[solved] Das Erste HD Audio??? (2 Viewers)

[Lehmden]

Hi.

I could not get tsMuxer to function

Yep, forgot that DVB-T2 is H265...
Your video has 2 audio tracks, one AAC in 2.0 and one AAC in 5.1. At least you should be able to switch to the 5.1 track if it is not selected automatically.

AAC 5.1 is not encoded as DolbyDigital it is PCM 5.1... Most AVR are not able to play PCM 5.1, only PCM Stereo. You most likely need a conversion to AC3 5.1 to play it properly with multi channel sound. There are some ways to achieve this. First you can transcode the audio stream to AC3 (or even DTS if you prefer), This is possible for recordings and any other video you have, but not for Live TV. Luckily you also can use special codecs like "AC3 Filter" or ffdshow. As you can select an extra codec for AAC playback in MP2 you can install e.g. AC3 Filter aside of the default LAVF and configure AC3 Filter as audio codec for AAC in MP2. Then all AAC 5.1 tracks should be "converted" to AC3 5.1 on the fly while playing the video. At least if you've configured AC3 filter properly. This should give you full 5.1 Sound with your AVR.

I've used AC3 Filter for many years the days my AVR only had SP-DIF (now I have one with HDMI) but as I don't have AAC 5.1 videos I never tested this myself. I didn't have any Windows PC connected to my AVR any more, only an Android TV Box running Kodi, I even can't test this now with your video snippet. But I will test with this file if the TV Box is handling AAC 5.1 properly... So thanks for providing it.

 

[joecrow]

Hi again
I downloaded AC3 Filter from the link you gave but my AV went into a real spin when I tried to install it, tried again from SourceForge and then was OK but it does not appear in the list of available codecs for AAC in MP1 (see screenshot). FFDshow does so I will have a play with that, but probably not till tomorrow. On a very quick test manually setting my AVR to Dolby while playing the recording maybe gives me true 5.1, i.e. I do get something on the rear speakers, where as they are silent with stereo but I am not able to see a 5.1 track to select at the MP level.

 

[Owlsroost]

OK not quite sure what I should be looking at. The attached logs are for a quick play of a recording from Das Erste that should be DD but plays in stereo, then Live ZDF which does play in DD. Looking at the TS.Reader log both seem to show "Channels=2" .

There is one log entry for 6 (=5.1) channel AAC:

[2018-10-27 19:11:59,509] [39D77018] [22c4] - demux: AAC LATM header: sampleRate = 48000, channels = 6, bitrate = 0, objectType = 2, bytesRead = 10275

Another way to check the audio channel count is to enable the System Tray Icon in LAV Audio settings and run MP in windowed mode. Then when you play TV, click on the system tray icon to open the LAV Audio properties and select the status tab - that shows the input and output formats in real time:

 

[Owlsroost]

How is your AVR connected to your HTPC?

 

[joecrow]

Another way to check the audio channel count is to enable the System Tray Icon in LAV Audio settings and run MP in windowed mode. Then when you play TV, click on the system tray icon to open the LAV Audio properties and select the status tab - that shows the input and output formats in real time:

OK did that and as you will see in the attached screenshot it is showing 6 channels.

How is your AVR connected to your HTPC?

My AVR is connected over HDMI as is the TV, everything in LAV is set to bitstream and I use the "Default Direct Sound Device" for everything not the MP Audio Renderer, Windows sound is set up for 5.1.

So I guess it is down to how I can get the AVR to auto switch to 5.1 (if it can for PCM) or recode the PCM-6 in MP?????

 

[Owlsroost]

My AVR is connected over HDMI as is the TV, everything in LAV is set to bitstream and I use the "Default Direct Sound Device" for everything not the MP Audio Renderer, Windows sound is set up for 5.1.

So I guess it is down to how I can get the AVR to auto switch to 5.1 (if it can for PCM) or recode the PCM-6 in MP?????

If it's a direct HTPC -> AVR connection using HDMI, most (all?) AVRs should accept 6-channel PCM via HDMI - and LAV won't bitstream AAC anyway (as far as I know).

Also check the LAV Audio 'Mixing' settings to make sure it's not set up to down-mix everything to stereo (if it is decoding instead of bitstreaming).

If the AVR can't accept 6-channel PCM, then you can use LAV to 'matrix encode' 5.1 into Dolby Pro-logic II - see the 'Mixing' tab in LAV Audio setting - and enable DPL II decoding on the AVR. It's not as good as a real 5.1, but it's a lot better than stereo...

 

[joecrow]

If it's a direct HTPC -> AVR connection using HDMI, most (all?) AVRs should accept 6-channel PCM via HDMI - and LAV won't bitstream AAC anyway (as far as I know).

Tried a few things and also did a RTFM for the AVR and yes it does support multi-channel PCM and when I change its settings ("to " multi-channel in") and play the recording or a Dolby program in live Das Erste I definitely do get 5.1, in this mode it will also auto switch to Dolby/DTS etc. Unfortunately in that mode when the program in Das Erste is only in stereo or stereo music plays then I only get sound out of the L/R speakers and the overall volume is much reduced, it is possible to manually switch the AVR back to "multi-channel stereo" but it then won't auto switch back to " multi-channel in" for the recording, a real nuisance.

Also check the LAV Audio 'Mixing' settings to make sure it's not set up to down-mix everything to stereo (if it is decoding instead of bitstreaming)

No mixing is not enabled but given the above is there a way in MP/LAV to up mix stereo to multi-channel stereo?

 

[Owlsroost]

No mixing is not enabled but given the above is there a way in MP/LAV to up mix stereo to multi-channel stereo?

Not really (I think MP Audio Renderer can encode to AC3, can't remember if it can upmix, but MPAR is not recommended for TV due to issues with it - loss of A/V sync is one problem sometimes).

Otherwise the 'Matrix Encoding' encoding option in LAV Audio is the next best thing - this is what I do, with DPL II decoding enabled at the AVR. Bitstreaming should override this, so AC3/DTS streams should still play OK.

 

[joecrow]

Otherwise the 'Matrix Encoding' encoding option in LAV Audio is the next best thing - this is what I do, with DPL II decoding enabled at the AVR. Bitstreaming should override this, so AC3/DTS streams should still play OK.

I gave that a try, see attached LAV settings but still only got L/R when playing stereo, looks like it has enabled 6 channels but there is no sound on the other channels. Please let me know if I have something wrong.

Not really (I think MP Audio Renderer can encode to AC3, can't remember if it can upmix, but MPAR is not recommended for TV due to issues with it - loss of A/V sync is one problem sometimes).

I gave MPAR a try anyway and it seems to work perfectly, i.e. it does up mix to multi-channel stereo, see attached screenshot.

 

[Owlsroost]

I gave that a try, see attached LAV settings but still only got L/R when playing stereo, looks like it has enabled 6 channels but there is no sound on the other channels. Please let me know if I have something wrong.

Try disabling the 'Enable Mixing' option, and change your Windows speaker configuration to 'stereo' - basically the AVR needs to see it as a stereo (2-channel) stream.

(If Windows speaker config is 5.1, Windows will send sound to the AVR as 6-channels and the AVR won't enable DPL decoding for it).