Only PowerDVD will play all six channels?

[Yupper3D]

Hi All,

I've been making DivX 5 movies by following the guide right here at Doom9.org. I have literally followed the guide step by step to create all my movies, I really don't monkey around with the setting that much. (I do select the 6ch audio track when ripping the DVD with robot4rip though).

I have a situation though... PowerDVD 4.0 Deluxe edition is the only player that I have that plays the movies in true 5.1 :(
(All six channels playing on their respective speakers; voice on the center channel, effects on surround speakers, etc. I have the analog creative 5.1 speakers BTW) All other players play the movie in stereo (two channels across four speakers/subwoofer, the center speaker is silent)

Of course, AC3filter was installed per the guide but, it does not seem to be used by any player because this is how the AC3filter config app looks while playing the movies:

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/enriquedelgado/snapshot.gif
The filter is not doing anything!

Shouldn't it look like this http://ac3filter.sourceforge.net/pic/main.gif ?


I've ran the config tool while using DivX player 2.1, BS player 0.86, WMP9 but the filter does not seem to be doing anything. I can still hear the movies even if I uninstall AC3filter (I even used regdrop to unregister the .ax file and all) LOL.

I've tried manually selecting the AC3 filter when using BSPlayer but again, something else is decoding the sound because the config tools shows no activity.
So basically, the DivX file was created correctly as PowerDVD is able to play it as it should but the rest of the players don't seem to be able to play the sound across all six speakers...

Has anyone seen anything like this before?

Thanks!
-Yupper.

[KpeX]

Well, you need to make sure you're activating the filter config from the player. This can't be done in all players, in BSPlayer, simply right click, properties, AC3 Filter. If another filter is conflicting, simply unregister it until AC3 filter is used for playback. Remember to set playback to 3+2.1 or s/pdif for 5.1 playback. hth,

[Yupper3D]

Well, I did a search for .ax files on my pc to see if there was an additional control (AC3 filter) that might be registered and in use but the only thing I could recognize as an audio filter was the control for AC3filter (I believe the file name is ac3filter.ax).

So, I re-registered ac3filter.ax just in case (though re-installing AC3filter will actually re-register the control automatically).

1) Would it be helpful to post a list of all .ax files in my pc in this thread?

2) Better yet, do you have a couple of key/values suggestions that I could search in regedit to possibly find the alien AC3 filter?

3) Don't you think it's funny that I can listen to divx movies without ac3filter installed?

"The truth is out there!" LOL

Thanks for your help :)

-Yupper3D

[melvinvc]

You can play the file with graphedit to see how many filters are involved in the reproduction.

[Yupper3D]

Thanks for the tip. This is how it looks:

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/enriquedelgado/images/snap2.jpg

As suspected, AC3Filter is nowhere to be found. Should I get rid of the MPEG Layer-3 Audio Filter? If so, how? I don't remember installing it so it must be part of somethnig else.. maybe Windows Media Player or Winamp.

I'll keep on trying. I'm not going to give up until I crack this case ;)

-Yupper3D

[KpeX]

The AVI file you have rendered does not appear to contain AC3 audio. The Mpeg-Layer 3 (also known as MP3) decoder shows that DirectShow thinks this is an MP3-containing avi. Inspect the file with GSpot to be sure.

[Yupper3D]

I think you are right. I guess I really make the movies using mp3's.
Check this out:

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/enriquedelgado/images/snapshot3.gif

It looks like it is a 2 channel mp3 DivX file yet, PowerDVD shows 6-channel signal and it plays it as such - I promess! Strange and creepy....

I guess my questions are:

1) Should my audio-ripping settings be something different than what I currently use? (see image for my typical settings in robot4rip):

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/enriquedelgado/images/snapshot4.gif

2) Am I nuts or is the DivX file really does contain a six-channel audio track?

3) Assuming the DivX file contains 6 channels of audio and since we are talking about mp3's now; Which filter should I be using to play all six channels in every day players like Windows Media Player, DivX PLayer 2.1 and BSPlayer?

Thanks!!

[KpeX]

1. Yes. I'm not familiar with R4R, but you're clearly set up to transcode your AC3 to MP3. You need to set this to keep the original AC3.

2. You're nuts ;). There's no such thing as 2-channel MP3. PowerDVD and/or your soundcard is faking 6-channel sound somehow. Could be a pro logic surround, which can be matrixed into a 2-channel format such as MP3. You're going to need to learn more about besweet and audio encoding to fully understand this.

3. MP3 doesn't ever have 6 channels. 6-channel discrete options that I know of are AC3, DTS, AAC 6ch, and Vorbis 6ch. If you want to playback over s/pdif you'll be limited to AC3 or DTS. hth,