Sunday, August 2, 2009

Which multimedia player most accurately downmixes 5.1 to stereo?

Since I work with 5.1 mixes that are frequently played back in stereo on a PC, I decided to do some informal testing to see which multimedia player most accurately adheres to Dolby's default method of 5.1 to stereo downmixing, which is:

Lo = L - (3dB)C - (3dB)Ls + noLFE

Ro is a mirror image of Lo.

Here's what I found in my informal tests:

Windows Media Player: Lo = L - (3dB)C + Ls + (5.5dB)LFE

VideoLAN VLC Player: Lo = L + (6.1dB)C - (3.6dB)Ls + noLFE

Foobar2000 with "Convert 5.1 to stereo" DSP activated: Lo = L - (3dB)C - (3dB)Ls + LFE

Apple QuickTime Player Lo = L - (3dB)C - (3dB)Ls + noLFE

It appears QuickTime Player is our winner! Foobar2000 with its "Convert 5.1 to stereo" DSP activated comes in second place, and is good if you must listen to the LFE channel. The surprising one was VLC Player, which is just way off. I keep wondering if I screwed up the test with this popular player, or perhaps there's a setting somewhere I missed. Now, if QuickTime Player only launched faster...

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