No dolby digital for music

[dbldown768]

I am currently using SVN17375 that I compiled on 1/26/09. It appears that my music (mp3s) is not playing in dolby digital. All the movies work just fine. I have my audio configured to use dolby digital and AC3 output to all speakers. The output is just pro logic?

[spozen]

What?

I wasn't aware of any multichannel mp3s?

Please explain how this is possible. I know you can "upmix" stereo content with pro logic to get fake multichannel audio.

[mpw222]

You wouldn't want Dolby Digital for your MP3's anyway. Plain Dolby Digital (not TrueHD) is a lossy format, just like MP3. To get MP3s to play in DD, they would need to be decoded from MP3 then re-encoded in DD then decoded again by your receiver, which would cause a loss in quality. What you want is for things already in DD (like a DVD) to pass the audio straight to the receiver, but for things in Stereo (like MP3s) to be decoded to lossless 2 channel PCM and sent to your receiver. You probably don't want to use Pro-Logic (which expands a 2 channel source to 5.1) on MP3's because that will distort things, you should put your receiver in plain Stereo mode for music. Pro-Logic works pretty well for movies in 2 channels.

[theophile]

I am currently using SVN17375 that I compiled on 1/26/09. It appears that my music (mp3s) is not playing in dolby digital. All the movies work just fine. I have my audio configured to use dolby digital and AC3 output to all speakers. The output is just pro logic?

That's normal. MP3 is, by definition, not Dolby Digital.

[dbldown768]

if i remember correctly, my old xbox used to still play any audio files in dolby digitial? Maybe i'm wrong, but I can turn it on and check...

[spozen]

Yeah, i always think that music in Pro logic II suck, but movies sounds really good. However there are people out there how uses pro logic to music aswell, maybe it has something to do with how good the receiver is. I have an old NAD T743 with two pro logic modes: one for music and one for movies.

Try some DTS music, pure multichannel.

[Matt Devo]

if i remember correctly, my old xbox used to still play any audio files in dolby digitial? Maybe i'm wrong, but I can turn it on and check...

the xbox had built-in hardware realtime DD-encoding, XBMC on any other platform does not. So using digital out (SPDIF or HDMI), you'll get 2-ch PCM when playing back MP3s

[althekiller]

There's no FLOSS DTS encoder so don't hold your breath for that. AC3 is possible though, might even be doable through a crafty asoundrc file now.