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More => Old Versions => JRiver Media Center 30 for Windows => Topic started by: johnnyguitar7 on March 23, 2023, 12:48:24 pm

Title: Upmixer that works with JRiver?
Post by: johnnyguitar7 on March 23, 2023, 12:48:24 pm
Hello,
I've been trying to find an upmixer that works well with JRiver. The only one that I've been able to get working is Halo upmix, but the problem is that there is no way to automatically set the correct input channels in Halo upmix. For example, if I play a movie with stereo audio and set the input channel in Halo upmix to stereo, everything works well. However, if I switch to a 5.1 movie or a mono movie, everything breaks in terms of the audio output. For 5.1, I have to manually set the input channel in Halo upmix to 5.1. Does anyone know of a good way to get good upmixing working seamlessly with JRiver?
Title: Re: Upmixer that works with JRiver?
Post by: eve on March 23, 2023, 12:57:14 pm
I use Waves DTS inside of a MetaPlug 'container' that loads inside JRiver.

Use ZoneSwitch to set this up. The only time I turn on upmix is for dialogue heavy stereo television / films, where I find that Waves DTS in particular does an excellent job at getting a clean center without a distracting 'fake' surround feel (in other words, a bit of musical score doesn't ruin the illusion).
So I usually would do it by genre for television (for example reality, news, sitcoms, etc) and on a case by case basis for movies. It's easy to 'send' to another zone if you aren't satisfied. Movies are definitely iffy, some do really benefit from the upmix. TV in the right 'genre' / production style, upmixes quite nicely since we're mostly dealing with dialogue, light musical score, no wild mixing decisions etc

Halo is solid though, you might be able to keep using it, just make some zones.
Title: Re: Upmixer that works with JRiver?
Post by: johnnyguitar7 on March 23, 2023, 01:25:08 pm
I use Waves DTS inside of a MetaPlug 'container' that loads inside JRiver.

Use ZoneSwitch to set this up. The only time I turn on upmix is for dialogue heavy stereo television / films, where I find that Waves DTS in particular does an excellent job at getting a clean center without a distracting 'fake' surround feel (in other words, a bit of musical score doesn't ruin the illusion).
So I usually would do it by genre for television (for example reality, news, sitcoms, etc) and on a case by case basis for movies. It's easy to 'send' to another zone if you aren't satisfied. Movies are definitely iffy, some do really benefit from the upmix. TV in the right 'genre' / production style, upmixes quite nicely since we're mostly dealing with dialogue, light musical score, no wild mixing decisions etc

Halo is solid though, you might be able to keep using it, just make some zones.

Thanks for the response. From personal experience, do you think DTS Neural does a better job than Halo?
Title: Re: Upmixer that works with JRiver?
Post by: eve on March 23, 2023, 01:30:52 pm
Thanks for the response. From personal experience, do you think DTS Neural does a better job than Halo?

This is a weird one. I think, Halo edges out Waves on music centric stuff. For more general content, I think Waves wins slightly. It's just a little more natural to my ears (though it's been a couple years since I did a proper side by side, one may have evolved ya know?). In a post production context, I almost strictly use Waves, but it's very boring stuff, lots of dialogue. I have played with taking the music only mix and feeding it to Halo, but in general, it's more effort than it's worth and has a chance of leading to 'annoying' or very obvious results. Waves is nice and conservative IMO

Just be smart about what content you upmix, not everything in stereo needs to be upmixed. If you've played with upmixing for a while, you'll get a good feel for what does and doesn't need it, what can actually benefit from it versus what is going to fall apart.