[Newbie] 6wavs -> 5.1 ac3/ac3wav burns noise

[BKewl]

To make a test disc for 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound, I created 6 mono wavs using Tracktion. I then converted them to AC3WAV using BeSweet and HeadAc3he (using muxing; I've tried both programs with no luck), and burned the resulting wav to CD using Sonic RecordNow!, and the ac3 to DVD using Ulead BurnNow. I don't have Nero...is that a necessity for burning CDs/DVDs with 5.1 ac3 (DVD) or ac3wav (CD)? I would love to be able to do a 5.1 CD with just Windows Media Player, if possible.

16 bit, 44.1khz for CD
I believe 16 bit, 44.8khz for DVD

When I play either the CD or DVD in my DVD player in my home theater, all I get is noise.

Hardware:
DVD Player - Samsung DVD-P241 (seems to support Dolby Digital, though not sure about DD on CD)
Amp - Sony STR-DE898

When I play my generated ac3wavs through a certain pc software player (VLC maybe?), I some semblance of the original tracks (not sure if surround in intact, because my pc setup doesn't support that; but I don't just get noise, at least), but when I try to play them in Media Player after installing AC3Filter, I just get noise.

My amp shows it's just getting a (44.1 PCM for the CD) stereo signal from my burned disc(s), not Dolby Digital. I own a Flaming Lips DVD that sends down Dolby Digital just fine. My DVD player is going into my amp via optical coax.

From what I can tell, I did what these threads recommend, to no avail:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=88955
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=88354

I think my brain is going to explode! Does anyone have any ideas? Since DVDs are more expensive, I'd prefer an AC3WAV CD at least until I know my encoding processes are correct.

I've uploaded my test ac3wav, as created with HeadAc3he, if some kind soul would happen to try a burn test to see if it's my hardware. :D

http://webpages.charter.net/bud-cool/test.7z

I'm excited at the musical possibilities that 5.1 will open up!

[ursamtl]

Whenever I ran into this problem, it was always due to sample rate problems. CDs need 44.1kHz and DVDs 48kHz. You seem to have that, but perhaps the settings on your encoder don't match this. Double check everything and try a couple of test runs. The only other thing I can think of is the path from your DVD player to the amp. You didn't by any chance have it switched to analog when trying to play the surround CD, did you? I know with my home theatre, I can run both analog stereo outputs plus digital connections to my amp. If you tried to listen to a surround CD through the analog connection, you'll definitely get just noise.

Anyway, double check everything and see what happens. You're right, 5.1 opens up a lot of possibilities. Once I got this conversion thing down it was like the difference between listening to music from another room through an open doorway (stereo) or actually stepping into the middle of the room where the music is playing and enjoying it to the fullest (5.1 surround).

Regards,
Steve.

[BKewl]

:thanks: Woohoo! Thankfully, it was my hardware. There was some obscure "Digital audio input decoding priority" on my receiver (Sony STR-DE898) that I had to set to auto (it defaulted to PCM, so it couldn't play DTS-CDs). It's kind of silly that DD/DTS priority has to be set in multiple places, but I'm just glad I got it working.

Another happy customer!