5.1 WAV files... missing codec?

[easy2Bcheesy]

Speaking as a total newcomer to the wonders of generating 5.1 audio, I'd like thank ursamtl for the lovely VI plug-ins which I'm using with with Pogule Bidule.

I would like to generate a single six-channel WAV file which I can slot into an AVI file, which will then be transcoded into high definition WMV for an Xbox 360 project I am working on.

The only problem is that the WAVs generated by Bidule cannot be opened by Media Player.

I could encode into AC3, but it seems crazy to introduce two levels of audio compression into my project. Am I missing something really simple here?

[Niddhogg]

WMV HD does not support wav as audio, afaik.
You will have to encode to WMA-9 to be compliable to standard.

WMV-HD is not a newly developed codec, but merely an extension to the normal WMV-9 codec to support HDTV resolutions. WMV-HD conform videos feature a 5.1 surround soundtrack, which is encoded in WMA-9.

The most current version of the format is Windows Media Audio 9.1 which includes specific codecs for lossless, multi-channel surround sound and voice encoding in addition to the main lossy codec. Both constant and variable bit rate encoding are supported.

[easy2Bcheesy]

Yes, but the point is that the six-channel WAVs I am generating I cannot open - not with Media Player, and certainly not within the Media Encoder.

Any ideas on how to actually *listen* to the 5.1 WAVs I am generating? If DirectShow can open them, then presumably Windows Media Encoder can encode from them.

[Niddhogg]

:eek: Eek !!! You actually WANT to use Media Player ?
Hehe, sorry, my mistake. :rolleyes:

And can't help there, won't touch it with a 10 foot pole...

[easy2Bcheesy]

Well it would be helpful if DirectShow could read the files, that is the point I am making. The choice of which media player I would use to listen to them is pretty much irrelevant - the point being that if they play back from within Media Player or Media Player Classic or whatever, then the Windows Media Encoder will be able to encode them.

So the question remains is Pogule Bipule producing a bad output or do I need a specific codec to be able to listen to/encode six-channel WAVs?

[SeeMoreDigital]

I'm sure there are some audio filters that will allow you to play 6Ch WAV files

If install FFdshow and visit their "Audio Codec Configuration" settings, click on "Codecs" and then navigate down to "Uncompressed" and set it to "All Supported" you should be able to play 6Ch WAV's in MediaPlayer Classic....

I don't know whether it will work for WMP9/10 though.... If not you may have more luck installing and configuring AC3 Filter, which should show up in your filter chain...


Cheers

[easy2Bcheesy]

Beautiful! Yes, ffdshow does a wonderful job of playing the audio. Many thanks SeeMoreDigital :)

[bobcat56458]

I’ve also had problems with playing 6 channel wave files, and encoding them to DD5.1 AC3 files. I found this program called "dbpowerAMP Music Converter".
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm
Below are my notes on using it, you should give it a try:
“If you have a "Wave Format Extensible" audio file that is a 5.1 wave or a stereo wave file it will mess up other audio programs like Soft Encode. You will want to convert it to a "WaveFormat Header" audio file. This can be done by right clicking on the audio file and selecting the "Convert To" option there. In the dbpowerAMP program set it up using: Converting 1 File to “Wave” (In easy2Bcheesy’s case you could select “Windows Media Audio V9.1) then on the next line have “Bits as Source” selected & “48000Hz” & “6’5.1” for a audio file that is a 5.1 wave. When you press "Convert" you will open up another window where you can rename the file by pressing "F2" on you keyboard (if the file to be saved is in the same folder as the original file). You can also start the "dbpowerAMP Music Converter" program by selecting it in the Start menu. The program has a 30 day trial for converting to a MP3, but after that has expired it will still work with other types of audio files.”
Also there is a setting in Plogue Bidule located in “Edit’ then “Preferences” then “Disk I/O” that is called “use WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE:” have that set to “never” and you will create 6 channel wave files that you can play and encode with without having to use dbpowerAMP on them. Hope this works for you.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi BobCat,

I don't know whether this might be any use to you but you can also configure FFdshow to "transcode" 6Ch WAV (and other formats) to 6Ch AC3, in real-time.

I use this method quite a bit myself ;)

[easy2Bcheesy]

I can now playback the files but the Windows Media Encoder still thinks that it's unsuitable to use this audio to transcode into 5.1 WMV, or else it just crashes.

No idea what I can do about this really. I've tried the ffdshow on-the-fly filters, but it seems to make no difference whatsoever.

Any ideas?

[SeeMoreDigital]

I can now playback the files but the Windows Media Encoder still thinks that it's unsuitable to use this audio to transcode into 5.1 WMV, or else it just crashes. Hmmm!

I asked about transcoding 6Ch WMAPro to 6Ch AC3 myself some months ago.... And StephanV directed me to FFdshow.

I think the earlier FFdshow builds were more accommodating because I was able to play and correctly map my 6Ch WMAPro speaker test file (http://81.98.148.105/51_Test_Encodes/AV_Setup_Tests/WMA_6Ch_'Speaker_Test'.7z).

Have you tried AC3Filter?

[easy2Bcheesy]

bobcat: I turn off WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE completely in the Pogule Bidule program itself so it shouldn't be an issue here.

Just tried an episode of Desperate Housewives that's in DD5.1 and I'm getting the same errors.

Windows Media Encoder really is a piece of junk - unfortunately, Microsoft won't accept any Xbox 360 video encoded with any other tool.

SeeMoreDigital: AC3Filter tweaks allow me to encode Desperate Housewives but not my uncompressed WAV file!

[bobcat56458]

@SeeMoreDigital, Hi, are you actually encoding 5.1 AC3 to a file using ffshow, do you use GraphEdit to do this, and if so what does your filter chain look like? I have heard of people doing this, but I see no option in ffshow where you can specify where to write a file to.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I wonder.... would any of these command-line (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/utilities.aspx) utilities help you at all

By-the-way, I'm sure Windows Media Encoder is able to encode 6Ch AC3 streams directly to 6Ch WMAPro, without encoding to WAV first (although M$ does not like to shout this feature from the roof-tops) ;)


Cheers

[easy2Bcheesy]

Yes, the Desperate Housewives encoding shows it can go from AC3 to WMA, but I'm still stumped as to how to get a six channel WAV to work.

I think I'm going to have to render my AVI and the Desperate Housewives AVI through GraphEdit to see what is going on.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Yes, the Desperate Housewives encoding shows it can go from AC3 to WMA, but I'm still stumped as to how to get a six channel WAV to work.Why do you actually need the 6Ch WAV again?

EDIT: You could mux the 6Ch AC3 audio stream and the WMV9 video stream into the AVI container.

Or encode the 6Ch AC3 stream to 6Ch WMA9 Pro and mux this along with the WMV9 video stream (using the Stream Editor tool) into the WMV container.


Cheers

[tebasuna51]

@easy2Bcheesy
WaveWizard can convert any kind of wav files to the desired format 16/32 bit, int/float, WAVE_FORMAT_EXTENSIBLE or not.
You only need to know what format accept Media Encoder.

[SeeMoreDigital]

I think I'm going to have to render my AVI and the Desperate Housewives AVI through GraphEdit to see what is going on.Now I come to think about it I seem to remember having a similar conversation about this subject before...

When you play a 6Ch WMAPro file in MediaPlayer Classic using FFdshows filters it's possible to obtain a correctly mapped file. But when you try and do the same in GraphEdit, using the same filters, all you get is 2Ch audio :confused:


Cheers

[bobcat56458]

@ easy2Bcheesy have you given dBpowerAMP a try on your 6 channel wave file, re-encoding it to another 6 channel wave file and seeing if you could hear it with Windows Media Player? I just downloaded the 5.85MB WMA codec package from the dBpowerAMP website that is needed to encode to Windows Media Audio using dBpowerAmp. Using the “Codec” “Windows Media Audio 9.1 Professional” I encoded a 6 channel test wave file that had a voice speaking the 6 channels correct positioning one at a time, to a 5.1 WMA audio file. The channel order on my speakers was correct when I played back the 5.1 WMA file, so I know this works correctly. I know this does not solve your dilemma of not being able to hear your 6 channel wave file using Windows Media Player, but it does give you an option to get your 6 channel wave file converted to a 6 channel WMA file you can use with Windows Media Encoder without going through a AC3 conversion.

[ursamtl]

Speaking as a total newcomer to the wonders of generating 5.1 audio, I'd like thank ursamtl for the lovely VI plug-ins which I'm using with with Pogule Bidule.

I would like to generate a single six-channel WAV file which I can slot into an AVI file, which will then be transcoded into high definition WMV for an Xbox 360 project I am working on.

The only problem is that the WAVs generated by Bidule cannot be opened by Media Player.

I could encode into AC3, but it seems crazy to introduce two levels of audio compression into my project. Am I missing something really simple here?

Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you're enjoying V.I.

I use Bidule itself to playback 6-channel waves. Another option is Foobar 2000 with the outputs set to kernel streaming. I've also read that Foobar will playback in 6 channels using the Directsound output but I've found that on my system, it only works with the kernel streaming output. It will play both 6-channel wave files or AC3 files as well. As such, I find it's very useful for checking files before encoding.

Regards,
Steve.

[easy2Bcheesy]

bobcat: yes, thanks to your tips I now have a six-channel WMAPro file. Many thanks!!

I've also now managed to mux this separate WMAPro into my main WMV-HD file and create the required Microsoft-compliant files.

Many thanks to you all - another credit to the brilliance of the Doom9 membership :)

[bobcat56458]

@Easy2Bcheesy, I’ve never worked with 5.1 WMA 9.1 PRO audio, and a WMV 9 video only file, I usually work with XviD, & H.264 when doing a multichannel audio\video file. I decided to give it a try as a learning experience, so now I have a separate 5.1 WMA audio file, and a WMV video file. How did you go about muxing them into one WMV file? I tried using Windows Media Stream Editor a utility of Windows Media encoder that someone had mentioned in another thread to mux them. I would add both the video & audio files to the “Set up output audiences:” but I would receive this error when going to Create File “All audiences in the output tree must have the same content type”. I do not see an option in Windows Media Encoder to input separate audio & video files, then make a WMV file.

[easy2Bcheesy]

It's a bit difficult to describe. Go into the Help section of the Stream Editor and you'll find an example of how to add multiple audio channels to a single video. In our case you are simply adding an audio channel to a video that doesn't have one. Same principle though.

[bobcat56458]

I was finally able to get the WMA 9.1 PRO 5.1 audio file, and the WMV9 video only file to mux using Windows Media Stream Editor. My mistake was I was adding both audio & video files from the top of the tree instead of just putting a check mark on the bottom of the tree where it has a check box for "Audio", & "Video" then Add-> to the "Set up output audiences:". As a side note, you will want to use Windows Media Player to view the video\audio, I tried VLC media player and the 5.1 audio channel order was incorrect.

[SeeMoreDigital]

How well do you guys get on with the following WMV9 with 6Ch WMAPro in WMV (http://81.98.148.105/Uploaded_Files/Doom9_Forum_files/WMV9_with_6Ch_WMAPro_in_WMV.7z) speaker mapping test file?


Cheers

[bobcat56458]

@SeeMoreDigital, That WMV test file with WMA 9.1 PRO 5.1 audio bares out that VLC media player does not play WMA 9.1 PRO 5.1 audio with the correct channel mapping. My other media players that can play WMA 5.1 audio play it with the correct channel mapping. I never did receive a reply to my earlier post in this thread about ffshow's ability to write to a file, maybe you were speaking of it's ability to play a AC3 multichannel file?

[SeeMoreDigital]

I never did receive a reply to my earlier post in this thread about ffshow's ability to write to a file, maybe you were speaking of it's ability to play a AC3 multichannel file?I'm not sure what you mean!

All I can confirm to you is, when I play a 6Ch WMA Pro file in MPC (with FFdshow's filters) and "transcode" to AC3, the channels are correctly mapped.

However, when I try to do the same thing in GraphEdit (using the same filters), the channels are incorrectly mapped: -

http://img315.imageshack.us/img315/6548/wma9ffdshowge4so.png


EDIT: It may be worth confirming, that at the end of the day WMEncoder does not need to be fed with a 6Ch WAV stream or 6No mono WAV streams in order to generate 6Ch WMAPro streams. A 6Ch AC3 stream is perfectly acceptable too (which can be easily extracted from a suitable source).


Cheers

[bobcat56458]

I guess the word "transcode" had me thinking that you were speaking of using ffshow to write a DD5.1AC3 file from a 6 channel wave file. Now looking at the photo I see you were speaking of using ffshow to play the 6 channel wave file transcoding it on the fly to DD5.1 AC3 (or WMV with 5.1 audio) for playback (not writing to a file). Just a misunderstanding on my part.