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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

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3 Answers 3

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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

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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.

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  • The Netflix app (not website) on windows DOES support 5.1, but Amazon Video, YouTube, and various others do not
    – Jonathan
    Jan 4, 2017 at 15:11
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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

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  • this didn't work for me, any other options?
    – davejal
    Jun 18, 2016 at 1:52
  • No, browsers are not good for 5.1. Get away from browser anything. No one does it. Not vudu. Not amazon. Not even iTunes. But if you're just trying to do Netflix, the Windows Store Netflix app DOES support 5.1 surround sound (not the browser site), as do Blu-rays (via Redbox & CyberLink PowerDVD) Also for Blu-rays, MakeMKV's File > Stream which connects via VLC with opening the network stream http://localhost:51000/stream/title0.ts works on Windows & Ubuntu, and probably Mac
    – Jonathan
    Jun 20, 2016 at 1:35
  • That website 5.1 sound sample works on the newest firefox version for me after following all steps of the other answer superuser.com/a/1093851/658171 - except for, in step 6, activating silverlight in firefox as this doesn't work anymore. But YouTube still doesn't work, the surround speaker don't have sound.
    – Cold_Class
    Mar 19, 2019 at 21:09

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