Surround Channel Order

Is there a standard for surround channel order. Adobe use L, R, SL, SR, C, LFE and Dolby use L, C, R, SL, SR, LFE. A lot of confusion can occur when interfacing the two!
Richard Knight

Unfortunately there seems to be more than one standard. See this article. I tried to find something difinitive on the Dolby site and my search skills seemed to have failed me. All I could find was this Dolby 5.1 FAQ http://www.dolby.com/uploadedFiles/Assets/US/Doc/Professional/42_DDFAQ.pdf
While trying to find the "right" answer for this question, I ran across this page. Kind of cool. I imagine that video people could do a better job visually with this. Might be a fun contest one of these days.

Similar Messages

Channel Order from FP Get Configuration Info.vi

Why does the get server list function of this VI return the Channels in alphabetical order instead of physical channel order 0,1,2...? The channels are also sorted in FieldPoint Explorer in this way.

Looking at my FieldPoint data (8 temp sensor channels), the FP Advise (item name = all) is retrieving the data in channel order (0, 1, 2, ...), but the labels are returned by FP Get Configuration Info.vi in some version of alphabetical order (taN preceeds taBot, so it doesn't seem to be quite alphabetical.) Is the only way I can relate item labels to retrieved data is by creating a tag for each individually and FP Reading each individually?

Audio surround channel missing - Please advise?

Hi,
I am using DVDSP3 to compile a DVD-V with 5.1, AC3, Apack encoded Dolby Digital Surround sound. The problem is when I playback the session all audio channels playback correctley except the rear left surround, which doesn't playback at all.
I have tried to pin point the problem with the following: -
1. It works fine in Pro Tools where the piece was compiled. I have re-imported the discrete surround stems bounced from Pro Tools back into Pro Tools and all is well. (Audio track can be seen and audio is present)
2. I have encoded the stems with A.Pack and decoded them in A.Pack to see if there was a problem there and that works fine also.
As soon as I bring it into DVDSP, during playback, during simulation and during export DVD image (TS_Video and TS_Audio files) the Rear Surround channel is just not there.
I have tried various combinations of build and format settings in desperation,, in case it was a glitch but with no success.
There are no menus on the DVD, all I have done is configured it to start straight away on playback.
Please can anyone help offer any advise, I need to get this sorted quick and am running out of ideas!
Thanks in anticipation.

Hi Kassey.
Do you mean rear surround as in 6.1 configuration? A.Pack does not provide for inclusion of a rear surround channel. But Compressor 2 and Compressor 3 do include this functionality. Compressor 3 comes with latest FCP Studio2. Unfortunately there is no upgrade path for DVD SP as a standalone application, only as a part of full Studio upgrade.
Message was edited by: aspalex

Premiere Pro 6/Mac - 5.1 audio mixer master channel order

The channel order of the audio mixer 5.1 master channel appears to be L, R, Ls, Rs, C, LFE. Can this be changed to one of the more common standards esp. L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs so that I don't have to reconfigure channels for every 5.1 clip I bring into the project.

Same thing here. See this post I made prior to seeing yours:
Output Mapping Preference for 5.1 Audio

DAQ task channel order (PXIe-4498)

I have a PXIe-4498 for which I programmatically generate an acquisiiton task.When the task is built the channel order is not necessarily in ascending channel number.
My question is whether the DAQ card will return the data in the order in which I defined the task or in channel order?
Thanks
Solved!
Go to Solution.

It seems the answer is that the channels have to be specified in order when building a task.

Altiverb surround channels crackling?

Anyone experienced this? I'm working on a very dense 5.1 mix, bought Altiverb to use as a 5.1 reverb, and unfortunately the rear speakers have an obnoxious crackling in them. I've tried soloing only the tracks that are running to this reverb, which cuts the system performance meter to about 70%, well below peaking, have set the buffer to 1024 samples, etc., but this thing won't stop popping and sputtering. Anybody have any advice?

Wayne Henderson wrote:
.. I want to add some music to the surround channels, .. but isn't there an easier way?
No.
5.1 etc is supported only by the professional tools as FC/pro, Logic etc. ... -

Error -200452 depends on channel order

LV 2010, NI-DAQ 9.2.2, Win Vista, cDAQ 9172 chassis, NI-9211, NI-9219.
My client has the same issue with LV 8.6.1, NI-DAQ 9.1.5, Win XP, same hardware.
I am getting an error -200452 (Property not applicable) in a case where I don't understand why.
I'm assigning the user's channels to tasks in preparation for DAQ.
Chan A: is Device 1, module 1 (NI-9211), channel 1, in TC mode
Chan B is Device 1, module 6( NI-9219), channel 1, in RTD mode.
Since these are on the same DEVICE, they are being assigned to the same TASK.
I am using the property ADC TIMING MODE to get rid of 60 Hz powerline variations in the signal (even sampling at a multiple of 60 Hz doesn't reject it as well as this property does.
The error occurs at the PROPERTY NODE function.
The thing is, if I assign chan A to the task -->BEFORE<--- channel B, then the error occurs.
If I assign chan B --> BEFORE<-- chan A, the error does NOT occur, and all seems well.
I have never imposed any restrictions on my client about having to configure things in a certain order, I don't want to start now.
Why is the order being imposed on me?
The error:
The TC code on 9211:
The RTD code on 9219:
Steve Bird
Culverson Software - Elegant software that is a pleasure to use.
Culverson.com
Blog for (mostly LabVIEW) programmers: Tips And Tricks

I think the problem stems from the fact that the 9211 does not support the ADC timing property
--- I just found that out when I added the property to the 9211 case, thinking that it was the CHANGE in property value that was triggering the complaint.
and when you are using that property you are assigning it to all of the channels in the task.
--- I'm not sure I understand that. If I use the property when the task contains A, then B, I get the error.
If I use the property when the task contains B (9219), and then add channel A (9211), I get no error.
Perhaps a clearer way to state it would be:
when you are using that property you are assigning it to all of the channels ALREADY CONFIGURED in the task.
If THAT is the rule, then that would explain it. If A(9211) is ALREADY in the task when I use the property, then it's trying to apply the property to all channels already in the task, and failing. If B(9219) is the ONLY one in the task, then the property is legal. Adding the 9211 later does NOT try to apply the property to it.
Does that sound right?
Why don't you trying using the 'ActiveChans' property node to specify what channel you need:
--- I was hoping to be done with each channel as I process it. (I am processing a list of channels that the user has specified, in no particular order, and I have to configure NI-DAQ from that list).
I suppose I can add each non 9211 channel to a list, and then use the ACTIVE CHANS along with ADC TIMING MODE to specify.
Or maybe I can use the ACTIVE CHANS list AS I APPLY IT. That would mean several calls to the TIMING MODE property, one for each non-9211 channel.
What's confusing me is the statement "You must use the same ADC timing mode for all channels on a device" from the HELP for ADC TIMING MODE.
If one of those channels is a 9211 and another is not, then that statement is obviously not true.
Steve Bird
Culverson Software - Elegant software that is a pleasure to use.
Culverson.com
Blog for (mostly LabVIEW) programmers: Tips And Tricks

CompactRIO Variable and IO Naming Channel Order Bug

Hi all,
I have found a bug related to named IO's and the illogical way of accessing them using fast array based methods. It creates a lot of work-around hackery & trickery to mitigate. Fixing this bug would be most appreciated from a code saneness and maintenance perspective.
Deployment looks like this(observe the scaling indicated in the name):
Running the code (with beforehand mentioned scaling) yields:'
This is a bit too strange for engineers used to the normal workings for example in the world class top notch implementation DAQmx of array based IO access.
Attached is the project source.
Br,
/Roger
Solved!
Go to Solution.
Attachments:
LV2011 Deployment Bugs.zip ‏14 KB

Craig_ wrote:
Hi Roger,
Thanks for the information. The Children[] output is always listing channels alphabetically no matter what the ordering is in the project so this confirms what you are seeing. I am currently looking into if this is expected behaviour and if not I will be filing a CAR on the topic.
You initially compared this to DAQmx, do you have a convenient comparison point from it?
DAQmx is a top notch daq abstraction driver framework.
I seldom get any "surprises" of obfuscated oddness there.
Not sure if that would be a good point of reference, though.
However, merging the good networkeability and simplicity of shared variables with the power of DAQmx would for sure be fantastic. For example with device specific default DAQmx FPGA personalities with most common funtionality in terms of calibration, fifo's, scaling, trig, etc.. that is common to DAQmx.

5.1 Surround channel output

Hello
I need to get 5.1 surrond channel output outta my HP dv6140tx notebook to connect it to my Phillips HTS5520 home theater. There in no optical cable output from ny notebook so is it possible to install a internal sound card to my notebook, or will a HDMI to coax-optical conector will suffice
Kindly help guys...!!!

A popular search engine revealed these solutions, among others...
--> http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20090215033647292
--> http://geekwithfamily.com/2007/07/05/home-theater/howto-5-easy-steps-to-output-d olby-digital-from-quicktime-player/

Accessing center channel in Sony AVCHD video AC3 audio (5.1 surround)

I have tons of video shot on Sony HDR-CX7 and HDR-CX12 camcorders (AVCHD) in 5.1 stereo. iMovie '09 and Final Cut Express import the audio as two channel stereo, which is normally fine for a consumer app.
I use a Sony wireless microphone to record interviews, and I normally set the camera to record only the monophonic microphone audio. But, there is also a setting to let the camera record 5.1 stereo from it's built-in microphone, and use the wireless mic as the center channel audio.
I have footage recorded this way, and I find that when I play it back in stereo, I get a slight delay/echo caused by the wireless mic recording voices, and the camera recording voices (slightly offset). I cannot use the audio this way.
I want to extract the center channel audio from the AVCHD .mts files. I can then line that audio up with the video in Final Cut Express (or even overlay it in iMovie '09).
Does anyone know of a free utility that can strip out audio from AVCHD files?
It looked like Handbrake might work, but it errors out when it tries to convert more than two channel audio.
I believe the AVCHD audio is AC3 format, so if I can strip that out, Quicktime is able to mute the other surround channels.
Any tips?

Here is my current status, and a work-around method to accomplish this.
First, using "ffmpeg" it is possible to extract just the .AC3 audio stream from a .MTS AVCHD camcorder file. I have tried to do this with the Mac OS X GUI version, ffmpegX, but it errors out. It looks like it is sending the wrong parameter to ffmpeg internally (or perhaps it is using a different ffmpeg command I have on my machine). Anyway, the command looks like this:
ffmpeg -i 00000.MTS -acodec copy audio.ac3
That will extract just the audio stream from within the MTS file (which is an AC3 file). By default, you cannot play .AC3 files in QuickTime. It turns out, I had "Perian" installed, which is an extension for QuickTime that allows it to play a bunch of other files. One of the settings was a Stereo mode, which was causing anything I tried to play mix down to stereo. Aha! So, I could toggle that off and actually get to the audio track I wanted.
BUT, since native Mac OS X does not read .ac3, my workaround is to again use ffmpeg to convert the .ac3 file to a .aac:
ffmpeg -i audio.ac3 -acodec ac3 -ab 512k audio.aac
Since the source AC3 file was 448kb/s, I just manually chose 512k as the conversion rate, so it shouldn't lose too much quality. That value can be changed to decrease file size.
The end result, "audio.aac", is now a 6 channel 5.1 audio file. You can open it in QuickTime, and go to Window->Show Movie Properties then select the "Sound Track" track, and the "Audio Settings" tab of that track, and you will see tracks 1-6 (Left, Center, Right, etc.). You can toggle the tracks off to get to the one you want (in my case, just Center).
From there you could export this out to a file with just the track you selected, or drag the .aac file in to Final Cut Express.
If you drag in to Final Cut Express, you will see it takes up five audio tracks. I drug this under the original imported video track, and was able to mute the ones I did not need. I also found I could unlock the audio from the video, and then delete the ones I didn't want, just to clean up the edit window a bit.
The end result is now I can import the AVCHD file in to Final Cut Express, and bring in this converted AAC under the video to access just the center audio I wanted.
When I have time to streamline this process a bit more, I will update this topic.

View/modify Surround Sound Channels

I am trying to figure out an efficient way to work with 5.1 Surround that already is in that format. For example, I'd like to be able to expand the audio and see all 6 channels, so I can work with them individually. Right now, the only option seems to be to convert the configuration to 6 mono channels, and then go to each channel and manually reassign it to the correct surround channel using the pan settings. This is a REAL pain. Plus, now the channels are broken up and have to always be dealt with separately.
Why can't I expand the surround 5.1 channel configuration to see the actual channels? Am I missing something?
Thanks!

oddly enough I had the same issue a while ago, and someone at my house switched the audio language to spanish preferred and cnn didn't come out but every other station did.
it may or may not be the same situation but give it a try
menu > settings > audio > audio language. english preferred put a check mark there by highlighting it and hitting ok

Several 5.1 Surround Issues

So I have a few issues here, and I only care about getting 1 answer. I'd like to point out that none of the issues I am getting exist in Windows. I guess pick whichever of the following you feel most comfortable with:
1. Games that are not playing in 5.1 analog surround
2. No surround playback in HDMI
3. No surround playback in SPDIF
1. Games that are not playing in 5.1 analog surround
Since ALSA is probably the most painful thing I've ever tried to configure, I installed pulseaudio to set up my analog surround setup. This has pretty much worked fine - I can use "speaker-test -c 6" and AC3 files in VLC, and I can hear all the channels play the audio they're supposed to. The game "Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs" also appears to get surround working, though I had to delete the libopenal.so.1 that it ships with (otherwise it's quadrophonic stereo).
However, I've noticed that's pretty much the only game I own that is playing in true 5.1 surround. From what I heard, Valve games on linux are known to not work in 5.1, and according to one of the developers of Witcher 2, it is a proven fact that they do not have surround working, but it is being looked into.
However, Borderlands 2 is the next priority on my list, and that appears to only have quadrophonic stereo. It played with full 5.1 surround in Windows. Surround sound is the ONLY thing preventing me from ditching this game on Windows.
There are other games that seem to have the same issue as BL2 but they are a lower priority to me.
2. No surround playback in HDMI
I am using the open source radeon drivers, but according to pulseaudio, I get ACT, DTS, EAC3, and MPEG support via HDMI audio. I can play stereo audio files just fine. However, if I try playing a .ac3 file in VLC, nothing happens. According to pavucontrol, there is no sound playing whatsoever. I can try selecting the device from the audio menu, and it just ignores this. I tried stopping PA and select ALSA HDMI0 from the audio source in VLC and still doesn't play anything (except stereo files).
I can't remember how I did it, but there was a way where I got my receiver to acknowledge the 5.1 surround channels, but, it still didn't play any audio.
But before I even attempt to fix this, does anybody know for a fact if you get TRUE (meaning, not quadrophonic stereo) surround with games via HDMI? I don't care about setting this up if only VLC is the only program I have that can take advantage of this.
3. No surround playback in SPDIF
Just to clarify, if PA is uninstalled, I can get surround playback, but only in VLC. With PA installed I can play stereo audio just fine but .ac3 files in VLC will not play, and much like my HDMI experience, pavucontrol says there is no sound playing.
I already know that in Linux there's basically no chance of getting SPDIF to work with most games, since there is no option for live DD/DTS encoding. But, there's a chance that some games do support this, yet I'll never know if PA keeps "muting" AC3 tracks. Also, my surround receiver supports Pro Logic, Dolby Digital, and other features that really help enhance stereo audio. You can't get these features in analog. That being said, I would like to be able to have SPDIF and 5.1 analog output simultaneously, and I can switch between the two based on my current needs.
Last edited by schmidtbag (2014-11-15 05:09:39)

schmidtbag wrote:quadrophonic stereo
See post and technical explanation:
One drawback of surround sound which can lead to problems is that the channel assignment is not standardised (except in the sense that the great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from). Four channels can represent either 3.1 surround sound (left/right + centre + subwoofer) or 4.0 surround sound (front left/right + surround left/right). Similarly, there are two different conventions for 5.1 surround sound, one upward compatible to 3.1 and one to 4.0. In the first case, the channel order is front left, front right, centre, LFE (low frequency effects = subwoofer), surround left, surround right; in the latter case front left, front right, surround left, surround right, centre, LFE. The latter configuration is the standard under Linux, while the former is common on computer illiterate systems (guess which OS that is...). But reportedly some games assume M$ channel order even under Linux, with the effect that voices of characters behind the player come out of the centre speaker. I do not know about 7.1 channel assignment, but I expect there are the same two configurations, with rear left and right being the last two channels in either case.

Surcode for Media Encoder CC jumbling and subduing channels

I brought a 5.1 project from CS6 over to CC and the CC surcode totally shuffles the channels and renders the dialogue (mainly on center channel) nearly inaudible and coming from the left.
I created a test project in Premiere with bars and tone where the tone moves in a circle (plus a rumble to test the LFE) in this order:
Left
Center
Right
Right Surround
Left Surround
LFE
Using Mpeg2-DVD to transcode, here is how the channels are mapped on the ac3 file:
Left
Left Surround
Right
(silence)
Center
LFE
So somehow my Center channel is being mapped to Left Surround and vice-versa, while my Right Surround channel is going nowhere.
Any idea what may be the reason for this bizarre situation?

I have done some further experimenting and here is what I found:
First of all, the problem occurs only when using the surcode. In the case of the big CS6 project I was able to use the workaround of creating a 5.1 wav file then creating a new ac3 file from that.
With the reconfiguration of the Premiere audio tracks in CC, it seems that in order to properly transcode a 5.1 sequence with the Dolby Surcode, all audio clips in the sequence MUST be mono. Therefore any stereo source clips must be split into two mono clips and laid in on two tracks.
The dialogue tracks of my large converted projects are all mono, but I am assuming the problem is being caused by the stereo clips in the sequence.
For that existing project, I'm just going to continue using the workaround rather than reconfiguring the entire timeline.

Surround sound confusion

So what's the story with surround sound?
I have recently bought a Samsung HT-E5500 surround system and have connected the BT Vision box (black one) to it using HDMI. (I have an optical cable at home but haven't connected it.)
I have set the output to 'surround sound' in the BTV menu but I only hear output from two front channels (left and right) when watching TV. I haven't yet tried On Demand films.
I am aware that Freeview HD broadcasts do contain the required data for surround sound, but as BT Vision does not output Freeview HD, only SD, does BTV output the surround channels?
So the questions are:
(give me the answers in simple terms)
Do TV programmes and films (i.e. On Demand films) watched through BT Vision support 5.1 surround sound output?
If not all channels/films are broadcast in surround, how do I know which ones ARE in surround and which ones are stereo only?
As I currently only have two channels working while watching BTV, what do I need to do to activate the other audio channels? ( I have already set up the option in the BTV menu). Do I need to use the optical cable from BTV box to surround system? Do I need to enable anything on the surround system?
Thanks!
Bob

Only HD movies contain a full 5.1 soundtrack depending on how long ago they were made. Note that the new software doesn't yet support 5.1, but if you have a setting I'm guessing you're still using the old software.
Most SD content, whether that's movies or just standard Freeview, has surround sound encoded into the stereo soundtrack. This doesn't have the full range of proper 5.1, but it's not bad. In order to hear it you will need to enable the Prologic decoder on your surround system (assuming it has one, but it would be a rare beast that hasn't).
In terms of cabling, for full 5.1 you will need the optical, but Prologic surround can be sent over anything.

ITunes, Mac Mini and 5.1 Surround - No Joy!

Greetings,
I'm having problems with getting 5.1 Surround Sound out of my Mac Mini with iTunes.
Here is my hardware setup:
Mac Mini (Mid 2010 model, has built in HDMI output, running OS X Lion 10.7.1 and latest iTunes version)
Pioneer VSX-1121-K Amplifier
Panasonic TV
I've got the Mac Mini connected to the Amp with HDMI, and I've also tried a digital audio cable to the amp.
I'm trying to play a movie (The "Art of Flight" by Travis Rice... GREAT movie!) that I purchased in HD from the iTunes store.
When I look at the "info" about the movie in iTunes, it states that it does have Dolby Digital 5.1 audio
When I play the movie in iTunes, with Controls -> Audio & Subtitles -> English (Stereo Audio) in plays fine.
When I change Controls -> Audio & Subtitles -> to English (Surround Audio), the movie freezes and will not play.
When I play the movie directly in Quicktime Player, I can't find any way to set the audio output options from within Quicktime player.
I've tried using both HDMI and Digital Audio out in the Sound Preferences Panel
I've tried using the Audio Midi Setup program in Utilities to configure both the Built-In output, and the HDMI output.
I've set both the Built-in Audio Output and the HDMI to "Encoded Audio".
In Audio Midi Setup, when I go into "Configure Speakers..." button, select "Multichannel", I see "Stereo" selected in the drop down box. But when I click on the drop down box, the options for "5.1 Surround", "7.1 Surround", etc are all greyed out.
No matter what I try, I get stereo output, instead of surround sound.
Help??

Well, a bit more experimentation and I have some additional thoughts.
I read the discussion https://discussions.apple.com/message/2530573#2530573 here.
I installed Perian, didn't seem to change anything.
I read the discussion http://geekwithfamily.com/2007/07/05/home-theater/howto-5-easy-steps-to-output-d olby-digital-from-quicktime-player/ here.
When I go into Audio Midi Setup it still says the output is Stereo only. BUT, when I play the movie in Quicktime now, I can hear sound coming out of my rear surround channels now. The receiver still indicates it only has stereo output enabled. But it does sound like I'm getting stereo output.
Still not clear why in iTunes they have the option for Controls -> Audio & Subtitles -> to English (Surround Audio), but when that is selected the movie won't play at all. Bug in iTunes, or elsewhere in the system? I don't know...

Surround Channel Order

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