Hi everyone!
I'm usually watching movies with my computer hooked up to the tv and using the TVs (rather poor) stereo speakers for sound. My experience is, that the effects are too loud, but the dialogues get lost. So i'm looking for a program/filter where i could set the downmixing for the stereo output: lowering the volume for the surround channels and throwing it up on the center (where supposedly the dialogues are coming from).
So my questions are:
1) Is it possible to do this ?
2) Will it help to understand what the guys on the screen are talking about ?
3) What app should i use ?

Thanks is advance

It depends on what are u using to play your movies.
Usually, DVD players don´t have audio matrix muxing capabilities. Directshow based do thru filters like ffdshow or AC3Filter and other non DS based players like VLC and Media Player Classic thru their own filters.

Cheers.

Yeah, i've tried media player classic's audio matrix, but somehow i failed to achieve any result. It sounded always the same or was no sound at all. Probably i did something wrong, cause i had problems indetifying the channels. Guess the numbers are the input channels, but on 4-channel input 3 is the Back Left at 5-channel it's the center

Also do i need a 5.1 soundcard for the downmix, or is it done by software ?

U can use MPC with AC3Filter, not the internal AC3 decoder (for testing purposes).
Open MPC, go to View --> Options --> Internal Filters. In the Transform Filters column, disable AC3 and DTS.
Then, go to External Filters and add AC3Filter (just to make sure).
When u play the file, the audio will be rendered thru AC3filter, and u can set the downmixing matrix there.

A 5.1 soundcard is not mandatory as the downmixing is done thru software in this case. When no downmixing matrix is used thru software, the renderer handless the donwmixing to 2-ch (if u only have a 2-ch soundcard).