in the ffdshow icon)?
We don't have the result yet, but every step we did learned me something new so thnx. Hope you have some more suggestions.