Force Stereo->5.1

[generiq 113]

2 hours ago, ebr said:

Doesn't just about any receiver have a mode to do this to any stereo source?  Are those of you requesting this using soundbars or other virtual 5.1 systems?

They do, but most often you'll have to repeatedly switch between sound processing and bitstreaming. It's a pain. Using a filter applied to only certain types of audio, allows you to hit play and enjoy, without having to change settings. So if I have a movie that only has stereo AAC, I get to hear it in surround sound without screwing up the movies that have dts etc.

[ebr 14959]

21 hours ago, generiq said:

but most often you'll have to repeatedly switch between sound processing and bitstreaming

Really?  What receiver.  I think every one I've owned for the past several years has automatically switched modes based on the input it receives.

[generiq 113]

2 hours ago, ebr said:

Really?  What receiver.  I think every one I've owned for the past several years has automatically switched modes based on the input it receives.

A Pioneer Elite that I once had would only play Atmos in one setting.  And it's been a while, but think the Yamaha's that I've owned would have to be switched between the two, also. I'm not sure about my Marantz. In it's current configuration, it doesn't.

[ebr 14959]

16 minutes ago, generiq said:

A Pioneer Elite that I once had would only play Atmos

But we aren't talking about Atmos here...  Anyway, I have a Pioneer Elite, a Denon and a regular Pioneer and all switch processing modes based on input automatically and you tell them what default processing to apply to a stereo signal.

In any case, doing this in software is not likely to be much help because that would output multi-channel PCM which most devices wouldn't be able to either pass or accept.

[generiq 113]

3 hours ago, ebr said:

But we aren't talking about Atmos here...  Anyway, I have a Pioneer Elite, a Denon and a regular Pioneer and all switch processing modes based on input automatically and you tell them what default processing to apply to a stereo signal.

In any case, doing this in software is not likely to be much help because that would output multi-channel PCM which most devices wouldn't be able to either pass or accept.

Eh? Almost all of that is wrong.  

If the receiver is using HDMI then every single one of them supports multichannel PCM. What do you think receivers do? They decode everything to PCM/raw audio. It's truly universal. 

 

codec --> PCM --> DAC --> speakers

[ebr 14959]

25 minutes ago, generiq said:

If the receiver is using HDMI then every single one of them supports multichannel PCM

The receiver does but the Android device sending the output probably doesn't.  I'm pretty sure only the Shield will support this.  And, again, if you have a receiver, they all have this type of "expansion" function built in already.

But this is all academic at this point as the app/player has no access to an algorithm to do this in software at this time anyway .

[generiq 113]

24 minutes ago, ebr said:

But this is all academic at this point as the app/player has no access to an algorithm to do this in software at this time anyway .

And this is certainly correct