Getting the PS3 to output PS2 DD5.1

[Gnerma]

Is this even possible? No matter what I change in the sound settings I haven't been able to get the native DD5.1 from PS2 games that are capable of such output (such as God of War & Final Fantasy 12). All I get is stereo PCM.

I have the 60gb PS3. Video is hooked up via HDMI, audio is using optical. Thanks guys.

 

[D3B]

Maybe change to bitstream?

 

[AlNom]

I was under the impression that PS2 could only process Dolby Pro Logic II during gameplay and could use DD5.1 during scripted or pre-rendered cut-scenes.

 

[Gnerma]

I never owned a PS2 and just recently got the PS3 so this is all a bit new to me. In other words don't be surprised if I say something stupidly wrong etc

So as I understand it Dolby Pro Logic 2 is an upmixing technique. If during gameplay stereo audio was being generated then upmixed within the PS2 wouldn't the output still be 6 channel digital audio (most likely Dolby Digital 5.1)? If not, how does the PS2 get the upmixed sound to the receiver?

 

[AlNom]

The audio is decoded/upmixed on the AV receiver side (according to some matrix), so you could try setting it to Dolby PL-II manually. If your receiver doesn't support PL-II, you'll only get stereo.

 

[Gradthrawn]

I never owned a PS2 and just recently got the PS3 so this is all a bit new to me. In other words don't be surprised if I say something stupidly wrong etc

So as I understand it Dolby Pro Logic 2 is an upmixing technique. If during gameplay stereo audio was being generated then upmixed within the PS2 wouldn't the output still be 6 channel digital audio (most likely Dolby Digital 5.1)? If not, how does the PS2 get the upmixed sound to the receiver?

The short answer is no (I lack the technical knowledge to give the long answer and explain why, exactly, w/o making an ass of myself). You will not get DD5.1 out of your receiver from a DPLII game. DPLII does not output discrete channel info to the receiver, as I understand it. Your DPLII compatible receiver takes the stereo DPLII signal and interprets the various channels from that. The best you're going to get real-time out of the PS2 is DTS4.1, from a couple GTA games (might only be San Andreas).

 

[Gnerma]

The audio is decoded/upmixed on the AV receiver side (according to some matrix), so you could try setting it to Dolby PL-II manually. If your receiver doesn't support PL-II, you'll only get stereo.

So if that is the case saying a game console "supports Dolby Pro Logic 2" is meaningless. Any stereo device could support it I found this ...

"Games with Dolby Pro Logic II technology transmit surround sound as stereo digital or analog sound. This stereo sound can be understood by an A/V receiver with Dolby Pro Logic II as five-channel surround (Left/Right/Center/Left Surround/Right Surround). This stereo sound is also compatible with a four-channel Dolby Pro Logic system."

... here. That says to me that this technology somehow disguises the surround output in a stereo PCM stream and if your receiver understands it it will be able to decode it? I don't know.. this is stupid I guess being a pure PC gamer until recently I'm spoiled by the current gen consoles and their true digital 5.1 output.

 

[AlNom]

That's correct. After the audio is encoded/downmixed into a stereo output, decoding Dolby Pro Logic II through the receiver will give you the 5.1 channels (that's the improvement upon Pro Logic). It's not going to be as good as the completely discrete channels in DD5.1 though.

The matrix is more of a weighted multiplier of sorts applied to each audio stream to downmix into just the left and right channel. So the center speaker would get an audio stream based upon the resultant left and right channel streams multiplied by the same factor. The rear left speaker would get a smaller factor based on the left audio stream with an even smaller factor applied to the right stream. It's vice versa for the rear right speaker.

I'm not entirely clear on the low-frequency channel, though the reciever must just be applying a low-pass filter to the Left/Right streams and sending that signal to the sub-woofer.

 

[Gnerma]

Ok I think I've got it down. Please correct me if I'm wrong. A Dolby Pro Logic signal is different than a regular stereo PCM signal because it carries 4 (sorta discrete?) channels. The regular left and right are there of course, plus one center channel and one rear channel. This will look like regular stereo sound to the receiver which is why I was stumped.

Kicking on the Pro Logic support (in the receiver) will let the receiver know to root out these extra two channels and upmix it all to 5.1 as best it can. The difference between "Pro Logic" and "Pro Logic 2" is only how the stream gets handled on the receiver side, the signal is the same in both revisions.

Thanks for the help guys

 

[AlNom]

A Dolby Pro Logic signal is different than a regular stereo PCM signal because it carries 4 (sorta discrete?) channels. The regular left and right are there of course, plus one center channel and one rear channel. This will look like regular stereo sound to the receiver which is why I was stumped.

Kicking on the Pro Logic support (in the receiver) will let the receiver know to root out these extra two channels and upmix it all to 5.1 as best it can.

Getting there...

On the downmix encoding (or "multiplexing" - taking multiple signals and turning it into fewer signals), the various channel signals are matrix encoded into left and right audio signals. Each of the original signals receives a certain weighting or transform, and the final two signals are output to the receiver, which decodes the audio stream.

On the decode, an appropriate demultiplexer will take the two channel signals and apply a transform matrix i.e. specific multipler and appropriate phase shifting of the sinusoidal waves* them back into the appropriate number of signals according to the specification and send each signal to the appropriate speaker.

It's a handy way to save on transmission bandwidth actually, but that's a different story.

On the decoder side, if the hardware does not support Pro Logic or Pro Logic II decoding, then all you get is the stereo. Applying the Pro Logic I & II decoding schema will net you the multi-channel surround. If you put a non-encoded stereo signal through the Pro Logic I or II decoding at the receiver, then you'll just get a messed up surround sound.

*the phase shifting is an analog form of manipulating the signal, though I believe it's common to have a digital representation through phase-shift keying or something in hardware these days. I don't know exactly.

The difference between "Pro Logic" and "Pro Logic 2" is only how the stream gets handled on the receiver side, the signal is the same in both revisions.

Right, the incoming audio is still made up of Left and Right channels. If it was encoded through PL-I or PL-II, it doesn't affect regular stereo output on the receiver side.

If you set up the receiver to output PL-I or PL-II to the speakers (what you will hear), you are choosing to put the incoming stereo signal through a particular transform matrix that outputs multi-channel surround.

As I mentioned above, you could put a regular stereo signal through either decoders, but the resulting multi-channel surround would not sound "correct". The same goes with putting a PL-I encoded stereo signal through a PL-II decoder or vice versa. There's going to be some funky business there.

Thanks for the help guys

 

[NVNDA]

There is also PLIIx which upmixes 5.1 to 7.1 and usually PLII recievers have different modes ex. PLII Movie and a PLII Music Mode. PLII Music Mode generally turns off the center channel (in my expierience) and acts like an all channel stereo mode. There is also DTS:Neo 6, that has the same idea as Pro Logic (supposedly better), but I've never had a source that would output it to my reciever.

 

[almighty]

You need to connect it though the Optical connecsion. And then enable set the games from there options menu to output DD5.1 or DPL2.

In terms of actually game-play PS2 cannot and to my memory never did manage to run a game with DD5.1 during gameplay it was all during cut-scenes. A few games like GTA:VC, SSX and a few other PS2 games did output DTS during gameplay but with the centre channel missing so it was only 4.1

 

[pjbliverpool]

I guess being a pure PC gamer until recently I'm spoiled by the current gen consoles and their true digital 5.1 output.

PC's have supported true 5.1 digital sound output in games since long before the current generation of consoles launched.

In fact they have supported it via the original nforce motherboard (and others since) since before the launch of the original xbox.

 

[Gnerma]

Thanks for the detailed explanation Alstrong. I think I'm pretty much up to speed now

PC's have supported true 5.1 digital sound output in games since long before the current generation of consoles launched.

In fact they have supported it via the original nforce motherboard (and others since) since before the launch of the original xbox.

You misunderstood what I said there (understandable, it wasn't too clear). I wasn't saying anything about the audio output capabilities of PCs. What I meant by the PC gamer thing was that learning how the audio setup worked on last gen consoles was not important for me because I never had one. After getting used to (spoiled by) the turnkey DD 5.1 on the 360 and PS3 I was stumped by the less than transparent DPL2 stuff with PS2 games.

 

[Hazuki Ryu]

Thanks for the detailed explanation Alstrong. I think I'm pretty much up to speed now

You misunderstood what I said there (understandable, it wasn't too clear). I wasn't saying anything about the audio output capabilities of PCs. What I meant by the PC gamer thing was that learning how the audio setup worked on last gen consoles was not important for me because I never had one. After getting used to (spoiled by) the turnkey DD 5.1 on the 360 and PS3 I was stumped by the less than transparent DPL2 stuff with PS2 games.

Ps2 could only output true dolby digital 5.1 during cut scenes one example or that is Mgs2 wich i still have in my game collection.
I might be wrong but ive played alot of games and non of them ever used dd 5.1,
only prologic and prologic II, i rather listen to it on stereo than that

 

[Zaphod]

Right, the incoming audio is still made up of Left and Right channels. If it was encoded through PL-I or PL-II, it doesn't affect regular stereo output on the receiver side.

There's no such thing as a PL-I [strike]or PL-II[/strike] encoder. The analog encoding solution is still Dolby Surround (4 channels into 2), while the decoding/upmixing/matrixing sides of things have been given several upgrades over they years as Dolby Pro Logic/II/IIx.

Edit: Actually I'm wrong. Dolby now do sell Pro Logic II broadcast encoders (discrete 5.1 -> 2 channel downmix). Anyway. Pro Logic was only better decoding, and PL-II was originally devised as an improvement to the matrix decoding technology from any two channel source (since applying the original Pro Logic algorithms didn't work all too well with sources that wasn't Dolby Surround encoded).

 

[Gradthrawn]

Ps2 could only output true dolby digital 5.1 during cut scenes one example or that is Mgs2 wich i still have in my game collection.
I might be wrong but ive played alot of games and non of them ever used dd 5.1,
only prologic and prologic II, i rather listen to it on stereo than that

DTS 4.1 was used in-game on a rare occasion or two. One of the GTAs supported it (San Andreas or Vice City).

 

[Gnerma]

You guys are repeating things that have all been covered already in the thread

 

[sir doris]

DTS 4.1 was used in-game on a rare occasion or two. One of the GTAs supported it (San Andreas or Vice City).

SSX tricky also had real-time DTS 4.1

 

[fireshot]

You cannot do that with PS3 but you can if your PC has an Auzen Prelude soundcard or any DD ICE soundcard to upconvert 2.0 stereo to DD5.1. Though i find using your receiver to do DPL2 sounds as good as DDICE, if not better as sounds sounds less metalic.

Oh BTW, EA PS3 games are using DTS.