New PC Multichannel Audio Codec - Aud-X

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

For those of us still struggling with the intermittently developed AC3 codec, there's now Aud-X . I've only just discovered it myself, so I can't vouch for it, but it promises a lot to those that have a PC as part of their living room AV systems.

 

[Sxotty]

That sounds very nice BZB thanks for brining it to my attention. So do you know whether it can encode in realtime and what CPU hit is like? My htpc still has soundstorm in it, but very soon I will be moving to an nforce4 board (when it comes back from RMA in fact)...

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

TBH, I've only just discovered it and have barely had a chance to skim their website.

 

[breez]

Seems kind of redundant to me as we have 5.1 AAC (in AVI too). And the compatibility with HT amplifiers is done by transcoding it to AC3 at the end of the chain which has been possible for long now (with free software or hardware).

 

[atlantis]

It's basically and MP3 surround encoder based on LAME.
MP3 decoders will decode stereo channel, their (undocumented, IIRC) decoder will do other channels.

 

[breez]

Yes, I was skimming through their whitepaper and it seems that it doesn't encode 6 discrete channels at all.

 

[3dsnar]

Thanx for interest in our codec.
well, it is redundant in some way to AAC 5.1 (it offers similar bitrates),
however Aud-X is backwards compatible with mp3.

So you can play the files on some old mp3 players, and you will get
a sound (mono or stereo)

Moreover, for HGHQ encoding option, it is backwards compatible with mp3 stereo DolbyProLogicII, which means that when playing on a PC with our DirectShow decoder,
you will obtain a high quality surround, comparable to AC3, while when reproducing
with the use of external DVD player, you will get DPLII type of surround.

Is AAC compatible with AVI container? I did not know...
I.e. AFAIK AVI is not compatible with any VBR audio.

---

Our DirectShow decoder contains a pseudosurround DSP algorithm,
which converts any stereo or mono file to pseudo 5.1, with 48 kHz on the fly.
The sound can be also transcoded to AC3, so you may play any stereo sound files on an external HT system.

If you have further questions,
I'd be happy to answer them.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

Well I had to uninstall it after finding that Aud-X simply couldn't cope with some MP3s and hung WMP10 if you tried to play a video with one of those MP3 soundtracks. Until you're fully compatible with all MP3s, it's simply more trouble than it's worth to have a codec that's only sometimes backwards compatible while grabbing the file association.

It certainly seemed to have a bigger, brighter sound than AC3 Filter, but I'm not so sure it was an accurate reproduction of the AC3, ie louder.

 

[3dsnar]

Hmm. Now Aud-X (v 1.11) does not decode AC3,
so if you are using AC3 filter, both should work fine without problems.
Also, for most mp3s, Aud-X will not be used, but your mp3 decoder
(in most cases, if you have it installed, it will be FFDshow).

So our filter is present in the filter chain (as the last element), but
it receives the decoded PCM (from AC3filter, of FFDshow for example),
without any influence on the sound.

Please try the new version.