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Info Wanted: Is there 5.1 surround sound on the Despecialized Editions? — Page 3

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That’s an interesting case. You can try it both ways and see what sounds better. I tried to make them sound listenable when downmixed, since I knew it would be inevitable that it would be heard that way in some cases. My assertion that the stereo mix is preferable for two-channel systems is more of a strong recommendation than an absolute “NO YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” sort of thing. 😉

The main issue when downmixing is that the rear channels contain crosstalk from the front, and are delayed in time compared to the front channels. Inevitably, this results in comb filtering due to not being time-aligned with the front when the channels are recombined into stereo again. I tried to minimize it, but couldn’t eliminate it completely. This will be most noticeable in the first movie, less so in the other two. If you don’t find this to be an issue, then playing the 5.1 on a 3.1 system would certainly still provide a benefit, since you’ll still get the dynamics and extra bass, just not the surroundy-ness. The stereo mix is rather less dynamic and doesn’t have much bass, so on a more powerful sound system it may seem somewhat muted in comparison.

In the next version (assuming again that I have time to do a next version), I’m hoping that this downmixing problem will be much less of an issue.

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Rebelscum said:

I have not dvelved as deep into the soundtracks as some of you have…

I haven’t even listened to the Blu ray soundtracks… as I haven’t bought those infernal things… but are they better than the DVD soundtracks in any way?

Unfortunately I have no skills in video/audio editing to complete that big of a task like joining the DVD/blu ray soundtracks with Harmy’s version… and editing out all the unwanted gimmicky bits on the soundtracks. Who know… maybe someone out there will do this…

So you are both ignorant and unwilling to do what is required to get what you want, you’ve criticized the incredible work that Hairy_Hen has done and you’re also asking OT members to create a custom soundtrack to match your preferred SW experience.

What an awesome contribution your thread has made to this community…

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hairy_hen said:

That’s an interesting case. You can try it both ways and see what sounds better. I tried to make them sound listenable when downmixed, since I knew it would be inevitable that it would be heard that way in some cases. My assertion that the stereo mix is preferable for two-channel systems is more of a strong recommendation than an absolute “NO YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” sort of thing. 😉

The main issue when downmixing is that the rear channels contain crosstalk from the front, and are delayed in time compared to the front channels. Inevitably, this results in comb filtering due to not being time-aligned with the front when the channels are recombined into stereo again. I tried to minimize it, but couldn’t eliminate it completely. This will be most noticeable in the first movie, less so in the other two. If you don’t find this to be an issue, then playing the 5.1 on a 3.1 system would certainly still provide a benefit, since you’ll still get the dynamics and extra bass, just not the surroundy-ness. The stereo mix is rather less dynamic and doesn’t have much bass, so on a more powerful sound system it may seem somewhat muted in comparison.

In the next version (assuming again that I have time to do a next version), I’m hoping that this downmixing problem will be much less of an issue.

Why are they time delayed? The time delay is supposed to be set in the playback hardware (either a specific time or calculated from the distance between speakers). It is supposed to be seamless whether it is matrix or discreet.

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^ That confuses me too. Many (software) upmixing profiles implement a 20ms delay and -3dB attenuation of the surrounds, which leaves me wondering how to configure hardware when playing back such an upmix and why the upmixing profile doesn’t leave it to the hardware to perform the adjustment in the first place.

hairy_hen said:
If you don’t find this to be an issue, then playing the 5.1 on a 3.1 system would certainly still provide a benefit, since you’ll still get the dynamics and extra bass, just not the surroundy-ness. The stereo mix is rather less dynamic and doesn’t have much bass, so on a more powerful sound system it may seem somewhat muted in comparison.

That’s what I found when I had a 3.1 setup for a while.

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The delay of the upmixed surround channels is separate from the delay set by the receiver to time-align the speakers. This is done deliberately by the Dolby process in order to take advantage of the Haas precedence effect.

Due to the way our hearing works, when we hear closely repeated versions of the same sound coming from multiple locations, we perceive it as only emanating from the direction of the closest source, providing the time delay between them is less than 40 milliseconds. Longer delays are perceived as discrete echoes, but for shorter delay values our ears/brain fuse them together and only use the more distant sources to give clues to the size of the space the sound is located in. We cannot distinctly hear identical events that are that closely spaced together. Dolby upmixers take advantage of the Haas effect by delaying the surround channels compared to the front, with a variable range from 15 to 35 milliseconds, so that the inevitable leakage of sound from the front into the rear channels will arrive at the listeners’ ears after the same sounds have already arrived from the front channels. This way it is less likely that crosstalk will influence the listener into believing that front channel cues have come from the surrounds, thus increasing immersion into the aural landscape of the film.

This system works very well when upmixing a matrixed stereo track into multiple channels. When the channels combine acoustically in the air, it sounds as it should. But when downmixing them again after this, which is never intended to happen, a hollow comb-filtered sound is hard to avoid. Shorter delay times, as I used for the first movie, sound rather worse than longer ones. The other two films are less bad in this regard because I set the surround delays longer, resulting in less phase cancellation and weirdness.

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Precisely whey the delay is for playback hardware only. If you don’t have the surround speakers, you don’t want the front sounds to have an echo. The 15-35 millisecond delay is for the hardware to handle. The surround channels shouldn’t have any delay built in unless you are going for an exaggerated delay effect. That has the added benefit of any crosstalk getting absorbed back into the front sound and not being noticeable. The only time the delay comes into effect is when the surround channels are sent to the speakers. The delay needs to be customizable to fit the playback space.

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True, the surround channel delay is supposed to be implemented by playback hardware only. And it is only supposed to happen during upmixing, not when playing 5.1 mixes.

In this case, the ‘hardware’ is the Dolby Media Decoder application that created the upmix. So for this scenario, it takes the place of the upmixer in the receiver, and the receiver only sees a 5.1 mix. It has no way of knowing that it originally came from a 2-channel source, and so will not apply any additional surround delay beyond what it is already doing to time-align the speakers. Thus when playing it back in 5.1 format, it will sound the same as if the receiver had done the upmix, aside from the addition of the LFE channel. (The LFE channel is, of course, the only reason for even bothering with making it 5.1 in the first place; if not for this, I would have distributed my edits in stereo and just let people upmix them in their receivers like they would anything else.)

So really the only part that is up to interpretation is how much surround delay should be applied in the Dolby software, since it gives full control over parameters which are normally hidden in most consumer equipment. I used longer delays in Empire and Jedi specifically to minimize the comb-filtering issue when the 5.1 is downmixed, since I knew I could not prevent people from doing this no matter how much I urged them not to. The only way to eliminate it completely would be to apply no surround delay at all, which is not an option in Prologic II movie mode or in the original Prologic. Only Prologic II music mode offers this option, but the lower channel separation in this mode is not ideal for film content. I could manually compensate for the delay in Pro Tools after recording the upmix, but then we’re back to the problem of crosstalk influencing the listener into thinking sounds that are front-panned are coming from the back of the room. Dolby specifically designed their movie upmixers to take advantage of the Haas effect, and since my 5.1 is an unusual case, I realized I had to follow their principles as well as I could while taking the differences into account.

Anyway, like I said, I believe I’ll be able to further reduce this in a subsequent version to the point that it will no longer be an issue, taking advantage of the audio engineering experience I’ve gained since then.

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hairy_hen said:

True, the surround channel delay is supposed to be implemented by playback hardware only. And it is only supposed to happen during upmixing, not when playing 5.1 mixes.

In this case, the ‘hardware’ is the Dolby Media Decoder application that created the upmix.

Ah, I believe that I understand now. The receiver applies the delay when upmixing, so whatever software performs the upmix has to do the same. What about the -3dB attentuation though? If that is “baked in” to a 5.1 mix, does setting the surrounds to -3dB on the receiver have an effect only when upmixing?

(The LFE channel is, of course, the only reason for even bothering with making it 5.1 in the first place; if not for this, I would have distributed my edits in stereo and just let people upmix them in their receivers like they would anything else.)

This statement surprises me a bit. If true, why not make a 2.1 track? I thought that the process that you use gives better results than a standard upmix performed by a receiver. Thanks for all the explanation by the way!

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Also, here’s a suggestion.

I think the audio tracks on the Despecialized DVD-5 versions should be the 2.0 mix instead of the 5.1 mix.

I think of the DVD-5 versions as budget versions for people without a Blu-ray player or a method of playing MKVs on their TV.

And there are still many people with only stereo speakers for their DVD player and that 5.1 downmixing results may vary, along with the fact that the Dolby Surround 2.0 mixes can be matrixed to 4.0 or 5.1 with Dolby Pro Logic (II) with good results.

I think a 448kbps Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround mix is ideal for the DVD-5 Despecialized Edition.

And I’ve loved every pixel of it.
(Clarissa Darling, Clarissa Explains It All)

You’re so right.
(Kylo Ren, Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

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^ Harmy and I tried that once (for similar reasons), and people were running the DVDs though DVD Shrink to get the 5.1 on. The 5.1 mixes on the DVDs stay. It’s a case of giving the people what they want. 😃

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Okay, that’s a good reason.

And I’ve loved every pixel of it.
(Clarissa Darling, Clarissa Explains It All)

You’re so right.
(Kylo Ren, Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

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Has anyone tried playing around with PLII and PLIIx as they not only are supposed to do a better decoding job but sound quite good reproducing single mono surrounds.
I was quite surprised when I added two rear speakers for 7.1 how well Dolby ProLogic decodes into a 7.1 setup.

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Actually, Dolby Pro Logic IIx is 6.1 surround sound.

And it may be better than using plain Dolby Pro Logic 4.0 or Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 as you said.

I think the Despecialized Editions should be in DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 Discrete in the next versions.

That would be really awesome.

I didn’t care much for 6.1 on the Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-rays but I absolutely loved the 6.1 surround sound effects on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and especially on The Studio Ghibli Collection.

Just turn on the Dolby Digital EX flag for the DVD-5 and AVCHD DVD-9 versions while the MKV version is a discrete DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 track.

Anyways, I think using the Dolby Pro Logic IIx 6.1 decoder will yield better results even for mono surrounds than Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 or Dolby Pro Logic 4.0.

And I’ve loved every pixel of it.
(Clarissa Darling, Clarissa Explains It All)

You’re so right.
(Kylo Ren, Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

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 (Edited)

Swift S. Lawliet said:

Actually, Dolby Pro Logic IIx is 6.1 surround sound.

And it may be better than using plain Dolby Pro Logic 4.0 or Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 as you said.

I think the Despecialized Editions should be in DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 Discrete in the next versions.

That would be really awesome.

I didn’t care much for 6.1 on the Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-rays but I absolutely loved the 6.1 surround sound effects on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and especially on The Studio Ghibli Collection.

Just turn on the Dolby Digital EX flag for the DVD-5 and AVCHD DVD-9 versions while the MKV version is a discrete DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 track.

Anyways, I think using the Dolby Pro Logic IIx 6.1 decoder will yield better results even for mono surrounds than Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 or Dolby Pro Logic 4.0.

You have to have the audio source to warrant it. The Pro Logic decoders can only decode what was encoded in the audio in the first place, they do not create the channels, they just decode them. So when you run the original 77 Star Wars Stereo mix through a 5.1 decoder, you only get 4 channels. Run it through a 6.1 or 7.1 decoder and you still only get 4 channels. But the decoder knows what to do with those channels.

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yotsuya said:

Swift S. Lawliet said:

Actually, Dolby Pro Logic IIx is 6.1 surround sound.

And it may be better than using plain Dolby Pro Logic 4.0 or Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 as you said.

I think the Despecialized Editions should be in DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 Discrete in the next versions.

That would be really awesome.

I didn’t care much for 6.1 on the Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-rays but I absolutely loved the 6.1 surround sound effects on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and especially on The Studio Ghibli Collection.

Just turn on the Dolby Digital EX flag for the DVD-5 and AVCHD DVD-9 versions while the MKV version is a discrete DTS-HD Master Audio 6.1 track.

Anyways, I think using the Dolby Pro Logic IIx 6.1 decoder will yield better results even for mono surrounds than Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 or Dolby Pro Logic 4.0.

You have to have the audio source to warrant it. The Pro Logic decoders can only decode what was encoded in the audio in the first place, they do not create the channels, they just decode them. So when you run the original 77 Star Wars Stereo mix through a 5.1 decoder, you only get 4 channels. Run it through a 6.1 or 7.1 decoder and you still only get 4 channels. But the decoder knows what to do with those channels.

I know that, but Dolby Pro Logic IIx 6.1 apparently has better quality at decoding than Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 or Dolby Pro Logic Surround 4.0.

Even if we only get 4 channels with Dolby Pro Logic IIx 6.1, the results will still be better than doing the same with Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 or plain Dolby Pro Logic 4.0.

And I’ve loved every pixel of it.
(Clarissa Darling, Clarissa Explains It All)

You’re so right.
(Kylo Ren, Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

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 (Edited)

Anyways, I think using the Dolby Pro Logic IIx 6.1 decoder will yield better results even for mono surrounds than Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 or Dolby Pro Logic 4.0.

Not necessarily. Decoders/upscalers decode to whatever output config you select.

The upscalers have NO KNOWLEDGE of the config of the source material, all they get is 2ch something. And they WILL upscale to any number of speakers you select.

DPL2x is 6.1 OR 7.1 (Again, whatever you select). DPL2x will (generally) NOT increase the discreteness of your upscale by a large amount, because there is only so much info you can store in (matrixed) 2ch (in fact, the most sortove discrete ch you can store in 2ch is 3ch with the best DPL2 decoding, you can only get more with extremely controlled synthetic conditions.). Using professional 5.1>7.1 upmixers, what’s in the back 4 is basically the same as the previous 2.

You can>: decode to 5.1 (DPL2) and mono the rears. OR decode to 4ch (DPL1) and stereoize the back.

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junh1024 said:

Anyways, I think using the Dolby Pro Logic IIx 6.1 decoder will yield better results even for mono surrounds than Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 or Dolby Pro Logic 4.0.

Not necessarily. Decoders/upscalers decode to whatever output config you select.

The upscalers have NO KNOWLEDGE of the config of the source material, all they get is 2ch something. And they WILL upscale to any number of speakers you select.

DPL2x is 6.1 OR 7.1 (Again, whatever you select). DPL2x will (generally) NOT increase the discreteness of your upscale by a large amount, because there is only so much info you can store in (matrixed) 2ch (in fact, the most sortove discrete ch you can store in 2ch is 3ch with the best DPL2 decoding, you can only get more with extremely controlled synthetic conditions.). Using professional 5.1>7.1 upmixers, what’s in the back 4 is basically the same as the previous 2.

You can>: decode to 5.1 (DPL2) and mono the rears. OR decode to 4ch (DPL1) and stereoize the back.

That is not quite correct. The original Dolby Stereo (the 4 channel matrix encoding) contains 4 distinct channels. Sounds can be directed to any channel. Using Dolby Prologic II decoding may produce 5 channels, but the two surround channels are identical if the source only had 4 channels. When Dolby updated their encoding in the 80’s, they found a way to encode stereo surround channels. Dolby Prologic II decoding produces 5 distinct channels. Now there may be some crosstalk between channels that interferes with the purity of the mix, but anyone who did a matrixed mix should be paying attention to how it comes out of the decoder and there should be nothing significant. And the way Dolby decided to encode the LFE was to use the surround channels below 120 Hz. That gives you the full 5.1 channels from a 2 channel source.

Now when you apply this to Star Wars, the sources for the 77 and 85 mixes are not complete. True they are only missing a few frames, but to avoid any issue between 4 and 5 channels is to create a 4.1 or 5.1 mix where you can down convert the stereo surround of the 93 mix (the most complete) to the mono of the 77 mix. But you can never upconvert that mono surround to be anything else. You can apply a stereo field effect to it, but all that does is broaden the sound (I’ve played with this quite a bit to make a mono song not feel so out of place among stereo songs). You are limited by the source and the decoder. Whichever uses the fewest channels is what you get for output. It doesn’t matter how many surround speakers you have, the sound will be the same.

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yotsuya said:

junh1024 said:

Anyways, I think using the Dolby Pro Logic IIx 6.1 decoder will yield better results even for mono surrounds than Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 or Dolby Pro Logic 4.0.

Not necessarily. Decoders/upscalers decode to whatever output config you select.

The upscalers have NO KNOWLEDGE of the config of the source material, all they get is 2ch something. And they WILL upscale to any number of speakers you select.

DPL2x is 6.1 OR 7.1 (Again, whatever you select). DPL2x will (generally) NOT increase the discreteness of your upscale by a large amount, because there is only so much info you can store in (matrixed) 2ch (in fact, the most sortove discrete ch you can store in 2ch is 3ch with the best DPL2 decoding, you can only get more with extremely controlled synthetic conditions.). Using professional 5.1>7.1 upmixers, what’s in the back 4 is basically the same as the previous 2.

You can>: decode to 5.1 (DPL2) and mono the rears. OR decode to 4ch (DPL1) and stereoize the back.

That is not quite correct. The original Dolby Stereo (the 4 channel matrix encoding) contains 4 distinct channels. Sounds can be directed to any channel. Using Dolby Prologic II decoding may produce 5 channels, but the two surround channels are identical if the source only had 4 channels. When Dolby updated their encoding in the 80’s, they found a way to encode stereo surround channels. Dolby Prologic II decoding produces 5 distinct channels. Now there may be some crosstalk between channels that interferes with the purity of the mix, but anyone who did a matrixed mix should be paying attention to how it comes out of the decoder and there should be nothing significant. And the way Dolby decided to encode the LFE was to use the surround channels below 120 Hz. That gives you the full 5.1 channels from a 2 channel source.

Now when you apply this to Star Wars, the sources for the 77 and 85 mixes are not complete. True they are only missing a few frames, but to avoid any issue between 4 and 5 channels is to create a 4.1 or 5.1 mix where you can down convert the stereo surround of the 93 mix (the most complete) to the mono of the 77 mix. But you can never upconvert that mono surround to be anything else. You can apply a stereo field effect to it, but all that does is broaden the sound (I’ve played with this quite a bit to make a mono song not feel so out of place among stereo songs). You are limited by the source and the decoder. Whichever uses the fewest channels is what you get for output. It doesn’t matter how many surround speakers you have, the sound will be the same.

Okay, thanks for the info.

And I’ve loved every pixel of it.
(Clarissa Darling, Clarissa Explains It All)

You’re so right.
(Kylo Ren, Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

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yotsuya said:

junh1024 said:

Anyways, I think using the Dolby Pro Logic IIx 6.1 decoder will yield better results even for mono surrounds than Dolby Pro Logic II 5.1 or Dolby Pro Logic 4.0.

Not necessarily. Decoders/upscalers decode to whatever output config you select.

The upscalers have NO KNOWLEDGE of the config of the source material, all they get is 2ch something. And they WILL upscale to any number of speakers you select.

DPL2x is 6.1 OR 7.1 (Again, whatever you select). DPL2x will (generally) NOT increase the discreteness of your upscale by a large amount, because there is only so much info you can store in (matrixed) 2ch (in fact, the most sortove discrete ch you can store in 2ch is 3ch with the best DPL2 decoding, you can only get more with extremely controlled synthetic conditions.). Using professional 5.1>7.1 upmixers, what’s in the back 4 is basically the same as the previous 2.

You can>: decode to 5.1 (DPL2) and mono the rears. OR decode to 4ch (DPL1) and stereoize the back.

That is not quite correct. The original Dolby Stereo (the 4 channel matrix encoding) contains 4 distinct channels. Sounds can be directed to any channel. Using Dolby Prologic II decoding may produce 5 channels, but the two surround channels are identical if the source only had 4 channels. When Dolby updated their encoding in the 80’s, they found a way to encode stereo surround channels. Dolby Prologic II decoding produces 5 distinct channels. Now there may be some crosstalk between channels that interferes with the purity of the mix, but anyone who did a matrixed mix should be paying attention to how it comes out of the decoder and there should be nothing significant. And the way Dolby decided to encode the LFE was to use the surround channels below 120 Hz. That gives you the full 5.1 channels from a 2 channel source.

Now when you apply this to Star Wars, the sources for the 77 and 85 mixes are not complete. True they are only missing a few frames, but to avoid any issue between 4 and 5 channels is to create a 4.1 or 5.1 mix where you can down convert the stereo surround of the 93 mix (the most complete) to the mono of the 77 mix. But you can never upconvert that mono surround to be anything else. You can apply a stereo field effect to it, but all that does is broaden the sound (I’ve played with this quite a bit to make a mono song not feel so out of place among stereo songs). You are limited by the source and the decoder. Whichever uses the fewest channels is what you get for output. It doesn’t matter how many surround speakers you have, the sound will be the same.

Okay, thanks for the info.

And I’ve loved every pixel of it.
(Clarissa Darling, Clarissa Explains It All)

You’re so right.
(Kylo Ren, Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

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Is there a way to take a 5.1 mix and decode & create separate audio tracks for voices, sound fx, and music?

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theMaestro said:

Is there a way to take a 5.1 mix and decode & create separate audio tracks for voices, sound fx, and music?

That all depends on how they are mixed together. I’ve found it usually easy to lift out music (often better preserved and separated in the surround tracks). But most of the time the rest of the sound mix is pretty jumbled and hard to separate.

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Alot of the time you can also get pretty clean dialogue by isolating the center channel and then manually silencing the parts where nobody is speaking. The center channel is usually mostly dialogue and the music in it is usual subdued enough that you could have a quick fade in and out and fool the ear, especially if you’re dropping it into another mix

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hairy_hen said:
My assertion that the stereo mix is preferable for two-channel systems is more of a strong recommendation than an absolute “NO YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” sort of thing. 😉
In the next version (assuming again that I have time to do a next version), I’m hoping that this downmixing problem will be much less of an issue.

If you’re upscaling to 5.1 just for the purpose of including the LFE, I wouldn’t bother as it’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth. Maybe mix in the LFE @ -10dB.

Or there’s a more elegant way of delivering stereo+LFE - direct bitstream configuration.

AC3 & DTSMA can support 2.1 natively, and encoders are readily available.

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Ahhh, but the difference in sound is amazing.

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junh1024 said:

If you’re upscaling to 5.1 just for the purpose of including the LFE, I wouldn’t bother as it’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth. Maybe mix in the LFE @ -10dB.

Or there’s a more elegant way of delivering stereo+LFE - direct bitstream configuration.

AC3 & DTSMA can support 2.1 natively, and encoders are readily available.

If you’ve actually heard what my 5.1 mixes sound like with the LFE, it’s unlikely you’d say it wasn’t worth it.

As for encoding in 2.1 format, I did try that a long time ago, but I won’t do it again. 2.1 is out of spec for AC3, and only non-Dolby encoders allow for this channel configuration. DTS does allow it, but receivers can be quite unreliable as to whether they’ll actually play it back properly. Some of them will, but others will treat it as a stereo signal only and ignore the .1 altogether. Upmixing to five channels and combining with LFE in order to create a standard 5.1 format was the only way I could reliably obtain both the surround audio and the enhanced bass response together in one mix.