2ch WAV -> 5.1 Surround Sound

[mrdre]

Well, I've been trying to do this constantly for the past 12 hours, and I can't get it. I have a 2 channel stereo wav for a movie, and I'm trying to get it to come out on all 5 of my surround sound speakers. I made an AC3 file with SoftEncode, and then converted it to wav with Headac3he, but all I really did get was a headache. The wav came out, but it was ALL static. Does anybody have an easy way to do this? All of the programs I've used haven't worked, and taking the advice to use a "simple WAV editor" hasn't done much good either. I'd appreciate a little instruction... thanks.

[Craig Tucker]

Why are you using headac3he to convert to wav, rather than leaving it as ac3. What are you trying to do, create a DVD with 5.1 ?. If so what are you using to encode and author. For an AC3 to play on your PC you need an AC3 codec installed.

[TeeeRex]

From my experience ..

If you haven't got the original AC3 or DTS soundtrack - then I assume your WAV has been converted from the original AC3 - in which case it's more than likely Dolby Digital 2.0 This 'should' play back through all 5.1 speakers without any further processing assuming your going through a Dolby Pro Logic Amp. It won;t be true 5.1 - it will be Left,Right,Centre and Mono Rear with the sub just dealing with Bass as it happens, rather than a discrete channel. You'll need to convert the WAV to an MP2 before muxing - but this shouldn't cause you any trouble.

Cheers,

TeeeRex

[mrdre]

Well, I just took my DIVX movie, and used Virtualdub to rip the audio into a wav. Now it's a stereo wav. I'm trying to make that wav into Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, and then burn it with an MPEG2, thus making an SVCD with surround sound. That's my main objective, but have been having problems converting the wav. If I leave it as ac3, TMPGEnc won't read it, correct? There's the problem. If I convert it back to wav, I get all static. There's another roadblock...

[Craig Tucker]

I take it the divx has ac3 5 channel audio ?

Using direct stream copy save the audio as wav file
Rename to .ac3
Open headac3he and select the now named ac3 file as your source file.
Under destination format select source.
Click start.

TMPGEnc will now accept the AC3 file

[mrdre]

No, I believe the DIVX just has 2 channel stereo audio. In the properties of the DIVX file, it says the audio is 117kbps, and MPEG layer 3.. that's all it says though, but I think it's just 2 channel. How do I take a given 2 channel wav, and convert it into 5.1?

[mrdre]

I tried ripping the WAV just like you told me to, with Direct Stream Copy.. and then i renamed the .wav to .ac3, but then I tried to load it in Headac3he, and it said "Could not locate AC3 header."

What now?

[Craig Tucker]

That is because it is not 5 channel ac3 file, it is a stereo wav file. The method I told you was for a divx with 5 channel ac3 audio not 2 channel stereo. I don't know of a way to change 2 channel stereo into a 5.1 channel DD ac3 file.