No surround sound from mkv, [RESOLVED]

[jagojago]

I have a problem with an mkv not playing the surround sound through my receiver, only stereo audio. It has a 6 channel audio track, and I converted the mkv back to DVD to verify. When I play the DVD through Win7 Media Center I get full surround sound, but when I play the mkv I only get stereo audio.

My HTPC is connected via hdmi only. Obviously it can output surround through this connection, but not with mkv's at the moment. I am currently using Shark Codec Pack (x64) and everything works great, just no surround through mkv's. I tried changing the audio settings to 5.1 speakers and it still won't work. Can anybody help? I am really confused.

[Shark007]

Install the latest versions. they contain many sound improvements.

press [Reset All] to illiminate the chance of old setings interfering with proper settings

For users with anolog speakers, setup you speakers properly in the Control Panel | Sound applet before trying to setup the app.
To do so, click speakers, and then on bottom left, click configure. Match your physical speaker setup in there.
Anolog users, if you set things in the Control Panel correctly, the leftside of the Audio TAB will be correct also.
The automatic speaker detection of the Settings Application uses the control panel settings on the Audio TAB.

x64 users, Do the following instruction in BOTH applications.

Digital users, go to the Audio TAB, make one selection only, choose to use FFDshow pass-through.
The rest of that TAB is automated, allow that to be. DO NOT click the leftside manually.
Digital users, I know you will be tempted to click 5.1, (or whatever), don't do it.

Assuming you have been to the Control Panel | Sound applet, and have chosen the proper connection there.
Digital users should also select stereo in the control panel, not what they actually have for speakers.
The above applies to s/pdif, digital, optical, coaxial and HDMI connections to receivers.
If your receiver is not capable of decoding the HD audio....
Open the Config TAB, select FFDshow Audio config, scroll the leftside and select 'Output'
on the rightside, un-check DTS-HD and un-check Dolby TrueHD

after all this is set and done, open the app WITHOUT admin priveleges and review the Audio TAB settings

If the audio is still not correct, go to the SWAP TAB and disable the Microsoft Audio decoder.
64bit users will also need to disable the Dvix media foundation splitter on the MKV TAB for proper Media Center playback.

[jagojago]

I think you fixed it! Seems like it is working now that I have disabled the Microsoft Audio Decoder! I had no idea what this setting was for and didn't even think of messing with it. I'm going to do some more testing but things are looking great, thanks so much for the phenomenal support!

[acrophile]

After much trouble using digital passthrough (bitstreaming) such has audio loops in Live TV I've finally got it working using the (odd) steps in this thread.

I now have proper audio in Live TV as well as MKV & XVID (DTS, DD, DD-PLUS, etc) however I've now lost surround sound in my WMV videos with WMA3 audio. My receiver only shows stereo coming in but the files all have 6 channels.

Any advice?

Thanks!

[Shark007]

WMV / WMA are Microsoft formats handled by the operating system.
My codecs do nothing for those formats.
Possibly disabling the Microsoft Audio decoder has caused this outcome.

[acrophile]

(03-25-2010 05:40 AM)Shark007 Wrote:  WMV / WMA are Microsoft formats handled by the operating system.
My codecs do nothing for those formats.
Possibly disabling the Microsoft Audio decoder has caused this outcome.

Actually it seems that setting the OS to Stereo has caused this. Is there a reason bitstreaming requires Stereo to be set in the OS?

[Shark007]

I do not own digital audio equipment to test with.
After you try different settings and can come up with a better solution, please report back.

[LaurensJ]

I Stil have some minor issues with my sound.
I'm getting real great surround sound but i can't manage to controle the sound with my remote.
When the sound is plain stereo my remote is working fine. As soon as the sound is surround (in any way) i need to use the sound knob on my amplifier.

I have a media center with windows 7 and SPDIF.
I've red almost all threads on your forum, but didn't manage to get it working.

[adizukerman]

I have the instructions and when I play the mkv in Windows Media Player it works fine, it runs through ffdshow and I get surround sound. But when I run it through Windows Media Center I don't see ffdshow in the task tray and I don't get surround sound. What else do I need to try? I'm running Windows 7 x64, and I installed both the 32 bit and 64 bit shark applications today.

Much obliged!

[Shark007]

Open the x64 settings application,
choose to use the suggested settings chckbox at the bottom of the app.