ffdshow audio or AC3Filter?? (1 Viewer)

[spenca]

Hi!

some month ago I used AC3filter to passthrough AC3 and DTS and ffdshow to do the rest. In the meantime I learned some new stuff about ffdshow. So I prefer to user ONLY ffdshow. It is able to do the job for AC3filer and millions of others.

At the moment I have following setup:

- MP3/2/1 and all other codecs (NOT AC3 and DTS) gets upsamled to 49kHz and reencoded to Stereo AC3 stream. This stream gets my receiver over fibre.
- AC3/DTS is going through, also with ffdshow and also feeds my receiver.

The advantage of this setup is, that every sound, regardless the source, has the same volume. If you mix passthrough of AC3/DTS and PCM output, the volume level in the receiver is differents between these two sources. So you always have to switch volume at the receiver it a TV film is in AC3 and another TV show is in MP1/2 (PCM).

Regards,

Mario

 

[ZeroH]

Sounds interesting spenca.. can you give some info on how you did that?

 

[spenca]

Sounds interesting spenca.. can you give some info on how you did that?

Hi Zero!

of course:

- ffdshow audio decoder configuration
- Codecs tab: mark every codec you have in your movie files. dont forget ac3/dts/e-ac3 AND mp1/mp2 for tv.
- samplerate conversation tab: activate the function and click "always convert". convert to "48000" Hz.
- mixer tab: normally you don't need remix the streams. i just leave the stream as it is. so you have 2 channel AC3 for example when you watch TV. it's possible to upmix to 5, 6 or 7 channels if you activate the mixer, if you want, but in my opinion these task should do the receiver.
- lfe-crossover tab: activate the crossover function and adjust the sliders according to your subwoofer crossover frequency. CHECK the box "remove frequencies added to ....", to make an .1 AC3 stream, so you have 2.1 or 5.1 stream at the receiver.
- output tab: check "ac3" and "dts" pass-through. check "ac3 (s/pdif encode mode)", unckeck " "encode only 5.1 streams". select a bitrate according to your receiver, 640kbit should be fine for all.

Voilla!! Now all your audio is encoded to X.1 AC3 Streams and send directly to your receiver by s/pdif. Feel free to activate some quality adjustments (FIR Filter, Noise reduction, ...), but have an attention on the order of the tabs, the first tab/function in order is the first function that is done by ffdshow! Reorder the tabs if you need!

/Mario

 

[ZeroH]

Thanks. That worked pretty well. I enabled the mixer to use 3/0/2 since I don't have a sub... yes, i know i should have one but with a 2yr old and two 1month olds, I wouldn't be able to use it anyway. :/

The only thing I still can't figure out is stuttering on some mpeg video with mp3 audio. This has been a thorn in the system since the beginning. :/

 

[magao]

I've found ffdshow does a better job upmixing to 5.1 than my 3-year-old Sony receiver, interestingly enough. So my advice is to experiment with 2.0, etc audio to find out whether you prefer letting ffdshow or your receiver do it.