Is 5.1 surround sound possible with SVCD

[wackynige]

I have read in the forums that SVCD does not suport Dolby Digital. can anyone confirm if they have made a SVCD that there home cinema recognises as dolby digital. this is driving me nuts. i have read that the only way is to use a program that is only available in linux.

If anyone has a method of doing craeting a SVCD with dolby Digital, please let me know.

Nigel

[adam]

Dolby Digital is not possible with SVCD.

The only way to preserve the 5.1 audio channels is to use multichannel mpeg audio but you don't have to use linux to encode this. Philips released some software which can do it. You can find it in the DVD2SVCD files and DVD2SVCD can even export a SVCD with multichannel mpeg audio but the problem is that almost no hardware will support it. You have to first have a Philips dvd player, and even then not every one may work. Also your audio decoder has to have specific support for multichannel mpeg audio.

Realistically the best audio your going to get in a vcd or svcd is a dolby surround downmixed stereo track which can be played in dolby surround or prologic. Actually the newest version of BeSweet (gui for azid + ssrc + toolame) can do prologic 2 encoding which is probably better than dolby digital for svcds anyway because DD would require so much more bitrate.

[ViperXT]

First of all Dolby Digital 5.1 does not have a terribly high bitrate. DD 5.1 can achieve good results with only 384 kb/s. I wonder if there is a way to hide Dolby Digital in an MPEG layer II file. That way you could trick your player into outputting the Dolby Digital bitstream to your receiver. Also one more option is to check out information in the topic labeled "Where Can I find an Dolby Digital 5.1 test file" about making Dolby 5.1 cds. So if you had two players you could get one to do the audio and one to do the video. Although synchronizing could be tricky.

[Martyn1980]

interesting idea Viper but a lot of hassle, and hardly worth it, it would be easier to buy a Phillips DVD player and an amp which supported Multichannel Mpeg, i saw one a year ago, but i never knew what it was then.

But as you say a lot of DVD's are only 384k, and they sound great, so space isnt that important, what i was thinking is if your DVD player supported mini-DVD's the couldn't you burn your SVCD as a mini DVD, if you kept the same video bitrate you normally used, use CVD or full DVD resolution and multiplexed the video with the ac3 file and burned it as a DVD using some sort of DVD authoring software, i know nothing of DVD authoring so this is only guesswork, but does someone who does know think this would be possible.

[vitualis]

First of all Dolby Digital 5.1 does not have a terribly high bitrate. DD 5.1 can achieve good results with only 384 kb/s. I wonder if there is a way to hide Dolby Digital in an MPEG layer II file.

No you cannot.

Dolby Digital requires a PCM data stream for integrity (which is why you can do it on an audio CD -- the audio is in PCM).

The Dolby Digital signal will definitely not survive MPEG compression.

As an analogy, consider the DD signal to be a text file or Word document. Translate the bits of the file into a bitmap and apply JPEG compression.

Do you think that the text file or Word document will have any integrity when you de-JPEG it?

Regards.

[Phat J]

isnt a dolby digital file compressed to AC3? so what if u took your AC3 file and renamed it to mp2, and muxed it with your MPEG-1 or 2 video file?
would some dvd players be tricked by that?

[adam]

You don't have to rename the Ac3 file, bbmpeg and maybe TMPGenc can multiplex it with your video no problem. What is a problem is that probably no dvd player would be able to properly playback the audio in one of these XSVCDS. Its just so non-standard, lots of people have tried with no success. I seriously doubt you would be able to get this to work on any dvd player.

[SatStorm]

There are reports that lots european DVD standalone players, gonna play a mpeg 2 audio file as Left - center - Right audio, without Back R and Back L.
My cyberhome 212M, plays mpeg 2 audio on SVCD/CVDs that way.

[ralfbeckers]

Jeez, I think that adam gave the only post really leading to something. Like he said if you find a transcoder from AC-3 to MPEG Layer II multi channel audio you are in business. Unfortunately I have no such transcoder. Just mux the mp2 with the video, done.
Output: Every player that can output MPII LtRt can output MPII multi channel. This is just like DTS and DTS-ES discrete. MPII multi channel is an extension of MPII stereo. (Proof: Even in the multi channel mode the left and right channel are still LtRt.)
Anyhow, to fully appreciate your discrete multichannel SVCD you will have to use a decoder that reads the extra channels, otherwise you are stuck with matrix surround. I know that a lot of Phillips and Marantz receivers do MPII multi channel. So does the Sony EP-90ES and the TA-E9000ES.
Keep swinging, boys.
Ralf

[wackynige]

thanks for that but can you put it in laymens terms. too much tech info for me to get my head arround. what is MP11

[vitualis]

As in MPEG-2 audio.

The further issue is that even if you have a DVD player that can pass on multichannel MPEG-2 audio as a bitstream to a digital receiver that can decode MC-MPEG-2 audio, this is usually only the case for DVDs.

The player will still have to do the same for SVCD for it to work.

Regards.

[ralfbeckers]

thanks for that but can you put it in laymens terms. too much tech info for me to get my head arround. what is MP11

No, not MPeleven but MPtwo as in the Roman numeral II (capital letter i). It describes layer II audio as opposed to layer I.

BTW: I just DID playback MPEG 5.1 from an SVCD! Will get back later.

Ralf

[Clive Loseby]

BTW: I just DID playback MPEG 5.1 from an SVCD! Will get back later.

Ralf

Hi chaps, been following this because I'm trying to do the same at home. It's been a bit of a nightmare, to say the least!

My reasons are quite simple, I'm a (broke) TV & Film Composer and I've just started getting into surround sound. So far, I have a 5.1 monitoring enviroment for mixing. I am able to mix this down to a dobly digital wav file for burning on a CD. I can play this on my DVD player (in the same room) and get it decoded correctly.

I've tried every combination I can think of, in terms of getting this sound-track onto a SVCD but no joy. I would be fascinated to hear what you did?

Although I've been into computers for 20 years, this surround stuff is new to me and I've been drowning in technical information, although I think I understand it a bit better now.

On the gear front, I've got a Phillips DVD-R in the lounge and an Alba DVD108m in my studio. Both will play back my SVCD images no problem. Both will correctly decode my Dolby Digital wav file, if I just write it as an audio track on a rw disc. My Phillips even recognises the SVCD as a 5.1 mpg but doesn't appear to play the track. Most odd...............

[Clive Loseby]

Sorry, I should have made it a bit clearer: I can happily encode a wav file in both Dolby Digital and DTS formats and play both tracks on an audio CD, on both the Alba DVD player *and* the Phillips DVDR. It doesn't matter which order they're in - both of my surround amps switch happily on a track-by-track basis.

I can also create a SVCD (with an "ordinary" audio track") which will again play on both machines (had to use the "Menu - 1" bodge on the Alba remote to force it to recognise the SVCD).

So, I can't help wondering whether if it is possible to do both ie SVCD & DTS or Dolby D? To be honest, I don't care whether it's a bodge or not, as long as it works - even if it only works on my systems! ))

[ralfbeckers]

Damn, I just wrote a reply of two pages and after I clicked on submit, it asked me to re-enter my login and then all the text was gone. S-H-I-T.

OK, in short: You can not use AC-3 or dts on SVCD, only MPEG 1 Layer II audio.
You will need an outboard decoder (preamplifier, home theatre controller, receiver) that can handle MPEG multichannel. Any DVD player than can pass any type of MPEG audio to its digital output shoud suffice.

Use the DVD2SVCD program with CCE as instructed on the respective page. There are guides, too. Defeat sample rate conversion and choose 384kbps audio data rate. Both DVD2SVCD and NERO will complain about this standard deviation but continue anyway. Make sure you have tons of harddisc space, preferably two separate drives for the O/S and the output directory.

Enjoy!

Ralf

[adam]

You will need an outboard decoder (preamplifier, home theatre controller, receiver) that can handle MPEG multichannel. Any DVD player than can pass any type of MPEG audio to its digital output shoud suffice.

This is not true. Multichannel mpeg audio in a SVCD is not the same as multichannel mpeg audio in a DVD. Unless your dvd player specifially supports SVCD multichannel mpeg audio than it will simply send a stereo signal to your reciever. To the best of my knowledge the only brand of dvd player which correctly exports SVCD multichannel mpeg audio is Philips. There is a huge thread on www.doom9.net on this and after a lot of people testing different hardware combinations the consensus seems pretty simple...

In order to use multichannel mpeg audio you must have a Philips dvd player. You must have a reciever that specifically supports multichannel mpeg audio. If either of these do not apply to you then you are stuck with Dolby Surround, Prologic, or Prologic II depending on your decoder.

[ralfbeckers]

Adam, this is interesting news and I wonder why it should matter to any DVD player whether the MPEG Audio is comming from a DVD or SVCD. As an analogy: it doesn't matter to a DVD player if PCM is comming from (one of the few music) DVDs or CDs.

Anyway, I don't own a Philips player (and hope I never will). My obeservations where made with the equipment I described in my earlier post. I'm using a Digatron Mini-2001 player right now and it doesn't seem to bother if the audio is Layer I, II, or III. It also plays 48kHz and, like I said, it passes MPII MC nicely to the Sony E9000 pre. Perhaps the capability of a player to pass through MPII MC should be made a feature in the data base here?

I will try to verify my observations on different machines but given the lack of MPII MC decoders I will have to do all the tests in my home.

[adam]

Well I can certainly see why it would matter, there are some fundamental differences, the file format for one, ex: AC3 vs mp2. Like I said, to the best of my knowledge Philips dvd players are the only hardware players that can correctly export mc mpeg audio in a SVCD. Perhaps you have found another player that can also do this but it is certainly not a given that any DVD player capable of exporting mc mpeg audio in a dvd must necessarily also be able to do the same for a SVCD. In fact this is virtually never the case.

Are you positive that you are actually getting the full descrete channels and not just the Prologic decoding? The only way to know for sure is to use a test sample with obviously descrete channels, such as one that says "left front speaker," "right front speaker," and so on. Sorry to be so pessimistic but frankly I doubt you are actually getting true mc mpeg audio 5.1 sound on your non Philips dvd player. The only reason I say so is because I don't think anyone else has ever been able to do it.

[ralfbeckers]

Are you positive that you are actually getting the full descrete channels and not just the Prologic decoding? The only way to know for sure is to use a test sample with obviously descrete channels, such as one that says "left front speaker," "right front speaker," and so on. Sorry to be so pessimistic but frankly I doubt you are actually getting true mc mpeg audio 5.1 sound on your non Philips dvd player. The only reason I say so is because I don't think anyone else has ever been able to do it.

I am as positive as Freddy Mercury. Even if I was a total newbie or deaf fool I could not irgnore the fact that my Sony E9000ES with 2.01 firmware does in plain English tell me that it decodes an MPEG AUDIO [2/3] multichannel stream at 48kHz. I admit that the Sony does have excellent DPL decoding that could fool the untrained listener into believing that any properly recorded DPL sound track is discrete, especially since Sony added the surround decorelation feature but trust me: The combination of DVD2SVCD + CCE + Digatron Mini-2001 + Sony E9000ES will give you the extreme pleassure of 5.1 MPEG multi channel audio. (I used Carpenter's Vampires and 15 Minutes. These movies take full advantage of the discrete mix.)

I can only encourage you all to make your own experiments once you have secured that your preamp/processor/decoder handles MPII MC. It's perfectly OK that you are sceptical Adam because there is a lot of half knowledge around on this. I am sorry to hear that most DVD players out there won't output MPII MC but as promised I will try to get my hands on some other players. It is my opinion (sic!) that at least all China engineered players should (must?) support all the possibilities that SVCD has to offer since the format was/is backed by the Chinese gov. This would include subs, 5.1, and a second audio track.

BTW: It seems to very important to use a high quality coaxial cable with the proper impedance of 75 Ohms like RG69. While it is always a good idea to use good cables I found on various other occassions that not all digital connections are created equal. Poor or cheap cables (especially optical ones) will seriously degrade the reliability and fidelity of the audio. When I use a 50 Ohm RG58 cable I get VERY BRIEF audio dropouts onee a minute. The disc itself is burnt at 4x on a 8x TEAC SCSI writer for safety.

One practical piece of advice for working with DVD2SVCD. Since I find it neccessary to use the highest audio data rate of 384 kbps available for encoding if not just for the sake of matching the AC-3 data rate the program may sometimes create muxed MPG files that are just slightly larger than what fits on the disc. I found this extremely annoying and so I tell it to use three 650 MB discs instead and actually burn on 700 MB discs. Then there is enough headroom. Both DVD2SVCD and NERO will be bitching about this but just ignore.

To put the dot on the "i" i tried to encode the director's commentary on the second audio track at the lowest data rate. While my Digatorn player would allown me to select the second track, I only got silence. Since I was already quite intoxicated when I got to play the disc I have not paid attention to the read out of the Sony pre but I will do this tonight (before the beer) and tell you more tomorrow. :P Maybe the data rate was just too low for the Sony? BTW has anyone ever used the second audio track feature on SVCD????

Oh yeah: If one of you wants me to mail a 5.1 SVCD to him or her for testing, let me know. I will not send you a full movie, just one disc!! I accept paypal.

Kick ass!

[adam]

ralfbeckers as I said, its possible you have found another dvd player which correctly exports mc mpeg audio on a svcd, and of course this is good news.

However, from the multitude of tests done on doom9's site it is blatantly obvious that it is not a given that any SVCD compliant dvd player, Chinese made or otherwise must necessarily support mc mpeg audio in a SVCD. It does not matter that the SVCD format was backed by China because that same format underwent IEC specification and is now a worldwise standard. Any rule regarding what a Chinese engineered SVCD compatible dvd player must play is the same for any other dvd player enginereed outside of China, its all the same standard. The distinction is that some aspects of the SVCD standard are required, ex: resolution, bitrate limits, etc..., while others are entirely optional such as overlay subtitle support and 5.1 MC audio. Since MC mpeg audio is NOT required for SVCD compliance, not all SVCD compatible dvd players are required to support it, and in fact almost none do. This fact is even more apparant with overlay subs. The SVCD standard supports it, and all dvd players support it in dvds, but most SVCD compatible dvd players do not support it in SVCD. Support for it is entirely at the discretion of the manufacturer. Mc mpeg audio for SVCD is even less supported as the format just never really took off, even in China. Virtually no hardware manufacturers supported the format except Philips which invented it.

I think you misunderstood my previous post. MC mpeg audio is backward compatible with Prologic. Even if your decoder is set to and displays that it is decoding MC mpeg audio, if the dvd player does not correctly export the signal than you will still only get prologic, or in some cases the rear channels will be silent, but in either case you are not getting 5.1 channels.

No offense but I do not even trust my own ears. Just because you get audio from each speaker or just because the audio just sounds too good to be DPL that doesn't mean its true 5.1 MC mpeg audio. I stand by my statement that the only way to truly test that you have the full 5.1 descrete signals is by using an obviously recognizable audio test file, such as one that states, "right front speaker," "left front speaker" etc... There are such test files in the thread I mentioned on www.doom9.net. Sorry, I just can't help being skeptical, there's just been too much testing done on this matter to accept an objective conclusion based on subjective listening tests. I'm sure your ears are better than mine, but thats still not an accurate test.

For the sake of thoroughness would you mind downloading a sample from the aforementioned thread and testing it on your hardware to confirm proper 5.1 decoding? And if your hardware does in fact support this then by all means post this information in the doom9 thread, because I can assure you that if your non-Philips dvd player does export 5.1 mc mpeg audio in a SVCD than you are the ONLY person yet to do this.

[adam]

BTW has anyone ever used the second audio track feature on SVCD????

Yes I use it in almost every encode I make to add the director's commentary, though I typically don't bother using a high bitrate for this track. Also you may be interested in using 1 stereo track and 2 mono tracks in cases where there are two commentary tracks. In my opinion a commentary track doesnt really need to be in stereo, its just a guy talkin' into a mike.

The only way I found to implement 1 stereo + 2 mono tracks is by multiplexing in TMPGenc, and I'm not certain that all dvd players will properly play these, though my apex has no problem. I can toggle between each of the 3 audio tracks. I'm sure I could also use 4 mono tracks if I wanted to but I don't have any need to.

As for two stereo tracks simply multiplex in TMPGenc or BBmpeg and I believe all SVCD compatible dvd players will properly play these back.

[ViperXT]

The only way I found to implement 1 stereo + 2 mono tracks is by multiplexing in TMPGenc, and I'm not certain that all dvd players will properly play these, though my apex has no problem. I can toggle between each of the 3 audio tracks. I'm sure I could also use 4 mono tracks if I wanted to but I don't have any need to.

Instead of having 2 mono tracks you could make one dual mono track If your receiver can let you select the channel you want to hear.

[zolg]

BTW has anyone ever used the second audio track feature on SVCD????

Did any one tried to use WAV files prepared by SurCode CD Pro (www.minnetonkaaudio.com).
I recorded the demo file they offer - it's working fine on my JVC and gives me DTS signal.
There is a tool as well to create all 6 channels semi-automatic which are used as input files for SurCODE.
Idea is to use this WAV as audio file in TMPGEnc.
My Yamaha gives me "surround" by DSP use, which is not DTS of course.
Appreciate your ideas.

[adam]

You can make 5.1 DD and DTS audio cds but that has nothing to do with vcds or svcds. Both of these standards require mpeg audio, you cannot multiplex an mpeg1 or mpeg2 video stream with a wav file and play it on your dvd player.

If you use a wav file of any kind as a source in TMPGenc then it will simply encode it to mp2 and the additional channels will be lost. Your suggestion is similar to how multichannel mpeg audio is made except it can only be done with specific software. As has been stated before, unless your hardware has specific support for multichannel mpeg audio in a SVCD than all you can get with vcd or svcd is 2 channel stereo sound which can be decoded to dolby surround, DPL, or DPL II.

[ralfbeckers]

I tried to play one of my MPII MC SVCDs on a Sony DVP-900QS yesterday. As you know, the Sony has internal decoders for AC-3, dts, MPI, and DSD and obviously for MPII since it plays SVCDs. So I was excited to test if Sony MPII decoder implementation includes the MC configuration.
Unfortunately, the analog multi channel output from the Sony delivered only a stereo signal, there was no sound from C, LS, RS, or LFE. The Sony can perform internal Dolby Prologic processing on this signal if one so desires.
The really interesting part was its digital output. Even with the MPEG to PCM conversion feature disabeled it would output stereo PCM to the preamp. Repeat: The player apparently gets so irritated by the multi channel signal that it not only forgets to at least output the Lt Rt signal in native MPEG but rather transforms it to PCM despite the fact that you tell it in its audio set up menu that MPEG should be outpuzt as MPEG. The PCM is at 44.1 kHz fs which is also strange since I author my SVCDs in 48kHz.
So Adam ist right: Digital output of MPII MC appears to be a rarity with popular DVD players.
I find this to be sad news for all of us because it puts us in a moral delimma: Since MPII MC is fully backwards compatible to MPII stereo it would make sense to author all SVCDs in MPII MC to appreciate multi channel surround sound whenever possible. But 5.1 requires much more than double the stereo data rate to provide the audio fidelity we are looking for so that the audio data rate eats into the total available bit budget. Since we want to keep our movies on no more than two or three discs we have to work with average video data rates that do not approach 3000kbps. In that arena having 200kbps more or less to spend on video can make a difference.

[ralfbeckers]

I think you misunderstood my previous post. MC mpeg audio is backward compatible with Prologic. Even if your decoder is set to and displays that it is decoding MC mpeg audio, if the dvd player does not correctly export the signal than you will still only get prologic, or in some cases the rear channels will be silent, but in either case you are not getting 5.1 channels.

For the sake of thoroughness would you mind downloading a sample from the aforementioned thread and testing it on your hardware to confirm proper 5.1 decoding?

Dear Adam, regarding your first paragraph: Why should any decoder display that it is decoding MC if it is not fed a MC signal? I know there is a lot of idiosyncratic receivers out there that may or may not give illogical read outs with all sorts of MC or LtRt signals. I am also aware that decoders will automatically apply DPL decoding to a stereo signal (any format) when this is not specifically defeated deep in the receiver's set up. However, the E9000ES is not a Yamaha or Pioneer receiver, no offense, but a tool rather than just another piece of CE equipment. It has a neat feature called Auto Format Decoding that when engaged will decode and output any incomming signal in its native mode without any matrix or spatial processing involved. I use it all the time, especially on dtc music CDs and all modern movie sound tracks. (I do occasionally use one of the DSP modes to beef up the matrixed surround sound from non-AC-3 LaserDiscs.) So back to the Auto Format Decoding mode of my pre. In that mode it well explicitly tell you on its dot-matrix scrollable display what format you hear (PCM, AC-3, dts, MPEG1 or 2), the internal sampling frequency of the stream (not to mistasken with the pre's internal fs when handling analog signals which is 48kHz), the channel configuration (e.g. [2/0] for stereo or [3/2] for 5.1] along with the speaker icons, the type of audio stream (e.g. DAT Product, DVD, CD, or unknown). Even if an AC-3 2.0 signal with LtRt flags is listened to in that mode DPL decoding is not applied. So I am quite sure about what I said. If I wasn't I wouldn't dare to waste your time with this. Here is a nice link to this fine preamplifier http://home.online.no/~espen-b/ta-e9000es/index.html
This is it's US home page: http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/consumer/ss5/home/homeaudioes/espre-amplifiers/ta-e9000es_specs.shtml
There is also a German page at www.sony.de but you have search for the amp manually in the product overview section. There it is also specifically mentioned that it support MPII MC.
The Digatron player's homepage is www.digatron-me.de. It is in German but there is an English brochure in the download section. (Yes, I do work for that comapny.)

As to your second paragraph I will try to follow your suggestion. Please remember that I used the all.in.one DVD2SVCD package to create my discs. An almost fool proof process I must say. I truly wonder why the doom9 people get so agitated about the procedure with all kinds of different programs. Anyway, I downloaded an MPA file from doom9 that is supposed to contain a voice telling you the channels. Now I will have to find a program to manually mux this, I believe the DVD2SVCD package uses CCE and I should be able to run the prog separately from the subdirectories.

I think you have the right and as a moderator the obligation to be sceptical about my claims. But even when I will tell you that the test above went OK you are still invited to listen to it yourself in my home if you don't mind comming to Belgium. :P Alternatively, I am willing to mail a disc (not a complete movie) to anyone if they pay for the postage. If you need a player, you know where to go, too.

[adam]

ralfbeckers, sorry I don't think I was clear on that matter. My reciever says it supports mc mpeg audio and if I set it to that option than that is what it displays regardless of what audio source I feed it. My Apex dvd player definitely doesnt export MC audio in a SVCD, so when I play such a svcd and have my reciever set to MC audio decoding I still only get DPL, despite what the display says. This is what I was trying to get at.

You never mentioned that your reciever was working in an automatic detection sort of mode. This may be different and that may prove that you are in fact getting true MC mpeg audio but since my reciever does not support this and I don't know the intricaces of how such a reciever determines the nature of its source, I can't comment on this matter. Again, its possible you just found another dvd player which supports exporting MC mpeg audio and I hope this is the case, but I still think you need a proper hearing test to prove this since you can never trust implicitly what any hardware tells you.

Let me know the results of the test sample as I am genuinely interested, and if I'm ever in Belgium I'll look you up.

As far as the moral delema of MC mpeg audio in a SVCD, I don't think it exists. The extra bitrate needed is just too valuable to be used, "just in case," only because the actual hardware support is so incredibly limited. Unless your hardware actually supports the format there isn't much reason to use it, because %99 of your neighbor's can't use it either. Also since DPL II exists now it makes much more sense to just use that, "just in case," since you still get multichannel audio without the need for removing bitrate from your video.

If it comes down to deciding whether to buy a DPL II capabable reciever or a MC mpeg audio capable reciever for use in playing your SVCDS, I think think the best decision is clear.

[ralfbeckers]

Dear Adam,

Regarding your fist two paragrahps above: By default the Sony EP-9000ES is in an autodetect mode. This where I leave it and expect for pathological cases there should be no need to change it from the Auto mode to any specific format, not even with dtc music CDs. Sorry I forgot to mention this but I thought it was obvious that by default all decoders are in Auto mode. Even if decoders in general had to be switched to the respective input standard, there would be no need or way to adjust the channel configuration as this is done by toggeling speaker vectors on and off.

Anyhow, I did some more ripping and burning with my very own Metallica Cunning Stunts DVD (did anyone ever notice the PUN in the title?). This is a fantastic live concert that is mixed the way it should be, not like a Pink Floyd concert or the infamous Eagles Hell Freezes Over dts mix where you have instruments in the rear. Instead, the Metallica recording has plain ambience noise and reverb in the rear and lots of audience noise, of course. When I turn of my three front channel amplifiers and sit the other way around I get a PERFECTLY believeable image of the rear of the concert hall, just as if you where listening to the band from the aile where the toilets are. It is positively in stereo. My rear speakers are Acoustic Research R17 in full range mode with the support of the matching Class D Subwoofer from the same company. Not to brag but this arrangement exceeds the quality of what most people have in their front channels. (The R17s are powered by a Rotel 6channel amp in bridged mode.) I can assure you all that sound did not stem from any matrix surround decoding circuit but from a genuine discrete source.

I did the same listening tests with my 15 Minutes DVD and Carpenter's Vamires DVD. The sound is indistinguishable from the original AC-3 soundtrack, with discrete sound from all five main channels. I should mention that also the .1 LFE channel is preserved since I get lots of bass from the semi-active Acoustic Research A25 main speakers. (They house an active subwoofer that can be separately fed a LFE signal and there was bass even when I turned the front channel amps off, remember?.)

Sorry, but I never bothered to compile any of the test files that are around on the doom9 forum since I'm too lazy to find a way to manually mux the files. The guys on doom9 don't even seem to be able to provide an image file for direct burning. No offense, but this somewow makes me wonder why they all get so excited about MPII MC if they can't even come up with a test disc. This is like Neandethals discussing the pros and cons of parallel processing in a PC. I have registered for their forum and shall post my observations there in due time.

In the mean time I renew my offer to send everyone who is interested a self-made SVCD if they carry the postage. In order to avoid any legal B/S I will put the trailer for Final Destination on it. You have a choice between PAL and NTSC. On second thought, I could also put a ready-to-burn Nero 5.5 image file on my website. I will do this shortly so stay tuned.

As for the choice between MCII MC and DPLII capable decoders I agree with you. If the choice has to be made as an either or decission, I would go with the DPLII. However, a lot of high end decoders/preamps/processors include both. I think that anyone seriously interested in this thread is an audiohile and thus should own one of those high end processors.

Cheers,
Ralf

[adam]

ralfbeckers: I get the point, your rips sound good but that doesn't really mean anything. I genuinely would like to know if you have a decoder that supports this highly unsupported format, and the only way to find out for sure is to use an objective test as opposed to a purely subjective one.

I took the liberty of creating a fully SVCD compliant disk image in bin and cue format from one of those audio streams posted on www.doom9.net. Its very small so please test it out on your decoder and let me know if you can hear all the channels.

http://home.att.net/~adam.poole/5.1_Test.rar

[ralfbeckers]

adam: I got your file and decompressed it but what's next. How do I tell Nero 5.5 to make an SVCD from it. Excuse my ignorance but I usually don't work on a bits and bytes level.

Cheers