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xonar d2 & dolby PL II / 7.1

post #1 of 7
2/22/13 at 9:03am
Thread Starter 
I've spent countless months searching to try to find a solution to my unique problem and now i'm hoping starting a thread will help.

I am using an ASUS Xonar D2 soundcard hooked up to my receiver using analog 8 channel multi output. All 8 speakers would great in the windows tests, the surround sound is amazing in games, but i cannot get movies to work in 7.1. They always play in 5.1 regardless of input format or program used. For example, when I watch star wars ep3 (which is supposedly 6.1) in either VLC or MPC-HC i only get 5.1. I've tried all sorts of filters (ffdshow, etc) to try to get 7.1 via dolby prologic IIx, but it never makes a difference. The only way I can get 7.1 to play is using dolby PLIIx in the asus xonar audio driver panel and this only works for stereo input. Does anyone have a way to automatically upmix or surround fill any source material into 7.1?
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post #2 of 7
2/22/13 at 11:46am
I have yet to hook up my xonar ST to more than stereo. I just recently bought the daughter card to get the extra outputs, but yet to hook it up.

Have you set the audio channels and analog output to the right speaker setup in the asus software?

Analog out should be set to 7.1 and audio channels to 8. As far as I understand that's really all that should be needed.
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post #3 of 7
2/24/13 at 10:53am
For many external audio filters (useable by mpc) there are settings to force PLII/ 7.1. Also my preamp has those modes I could select if I wanted. Many sound cards will also have the ability to force some kind of upmixing.
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post #4 of 7
2/24/13 at 11:25am
Well if you are getting 7.1 in games and tests I can't imagine it has anything to do with your soundcard configuration. Sounds like it's working at that end.

You mentioned MPC-HD but without knowing if you disabled the internal filters or not it's hard to help. If you disable all internal filters and then use ffdshow, then there are options in ffdshow audio for setting up a custom matrix. You should be able to upmix your 5.1 to 7.1 from there. You can setup profiles to turn this on or off depending on the content.

Lots of receivers will also have options for upmixing, but you may need to use spdif passthrough to get the DTS signal to the receiver for that to work, so that the receiver knows it's 5.1 rather then just getting an LPCM 8 channel signal with 2 empty channels.
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post #5 of 7
2/25/13 at 8:32am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yrd View Post

I have yet to hook up my xonar ST to more than stereo. I just recently bought the daughter card to get the extra outputs, but yet to hook it up.

Have you set the audio channels and analog output to the right speaker setup in the asus software?

Analog out should be set to 7.1 and audio channels to 8. As far as I understand that's really all that should be needed.

in the asus software it is set to analog out 7.1 and number of audio channels to 8. As soon as I choose 8 audio channels, then the dolby prologic IIx option disappears (since it now assumes that all source material will be 8 channel)
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post #6 of 7
2/25/13 at 8:34am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ugly1 View Post

For many external audio filters (useable by mpc) there are settings to force PLII/ 7.1. Also my preamp has those modes I could select if I wanted. Many sound cards will also have the ability to force some kind of upmixing.

I tried to get ffdshow to do exactly this, but it doesnt seem to make any difference. I'd love to just do this on my pre-amp, but unfortunately when my pre-amp (HK AVR745) uses 8 Channel Direct Audio it does not allow for any pro logic up-mixing of any kind.. the input is just amplified to the output. My sound card has the abiltiy to force upmixing, but only if i manually open the software and specify the source material as being 2 channel.
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post #7 of 7
2/25/13 at 8:39am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by krimson View Post

Well if you are getting 7.1 in games and tests I can't imagine it has anything to do with your soundcard configuration. Sounds like it's working at that end.

You mentioned MPC-HD but without knowing if you disabled the internal filters or not it's hard to help. If you disable all internal filters and then use ffdshow, then there are options in ffdshow audio for setting up a custom matrix. You should be able to upmix your 5.1 to 7.1 from there. You can setup profiles to turn this on or off depending on the content.

Lots of receivers will also have options for upmixing, but you may need to use spdif passthrough to get the DTS signal to the receiver for that to work, so that the receiver knows it's 5.1 rather then just getting an LPCM 8 channel signal with 2 empty channels.

I followed a tutorial on this site and made sure to disable the internal filters. when installing ffdshow i specified 7.1 which created a matrix that matches my set-up. i'm still only getting 5.1 in movies after doing this.

you're right on the money about my receiver upmixing only through spdif passthrough, but this means i can only send it 5.1 via dts connect or ddl. That means when i'm playing DTS-MA 7.1 material i'm not getting the most out of it. For that matter, how do I know if my set-up is properly decoding/playing DTS-MA HD?
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