5.1 Surround Sound videos via [Firefox/Chrome]+YouTube+HTML5 on Windows 10 plays in stereo

Question

Windows 10 surround sound test that's built into control panel works fine, as does AC3 encoded 5.1 surround test file: 5.1 surround AC3 test file

My setup is an Using MSI P67A-GD65 B3 with full analog cables to a receiver that goes to the speakers.

I have tried this YouTube test video: 5.1 test video on YouTube

It comes out in stereo.

It's possible this is impossible to fix? Netflix doesn't try to support it through a browser:

5.1 surround sound is not currently supported while streaming on a computer using Microsoft Silverlight or HTML5. --Netflix

Answer 1

As far as I can tell, 5.1 is not supported on YouTube in HTML5

If you want to see if your browser can play 5.1, start here: https://www.axel-hahn.de/demos/html5-audio/tester-audio-formats.php?lang=en (For me, Chrome can, Firefox can't)

Even if it can't, you can upsample it with Windows, if you go to Audio Options > Speakers > Configure > Enhancements you can enable "Bass Management" and "Speaker Fill" to upsample stereo to 5.1

The reason why I say it's not supported, is because large companies who have a vested interest in getting it working don't bother:

5.1 surround sound is not currently supported while streaming on a computer using Microsoft Silverlight or HTML5. --Netflix

However some people suggest using Chrome command line argument flags by modifying the shortcut properties, you can try these one at a time:

--try-supported-channel-layouts

--disable-audio-output-resampler

--force-wave-audio

Answer 2

I solved the problem for my Creative audio board. If you want to fix it too,follow the next steps:

1. Uninstall Adobe flash player from your computer with the uninstaller from adobe webpage and clean all the registry with CCleaner and System Ninja

2. install the firefox add-on YouTube Flash Video Player by Baris Derin

3. go to " http://www.adobe.com/in/products/flashplayer/distribution3.html and download Flash Player 22.0.0.192 for Firefox and Netscape Plug-In compatible applications – NPAPI . Install it

4. go to "https://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/debug_downloads.html " and download the Flash Player content debugger for Firefox - NPAPI and download the Flash Player projector content debugger . Install it

5. Install Adobe shockwave player and Microsoft Silverlight

6. Go to add-ons/plugins and set always activate option for shockwave and silverlight ,in the right side.

Go to YouTube and enjoy 5.1 sound

Answer 3

Surround sound can be handled with html5 audio. It is done with the audio sources. BUT: these have to be supported by the browsers/ devices (pcs/ tablets/ phones).

To play an audio item in stereo audio with html5 a website has to integrate the same audio encoded as mp3 and ogg. For my surround songs I embed 5.1 audio files as ogg and m4a (Mpeg-4-Audio; AAC) - this is what I found out as "best practice". For a test you can press a play button ... and click to [5.1] button in the player: https://www.axel-hahn.de/music/axels-songs/

Or you can open this website with different browsers to see what format is supported and how does it sound (i.e. Opera made a stereo downmixing of surround files): https://www.axel-hahn.de/demos/html5-audio/tester-audio-formats.php

Finally each service you visit (youtube, netflix,...) has to integrate the 5.1 support. How it is done in audio streaming ... or in videos .. these are additional topics.