Web app now giving me 5.1 not stereo, despite only having Stereo soundcard

[Spotta 6]

Two things have changed recently on my setup, so I'm guessing it's related to one of them.

1. updated to 3.1 /3.1.1

2. Purchased premier subscription.

Now whenever I stream via chrome I get 5.1 sound, so my stereo speakers only play sound/fx and no dialogue. I've gone through the settings in both Emby and chrome and cannot see a way to force to stereo.

My main way of watching via the WMC app is unaffected. 

[Luke 42077]

Hi @@Spotta, are you still having an issue with this on 3.1.2? thanks !

[Spotta 6]

Yep, exactly the same i'm afraid.

[Spotta 6]

Any news on this yet? I cannot view anything remotely any more.

[Luke 42077]

It's not so much that we are encoding to 5.1 but rather we are preserving the number of channels from the source. There is no way for the web app to detect how many speakers you have. Have you checked your windows speaker setup? I'm testing on 2 speakers as well and I don't see this issue. Please let me know if this helps.

[Spotta 6]

OK, I've done some more testing. it's fine using the built in speakers.

But my normal set up is to have a multi output soundcard (MOTU 828 mkII) fitted with the main outputs sent to my monitor speakers. (i'm on a MAC btw)

My 828 is not set up to use 5.1, just stereo and it's worked like this since I first went to Emby from Media Browser a long time ago with no problems.

Only some multitracking software I have uses more than a stereo pair.

As I say, this set up has worked fine for a long time and I have been trying to work out what may have changed around the time that it started not forcing to Stereo and I could only find the changes made here

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/42233-emby-theater-xbox-one-transcoding-dca-dts-to-stereo

Could any of the changes made have caused my issue?

[Luke 42077]

Hi @@Spotta it is a recent change in Emby to preserve the channels rather than forcing the downmix. The web app has no way of determining whether you have 2 or 6 speakers, so if the default behavior doesn't work for you then the only way to settle it is via a setting. Let me know if this helps. thanks.

[Spotta 6]

it does, can you tell me where to access this setting to force the downmix?

[Spotta 6]

I've still had no luck locating the setting to force the stereo downmix...

[Luke 42077]

hi @@Spotta, we don't have it right now. I was acknowledging that if you truly need 2 channel output, then a setting would be required.

[Spotta 6]

Well I know my setup is far from normal, but if you could include a setting somewhere so I could go back to the original behaviour I would be grateful.

It sucks listening on laptop speakers when I have a big pair of powered monitors hooked up.