[HoichiTheEarless]

I have some mkv files with 5.1 channel sound... is there a software that would encode it in dolby headphone?

 

[EnOYiN]

A lot of DVD players (both software and hardware) can. None of those are free though since Dolby Headphone is not free.

 

[MrKazador]

I myself use Zoom Player for playback and IMO is much easier to configure. To use the dolby headphone plugin you need to purchase the software. PowerDVD, WinDVD, and Nvidia all offer audio decoders which have this plugin. I suggest using Nvidia, which I use.
These audio decoders can decode ac3 audio fine from an mkv but for DTS is another story. For DTS audio in an mkv you going to need an xform filter called; Gabest AC3/DTS XForm Filter. This can be downloaded from HERE.
If you need any more help setting this up I can definitely help. I know how to configure codecs correctly.

 

[HoichiTheEarless]

I have zoom player and PowerDVD... Can you play mkv with PowerDVD? I don't have much experience configuring codecs. Where do I get the dolby headphone plug in for zoom player?

 

[MrKazador]

Dolby Headphone is included with PowerDVD. What you need to do is configure Zoom Player to use the audio decoder. If you are using smart play all you need to do is select Cyberlink Audio Decoder under AC3. For DTS you need to install the xform filter. Under DTS in Container you first put AVI<->AC3/DTS and then the Cyberlink Audio Decoder.

 

[HoichiTheEarless]

Got it to work! Thanks.

 

[Telordya]

I found another interesting method in Zoom Player to get 5.1 DTS and even AAC audio tracks contained in MKV files to play with Dolby Headphone technology in Cyberlink Audio Decoder.

Go in Smart Play and for AAC Audio and DTS in Container, choose ffdshow Audio Decoder as the first filter and CyberLink Audio Decoder as the second. In ffdshow Audio Decoder properties, go to Output option and select LPCM as Supported output sample formats. Be sure that Connect to: is to any filter. In this way, ffdshow will decode the audio source and inject all channels in raw PCM to any other audio filter. In CyberLink Audio Decoder properties, set Dolby Headphone as you want. For AC-3, I only chose the CyberLink Audio Decoder as filter, no ffdshow, and it works well. The versions I used are ffdshow tryouts revision 2020, Cyberlink PowerDVD 7.3 and Zoom Player 5.02.

There is however one annoying thing that I discovered with this setup. While I watch a movie with 5.1 DTS or AAC track, I can notice with my headphones that all the channels are mixed up. For example, I mostly hear vocals from my right ear instead to be in center. Maybe this is caused by the fact that ffdshow outputs the PCM channels in a certain order and the Dolby Headphone algorithm in Cyberlink Audio Decoder expects them in another order. I saw that there was an option in ffdshow Audio Decoder called Swap channels to correct this. But to find the right pattern, I used the Volume option and soloed each channels with a full 5.1 source. The pattern I get after experimenting is this one:

Front left -> front left
Front center -> front right
Front right -> front center
Side left -> side left
Side right -> side right
Back left -> LFE
Back center -> back right
Back right -> back left
LFE -> back center

I don't know if it could be the same for everyone but make the same experiment I made to see.

After all these tweaks, you can enjoy the great Dolby Headphone technology with 5.1 DTS, AAC and AC-3 contained in MKV files and even HD Quicktime trailers.

 

[badmonkey]

This is so *@*#ed up.

Thank you Telordya, yours is the only solution I can find to get Cyberlink Audio Decoder to work in Zoom Player with AC3. Cyberlink simply will not work on its own. It presents the following error:

Code:

[left]Pin Connection Warning (Not an Error): [AVI Splitter].Stream 01 ---> [CyberLink Audio Decoder].Audio In Code: There is no common media type between these pins. (80040207)[/left]

Unfortunately, while the swapped channels from FFDShow now work fine when in Dolby Headphone mode, when you put the Cyberlink setting to "Stereo", it is mucked up much as you might expect with the channels all wrong!

So to switch between speakers and HPs, now one must also disable/re-enable the channel swapper in FFDShow. And that screws it up completely if you do it while the video is playing, one must close and restart ZoomPlayer. A bit of a chore.

This is so annoying, the Cyberlink decoder worked just fine on my old system but the identical set-up on the new PC just won't!

 

[MrKazador]

badmonkey, try installing the xform filter;
http://inmatrix.osnn.net/ac3xform.exe

Put the xform filter first then the Cyberlink Audio Decoder.

 

[badmonkey]

I tried that, but the filter doesn't show up in ZoomPlayer once installed.

 

[MrKazador]

The Xform filter is named AVI<->AC3/DTS

 

[badmonkey]

Oh I thought it was the other XForm one that you linked to. Yeah that doesn't work either, I get this error:

Code:

[left]Pin Connection Warning (Not an Error): [AVI<->AC3/DTS].XForm Out ---> [CyberLink Audio Decoder].Audio In Code: There is no common media type between these pins. (80040207)[/left]

 

[Garret Jax]

If you use Dolby Headphone from Cyberlink PowerDVD with for instance a blu-ray movie, does the processing of the DD-True HD that is needed to convert to Dolby Headphones degrade the sound quality? If a blu-ray has a HD 2.0 track, would that be better than using the multi-channel track with dolby headphone?

Sorry for the confusion. I'll ask in a better way: I listen to blu-ray movies on my PC using HD-595's, and PowerDVD lets me select Stereo OR Dolby Headphone under the 'output mode option'. I can also select 5.1/7.1 or 2.0 audio languages/channels on the blu-ray movies (some don't have 2.0). What's the best combo? Will using Dolby Headphone screw up the sound quality because of the processing?

Thanks,
-Garret

 

[padam]

Anybody managed to do this? Only PowerDVD seems to work for me. Maybe the problem is that I am using the new versions of Zoom Player and PowerDVD but it does not seem to do the job. (And I also set CoreAVC for H.264 video encoding and it still uses ffdshow so that doesn't seem to work either)
Is there another player to experiment with?

Thank you.

 

[badmonkey]

I'm using ver 5.x, doesn't work. Are you using Vista?

There's a solution using FFDShow audio, as above, but basically the PowerDVD filter and/or ZoomPlayer is just broken in Vista. It don't work.