Latest revision as of 13:27, 14 June 2007

Multichannel refers to audio streams with more than two channels. The most usual multichannel setups are 5.1 (five main channels: front center, front right, front left, rear right, rear left and one Low Frequency Extension channel) and 6.1 (the five channels from 5.1 + back center).

Formerly limited to movie theaters, multichannel audio has became popular since the introduction of the DVD video format. The two competitors to the title of CD successor, DVD-Audio and SACD, can also offer multichannel content.

Some formats that support multichannel encoding are: AAC, (Ogg) Vorbis, WMA Pro, AC3, DTS, FLAC and WavPack.

There's no standard channel mapping for multichannel streams, and each vendor (Microsoft, Dolby, MPEG, Xiph...) creates its own or copies it from another vendor.

Multichannel recordings are often referred to as "Surround".

Test Streams

rjamorim prepared some test streams so that you can check if your surround setup speakers are positioned correctly. The AC3 and DTS streams follow the standards set by the developers of such technologies (they were encoded with official encoders). The AAC stream was created with Compaact!, and it's impossible to guarantee that all channels will be decoded at their correct places when playing back with different AAC decoders. If you can, test the AAC stream with Compaact's "official" players - Mpegable DirectShow Decoder or Player.

In this test, a synthetic voice will say out loud the position where each stream should be coming from.

AC3 stream 101kB
DTS stream 136kB
AAC stream 58kB

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''Multichannel''' means that audio stream contains more that two audio channels.
+'''Multichannel''' refers to audio streams with more than two channels. The most usual multichannel setups are 5.1 (five main channels: front center, front right, front left, rear right, rear left and one [[LFE|Low Frequency Extension]] channel) and 6.1 (the five channels from 5.1 + back center).
-It is not supported by the following formats: [[MP2]], [[MP3]], [[Musepack]].
+Formerly limited to movie theaters, multichannel audio has became popular since the introduction of the DVD video format. The two competitors to the title of CD successor, [[DVD-Audio]] and [[Super Audio Compact Disc|SACD]], can also offer multichannel content.
-It ''is'' supported by [[Ogg Vorbis]], [[AAC]].
+Some formats that support multichannel encoding are: [[Advanced Audio Coding|AAC]], (Ogg) [[Vorbis]], [[Windows Media Audio|WMA]] Pro, [[AC3]], [[DTS]], [[Free Lossless Audio Codec|FLAC]] and [[WavPack]].
+There's no standard channel mapping for multichannel streams, and each vendor (Microsoft, Dolby, MPEG, Xiph...) creates its own or copies it from another vendor.
+Multichannel recordings are often referred to as "Surround".
+= Test Streams =
+[[User:rjamorim|rjamorim]] prepared some test streams so that you can check if your surround setup speakers are positioned correctly. The [[AC3]] and [[DTS]] streams follow the standards set by the developers of such technologies (they were encoded with official encoders). The AAC stream was created with [[Compaact!]], and it's impossible to guarantee that all channels will be decoded at their correct places when playing back with different AAC decoders. If you can, test the AAC stream with Compaact's "official" players - Mpegable [http://www.mpegable.net/download/DS/mpegableDSdecoder-Setup.exe DirectShow Decoder] or [http://www.mpegable.net/download/Player/mpegablePlayer-Setup.exe Player].
+In this test, a synthetic voice will say out loud the position where each stream should be coming from.
+* [http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/upload/test.ac3.zip AC3 stream] 101kB
+* [http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/upload/test.dts.zip DTS stream] 136kB
+* [http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/upload/test.m4a AAC stream] 58kB
+== See also ==
+* [[Stereo]]
+* [[Mono]]
+[[Category:Technical]]