I`ve got an album here which was recorded and produced in dolby surround and now I want to encode it and preserve the dolby surround sound.
For I am new to this topic and dont have a dolby surround decoder yet I can´t do tests myself but still want to encode it right now for me and some friends (filesize matters ).
Will mpc do the job (which quality?) or do I better switch to a lossless codec and have to accept bigger filesize?

Would be glad for any help on this

Some answers here :

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....639&hl=surround

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=ST&f=11&t=4109

Thanks for those links ...

So if I understood it right mpc at --quality 6 or --quality 5 --ms 15 should produce almost transparent sound on all 5 "channels" (Left, Center, Right, Left Surround, and Right Surround) ?

All 5 channels?.. MPC supports stereo, but not 5.1 channels. It is possible that the next big version, SV8, will have multichannel support.

From the threads it seems people have good results with the front speakers and the surrounds they didn't say too much about the center channel.

edit: it seems people have no problem with dolby surround. Dolby digital 5.1 seems to require downmixing to dolby surround. Of course it also seems you need a capable decoder.

They are talking about stereo files. They converted a 5.1 channels AC3 to a stereo MPC, with a program like BeSweet. (maybe to WAV first and then MPC)

When speaking of 5 channels I mean those channels after the dolby surround decoding process (dolby pro logic 2 is the name I think?!).
And I am wondering if those 5 channels sound almost transparent to the original after an mpc -- quality 6 encoding.

Hope I made myself more understandable but as I mentioned: I am a beginner on this topic

Yep, more understandable. Well, instead of wondering, just try it and hear for yourself . My bet is that with --quality 6 you'll have a hard time noticing a difference in the stereo information, with quality 7 almost impossible. With quality 5 it's also very likely you won't hear a difference, just try.
By the way, i've encoded the Rush Hour 2 soundtrack, which is 90 minutes (check this) and the avarage bitrate with quality 5 is 133kbps, but when using --ms 15 it's about 157kbps, big difference. Anyway, as mentioned in the threads linked above, it's recommended to just move to quality 6 if quality 5 doesn't satisfy you, and not use --ms 15 or any --ms...that would be a better solution.

well, my opinion is different.

I have tested and found out, that on normal good produced music-CDs, to q5, q6, q7 applied --ms15 has added only a few kbit/s, I have written it here.

Frank Klemm has pointed out, that the percentage of added kbit/s increases a lot if ms15 would be applied to mono- or near-mono material.....


So, my conclusion about keeping surround information for the decodersis following:


Select your target quality, like q5, q6, q7,
then add --ms 15.

that means --q 5 --ms 15 results to clearly lower bitrate than pure q6 without ms15.

--ms15 adds those additional bits for a better reproduction of stereo/surround informations.
As other reports have shown, it helps, and your bitrates are relative low, still.



I just want to give you to following to think about:

Codecs are mainly tested for artifacts by listening to headphones.
Headphones are not so appropiate for analyzing stereo-image.
Therefor you need a pair of good speakers in a certain distance.

Hi user!


Please, did you finally make some formal auditioning? or is it still a fuzzy feeling?


I remember only that Klemm has made tests with some friends of his, and results with/without --ms 15 were not consistent.
Plus there were the "silly testing" reports.
Are there some newer tests? Could you tell more.


You mean "analyzing surround image"? (i.e. more than two channels)
IMO, "stereo-image" is just the plain 2 channels. Headphones have perfect separation of 2 channels. But large speakers give extra breathing space (strong bass, ambience due to room acoustics, bla-bla-bla). Am I missing something?

P.S. @user: check your PMs