Upmix 2ch mp3 to 5.1ch

[moserw]

Hi All,

I found this player KM Player which says it can upmix 2ch mp3 to 5.1 channel.
I have not tested this. But sound quality and functionality wise I found this player very good. If upmixing thing is really working then this player is excellent.

What I expect from forum members is to test this player for upmixing, as I don't have 5.1 setup.

moserw can you please guide us on this player.

Links for this are given below:

Download Link:
[2008/12/22] The KMPlayer 2.9.4.1434 Release - The KMPlayer's Forums

How to Upmix using KM Player ?
How to upmix 2ch mp3 to 5.1ch? - The KMPlayer's Forums

Vivekam,

I am sure the initial querry must have been answered and also the part about re-encoding files to 5.1. Coming to the KMPlayer its impressive and does a great job with almost everything you throw at it. It does perform admirably when compared to VLC or Media Playe Classic/K-Lite combo. However, I don't believe a Jack of all trades is as good as a professional, hence I've always had Foobar/XMPlay for all my audio needs and VLC/MPC for all my video needs. This is not to say that KMPlayer does a bad job in terms of audio or video. In fact in video its right up there with the very best and very little to differentiate between it and say VLC for video. However, let me state that I very rarely watch videos or movies on my PC and instead prefer to watch via my DVDP on my Panasonic since nothing comes close to the Panasonic in terms of PQ. Coming to audio once again very impressive and handles all formats without any issues. It's on par with Foobar and others (well almost) and would be very tough to say who would win in a blind test. It resamples/upsamples on par with Foobar/XMPlay in fact. However, where Foobar scores for me is with Kernel Streaming in Windows XP and WASAPI in Vista. I could not locate/find a plugin for KS in KMPlayer and that basically means Foobar wins. I did not test out ASIO, will do that later. Hope this helps.

 

[venkatcr]

Today, I had the opportunity to listen to FLAC, WAV, and a 5.1 version of the same song. This was at the house of MadBullRam. Ram was kind enough to save me the trouble of all the conversion.

Frankly, if you like music the way I do, upconversion or upmix is a waste of time. All this does is play the music from all channels, enhances the amplitude without any reason, and worse, enhances the relative amplitude of low frequencies below 300Hz. It also seems to add a vibrating extension to these frequencies that I can only call a 'hummmm'

Nowhere near the clarity and clean sound of a WAV or FLAC file.

I remember going to some run down cinema halls where they used to do this. As soon as a song starts, they would pump it to every speaker and increase the volume. I was always forced to close my ears with my hands. Upmix to 5.1 seems to do just that.

Unless the 5.1 is done in studio where particular instruments are routed to particular channels with some logic to musical rhythm, I think it will never sound nice.

Cheers

 

[vivekam]

Thanks, Moserw. This helped me a lot.

Thanks, Venkat. Your post clearly states clarity is missing. So there is no point to listen to noise.

 

[moserw]

Today, I had the opportunity to listen to FLAC, WAV, and a 5.1 version of the same song. This was at the house of MadBullRam. Ram was kind enough to save me the trouble of all the conversion.

Frankly, if you like music the way I do, upconversion or upmix is a waste of time. All this does is play the music from all channels, enhances the amplitude without any reason, and worse, enhances the relative amplitude of low frequencies below 300Hz. It also seems to add a vibrating extension to these frequencies that I can only call a 'hummmm'

Nowhere near the clarity and clean sound of a WAV or FLAC file.

I remember going to some run down cinema halls where they used to do this. As soon as a song starts, they would pump it to every speaker and increase the volume. I was always forced to close my ears with my hands. Upmix to 5.1 seems to do just that.

Unless the 5.1 is done in studio where particular instruments are routed to particular channels with some logic to musical rhythm, I think it will never sound nice.

Cheers

Venkatji,

Just wondering what did you play the music on? It would need an AVR that decodes DTS and if it was played on the Philips 4750 with MBR not sure if that's a good enough choice to decide the quality of 5.1 DTS upmixed music. Trust me, I have d/l quite a few 5.1 DTS albums and they do sound good on a good 5.1 setup. Unfortunately since my PC does not have a soundcard that decodes DTS I cannot play such music on the PC right now. Also, they needed to be burnt as an Audio CD to play on the HT System and this proved cumbersome to me. That was the primary reason on my giving up DTS music, not because the SQ was really bad. Do try to d/l one album to give it a try. I have Eagles - Hell Freezes Over (DTS) and have ripped the audio streams from this DVD in DTS and trust me the sound just rocks on a 5.1 system, but this album was recorded in DTS in a studio. The other DTS upmixed content I have checked out too is pretty good.

 

[venkatcr]

Just wondering what did you play the music on? It would need an AVR that decodes DTS and if it was played on the Philips 4750 with MBR not sure if that's a good enough choice to decide the quality of 5.1 DTS upmixed music. Trust me, I have d/l quite a few 5.1 DTS albums and they do sound good on a good 5.1 setup. Unfortunately since my PC does not have a soundcard that decodes DTS I cannot play such music on the PC right now. Also, they needed to be burnt as an Audio CD to play on the HT System and this proved cumbersome to me. That was the primary reason on my giving up DTS music, not because the SQ was really bad. Do try to d/l one album to give it a try. I have Eagles - Hell Freezes Over (DTS) and have ripped the audio streams from this DVD in DTS and trust me the sound just rocks on a 5.1 system, but this album was recorded in DTS in a studio. The other DTS upmixed content I have checked out too is pretty good.

Yes, I did hear on Madbull's system which is a Philips 4750. Since we did the comparison between the various formats on the same system, I don't see how a system could make a difference. In my mind, the very logic used for up-mixing was in error. Unless there is a clear demarcation of instruments that play independently but in consonance with the main singer/instrument and in rhythm, it does not make sense to me.

I have the Hell Freezes Over as a full 5.1 studio recorded DVD. It does sound awesome. And I have a few other DVDs such as Dhoom2, Vettaiyadu Villayadu, some Orchestral numbers, etc. In all these the main singer/instrument is always in the front middle, and the accompanying instruments all around you. This is what is supposed to be done in SACD and DVD-Audio.

On a good to excellent system such as the Audire that I have heard, even a two channel amplifier married to good speakers throws the sound in literally a 270 degree circle around you with clear demarcation of the musical participants. In my mind this can be improved upon only of done is a studio where independent sounds are recorded in each channel and them mixed.

In any case, I am going to take a standard CD, upmix it, and try it on my system that can decode Dolby Digital and DTS, and a host of other codecs. I will of course, be cutting it into a CD or DVD as the software demands. I will post a detailed report then.

Cheers

 

[spirovious]

Now convert MP3(wma?) to 5.1 surr-
Convert MP3s to 5.1

 

[spirovious]

Update-
I downloaded it,
This software supports many aud format including lossless wav,wma,flac too
see speci below-

WHAT IS HD-AUDIO REMASTER

HD-Audio Remaster is an audio enhancement application for Microsoft Windows 2000, XP and Vista personal computers.

Main features:
HD-Audio Remaster enables users to remaster audio tracks on the PC hard disk, CDs or from live recordings.

Professional quality upsampling of stereo tracks at 44.1kHz /16-bit up to a maximum of 192kHz /24-bit.

Upmixing of stereo tracks to surround 5.1.

Input audio file formats supported: WAV, AIF, MP3, FLAC, OGG, WMA including lossless (no DRM), M4A/AAC iTunes file

Support audio tracks up to 192kHz / 32-bit sample size / 5.1-channel. Record audio tracks from analog sound card up to 192kHz / 24-bit sample size / 5.1-channel.

Export enhanced audio to many formats: WAV/FLAC/WMA/A52/MKV files.

Support iTunes and Windows Media Player playlists.

Support still video for each audio track for MKV files.

Rip and play DVD-Audio discs unencrypted and non MLP encoded.

Host to VST Plugins, allowing user to add audio functions to HD-Audio Remaster.

Specifications:
Support input audio file formats WAV PCM, AIF, MP3, FLAC, OGG, CUE Sheet, WMA including lossless (with no DRM), M4A/AAC (iTunes file).

Import iTunes and Windows Media Player playlists.

Export formats supported: WAV/FLAC/WMA/A52/MKV file format.

Host to VST Plugins. VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.

Support multi-channel track in multiple mono channel files or a single multi-channel file.

Sampling frequencies of audio sources for import, playback and record : 44.1KHz, 48KHz, 88.2KHz, 96KHz, 176.4KHz and 192KHz, in 16 bit or 24 bit sample size.

Still video support. Each track can be associated to one or more (up to 20) still video pictures in BMP, JPG or PNG file format, for slide show like presentation with video MKV files. HD-Audio Remaster will automatically resizes still video pictures to fit screen format selected.

Built-in CD ripping with access to the Internet FreeDB service to query the CD album, artist and track names (requires an Internet connection).

Built-in audio player to preview the tracks before burning.

Built-in recording facility to record external from audio sources like LP turntable through a capable sound card at up to 192KHz/24bit.

Rip DVD-Audio disc, limited to non copyright protected and non MLP encoded DVD-Audio discs.

Play DVD-Audio disc, limited to non copyright protected and non MLP encoded DVD-Audio discs.

Save/Load Audio project descriptions to/from a file to restore projects across executions. Build aggregate projects from smaller projects, e.g. load each group from an existing project.

Move tracks within a group with drag & drop. Move tracks across groups with cut & paste.

Select the application skin from 6 skins.

Tooltip for quick help on using HD-Audio Solo.

Professional quality upsampling processed on the fly without the need to save intermediate files to the hard disk.

Support NTSC and PAL video systems.

Support 4:3 and 16:9 screen formats.

Requires Microsoft Windows 2000, XP or Vista, with a minimum of 20Mb for installation, 128Mb of RAM and 4.5Gb of free hard disk space for temporary files.

Copyright 2005-2009 Cirlinca Inc. Solo DVD-Audio authoring - Author DVD at the best audio quality

 

[spirovious]

In foobar,with channet mixer dsp,one can output 5.1 from 2ch(flac/mp3)