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Author Topic: 4.1 Surround  (Read 1298 times)

donlboy

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4.1 Surround
« on: June 25, 2020, 02:54:51 pm »

I have downloaded some Cloudplay playlists which contain some 4.1 tracks - most are 5.1, but a few are 4.1. The 5.1 tracks all play fine but I cannot get the 4.1 tracks to play. I have tried all of the options settings I can find but nothing works. I don't have any 4.1 music of my own to know if the problem is only with Cloudplay files. Does anyone have any advice on how to play 4.1 music?
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Dawgincontrol

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Re: 4.1 Surround
« Reply #1 on: June 25, 2020, 03:20:23 pm »

In the DSP studio under Audio what are your settings?  Also, what is the sample rate of the files?
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arrowc

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Re: 4.1 Surround
« Reply #2 on: June 25, 2020, 05:36:30 pm »

     For me, if I set output format to "5.1 channels" it plays correct. If set to "source number of channels" it plays incorrect
I convert mine to wave using dsp 5.1.   then play "source number of channels"
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donlboy

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Re: 4.1 Surround
« Reply #3 on: June 26, 2020, 01:43:39 pm »

In the DSP studio under Audio what are your settings?  Also, what is the sample rate of the files?
As I said, I have tried most every combination of settings I can think of. Currently, Encoding is set to None, Channels to Source Number of Channels, Sample Rate to 96 KHz. No other settings boxes are checked (active). The sample rate of all of the files is 88.2.
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donlboy

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Re: 4.1 Surround
« Reply #4 on: June 26, 2020, 01:46:41 pm »

     For me, if I set output format to "5.1 channels" it plays correct. If set to "source number of channels" it plays incorrect
I convert mine to wave using dsp 5.1.   then play "source number of channels"
When I set to Source Number of Channels these files don't play at all. Good idea to convert to a format that will work, but I can't convert (I don't think) these files since they are CloudPlay.
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Dawgincontrol

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Re: 4.1 Surround
« Reply #5 on: June 26, 2020, 02:48:42 pm »

Have you tried:

Output Encoding: None
Change the 88,200khz to 44,100khz or 96,000khz.

Leave the Output Format box checked.
Also assuming you don't have an add-on with a setting that's blocking it over there. 
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donlboy

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Re: 4.1 Surround
« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2020, 03:50:34 pm »

Have you tried:

Output Encoding: None
Change the 88,200khz to 44,100khz or 96,000khz.

Leave the Output Format box checked.
Also assuming you don't have an add-on with a setting that's blocking it over there.
That is the setting I had and it doesn't play. I get a popup that suggests that 96/24 2 channel will work. I don't have any add-ons.

I just tried something I had not tried before - changed Audio Device from WASAPI to Direct Sound - and it seems to work. When using Direct Sound the Tools popup when I mouse ever the Gear icon shows input of 88.2/24 5 channel and output 96/24 5 channel, so it works correctly that way. I will continue to look at a way to use WASAPI since it should be better.

The 4.1 tracks do play fine when I set the DSP Channels to 5.1, but that means I have to change it back to Source Number of Channels for stereo music (most of what I have) since I prefer it in 2.0 rather than 5.1 - I don't like either the center channel or surrounds for most 2 channel music.
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wer

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Re: 4.1 Surround
« Reply #7 on: June 26, 2020, 05:37:04 pm »

The 4.1 tracks do play fine when I set the DSP Channels to 5.1, but that means I have to change it back to Source Number of Channels for stereo music (most of what I have) since I prefer it in 2.0 rather than 5.1 - I don't like either the center channel or surrounds for most 2 channel music.

Some audio drivers don't recognize 4.1 as a valid format, so it's not surprising that it won't play as 4.1 but will play as 5.1.  There are other allowable formats (like 2.1 and 3.0) that some audio drivers don't accept as well.

For best results you should set, in Output Format, Number of Channels to be the number of channels/speakers you actually have (example: 5.1), and then set Mixing to "no upmixing or downmixing".  This will resolve your problem with no ill effects.

You won't need to change this setting back when playing 2-channel audio, either. You don't have to worry about the center or surrounds for 2-channel music with this setting. Any channels not present in the source file will output silence.

The only time this setting will be an issue is if the source file actually has more channels than you physically have (like a 7.1 movie played to 5.1 speakers). For that, you need downmixing or the sound in the extra channels will be lost.

However you can get around any issues by using ZoneSwitch to automatically apply different DSP rules (like output format and mixing) based on things like the type of media and source number of channels.

Hope this helps...  Good luck.
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donlboy

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Re: 4.1 Surround
« Reply #8 on: June 27, 2020, 08:47:50 am »

Thanks, I will try that. I normally have had the Channels set to Source Number of Channels and the Mixing is grayed out so I never saw the option to not upmix/downmix.
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donlboy

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Re: 4.1 Surround
« Reply #9 on: June 27, 2020, 11:26:00 am »

Thanks much, that seems to do it! I say "seems" because although I tried many types, sources, formats, etc. and they all worked I will still be looking for situations that cause a problem.

I have not used ZoneSwitch before so I will try that for sources with 7.1 sound. I'm not familiar with MCs expression language so will have to research how to tell it to recognize 7.1 files and play them in the new zone. ZoneSwitch itself looks simple, just the expression will take some study. MC is so powerful!!!
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EnglishTiger

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Re: 4.1 Surround
« Reply #10 on: June 27, 2020, 12:03:55 pm »

Thanks much, that seems to do it! I say "seems" because although I tried many types, sources, formats, etc. and they all worked I will still be looking for situations that cause a problem.

I have not used ZoneSwitch before so I will try that for sources with 7.1 sound. I'm not familiar with MCs expression language so will have to research how to tell it to recognize 7.1 files and play them in the new zone. ZoneSwitch itself looks simple, just the expression will take some study. MC is so powerful!!!

To restrict any search etc. in MC to detect 7.1 tracks all you need is an expression which is looking for tracks where Channels = 8
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