Free 5.1 music for download! :)

[Tronic]

Bjorn Lynne has offered some of his songs as free download in AC3 format! :)

http://www.lynnemusic.com/surroundmusic.html

To listen these AC3 clips, you need:
-Multi-channel speaker set.
-Preferrably external home theater Dolby Digital decoder/amplifier (but in case of emergency, a multi-channel soundcard will do fine).
-PowerDVD, WinDVD (not tested), The Core Media Player or some other player supporting AC3 (no, Winamp doesn't).

[Tronic]

Oh, almost forgot. If you're using The Core Media Player, you'll also need ac3filter. All this software can be found on Google. Ac3filter also allows watching DivX movies with AC3 sounds.

[Bilbo Baggins]

Great artist. I have been listening to him for abot 4 years now.

[Tronic]

I don't really like the artist that much, but 5.1 is just something I gotta listen to, no matter which genre it is.

[DJ Egg]

Originally posted by Tronic
...or some other player supporting AC3 (no, Winamp doesn't). http://sourceforge.net/projects/winampac3

I'm now going to install it to see if it works... ;)

yup, the plugin works a treat! yay!

[Tronic]

Too bad that it cannot do S/PDIF pass-through, so it only allows decoding to stereo here. Can't recall for sure, but I think that it does, however, support multi-channel soundcards.

[DJ Egg]

Yes, it supports multi-channel soundcards.
Sounds awesome with the M-Audio Revo :up:

Just change it from stereo to 5.1 in the plugin config.

What's your soundcard, btw?

Hopefully spdif support will come eventually . . . ?!

[Tronic]

Using M-Audio Audiophile 2496 here. It obviously only has two analog output channels, so no 5.1 for me then.

But as I said, TCMP uses DirectShow AC3FILTER and thus supports S/PDIF output to my Yamaha home theater amp.

[DJ Egg]

Aha! Well well well, I never . . . ;) :D

http://sourceforge.net/projects/ac3filter/

You don't need any 3rd-party plugin
Just add AC3 to the Extension List in the DirecShow Decoder config
(Prefs -> Plugins -> Input -> in_dshow.dll -> config)

Voila! :)

Tell me this works for you too!

[Tronic]

Oh, this is for WA3? So, it actually has new USEFUL features...

I'll try it when I get home (on Monday). Thanks :)

[DJ Egg]

No, Winamp 2.91, not Winamp3 . . .
(though I actually tested it with 2.95beta, but it'll definitely work with 2.91 as well)

[Tronic]

Wait a sec.. There's no in_dshow in my Winamp 2.91. Do I need to d/l that plugin or what?

[DJ Egg]

in_dshow.dll = Video support

If you unchecked "support for video formats", then neither in_dshow.dll or in_nsv.dll will be installed....

[Tronic]

Ah. Never thought that video support might affect my audio support :D

Thanks a lot!

/me is reverting back to WA2.

[DJ Egg]

Cool

Basically, in_dshow.dll supports all DirectShow filters, audio & video.

[Tronic]

I'm only getting noise with it (seems like it is playing the AC3 stream in PCM or something). DD symbol is not lit in the decoder. Tried with two separate PCs, with different sound cards, S/PDIF cables and home theater amps. Also tried several different .AC3 files.

AC3Filter works on both boxes, when used on movies.

Any tips on how to get it working?

[ronial77]

I tried some ac3 files on winamp (I encoded them with BeSweet), and they sound great. I even tried it on an old computer I have(pIII with simple stereo sound card and speakers) and the quality was great. Too bad thy don't have tags.

[nybergh]

Is there any plugin out there for DTS-playback?

[ronial77]

I don't know but I know there is one in progress.

DTS project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/in-dtsc/)

[Tronic]

You don't really need any player support for DTS. Any player that can play PCM WAV (without messing the signal) will do fine. Haven't found any files using some special DTS format yet, only those WAVs at:

http://www.diatonis.com/downloads_dts_ac3.html

There are some WAV format AC3/DTS. Play with any player, at any samplerate (however, they won't work with Creative or other piece of shit cards). You may also burn 'em to audio CD and use any CD/DVD player with S/PDIF to external decoder.

Oh, for those unfortunate who don't have real home theater equipment (ie. external decoder), some software decoder might be useful though.

Also, there really should be a special file format that allows identifying that the data inside is actually DTS, not WAV, and tagging would surely be nice too.