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5.1 (Read 2003 times)
chrisbarry1313
5.1
Feb 3rd, 2010, 3:23pm  
Hi there,

Does anyone know if you can come out of your computer with audio and process that into 5.1 surround sound?

Chris
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antiplastik
Re: 5.1
Reply #1 - Feb 8th, 2010, 4:00am  
5.1 would require 6 outputs.
The sound libraries usually handle stereo (=2) inputs/outputs.

So I guess you can't.
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JayFlint
Re: 5.1
Reply #2 - Feb 8th, 2010, 12:12pm  
chrisbarry1313 wrote on Feb 3rd, 2010, 3:23pm:
Hi there,

Does anyone know if you can come out of your computer with audio and process that into 5.1 surround sound

Chris


I do not believe that this is possible, due to the fact that there is not enough information in the standard stereo signal to generate the 6 unique signals that are used in 5.1 surround sound. However, it is possible to go from surround sound to stereo, just not vice versa.
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Jayson Flint

Mobile Audio and Entertainment Specialist / Pick Up Lines
 
ez
Re: 5.1
Reply #3 - Feb 10th, 2010, 12:45pm  
cant you just do that with a sound card that supports 5.1?  I have an external one that does jus that.
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cspd
Re: 5.1
Reply #4 - Feb 11th, 2010, 10:46am  
I don't believe that's possible.
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Undertone
Re: 5.1
Reply #5 - Feb 21st, 2010, 10:44pm  
There's two approaches to 5.1 sound.  A digital encoding like dolby digital 5.1 is approach A, and discreet 6 channel output is approach B.

I have a 5.1 (6 discreet channels) on my PC audio card for surround sound.  I plug those 6 outputs into my reciever (Kenwood VR-517), and get surround sound out of my PC.  It works with games like World of Warcraft.  the card's drivers handle the positioning of sound.

wikipedia search for VIA_Envy to see the gear I have.  (Not enough posts yet to include links)

The other option, like dolby digital 5.1 is an encoded multichannel signal that can only be transmitted over an optical cable or digital cable (orange plug).

Regardless of which hardware path you have, I don't know how in processing you would output to either of these surround sound configurations.
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rrrufusss
Re: 5.1
Reply #6 - Mar 12th, 2010, 4:41pm  
The toxiclibs compilation has support for openAL which might work for you.  I wasn't able to get anything other than normal 2-channel stereo from them on my windows 7 computer.  When I try to use it the library it just says it's using a "default software mixer" or something instead of my actual 5.1 sound card.  Maybe you'll have better luck than I did, here's the link:

http://code.google.com/p/toxiclibs/downloads/list

The problem is that unless you can get the openAL stuff to work, there's no way to discreetly address the different outputs on your 5.1 sound hardware, Java just sees it as a single output.  The sound hardware is in charge of deciding how to mix the 5.1 based on the 3d audio API's.

I had a similar problem where I wanted to move a sound through physical space from speaker to speaker to create a custom surround-sound setup.  I ended up using a fancy multi-channel sound device (presonus FirePod) and just coding all the distance/position calculations and audio mixing myself (with the help of Minim).  I wish the openAL stuff would have worked because I'm sure it would be easier than what I had to come up with.
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