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Sourcing from multichannel audio files

Using Windows Media Encoding Script, you can encode multichannel audio, which means you can encode audio for a surround sound playback in six channels. Your content source must be either a single six-channel WAVE_FORMAT_EXTENSIBLE file, or you can source from six mono channel .wav files.

To source from a single file, you set up a command that identifies the file as your input. You must also specify the Windows Media Audio Professional 9 codec. For example:

cscript.exe wmcmd.vbs –input C:\My-6_channel_file -output C:\My_song.wma -a_codec WMA9PRO

It is not possible to source from six mono channel .wav files directly from Windows Media Encoding Script. Instead, you can set up a multichannel audio session by using Windows Media Encoder. You can then save the session and refer to the session file in your command. For example:

cscript.exe wmcmd.vbs –wme C:\My_multichannel_session.wme

When sourcing from multichannel audio, you can also include the -a_folddown6to2 parameter in the command. This parameter specifies the folddown coefficients for playback on stereo speakers. 

The user playing your content must have Microsoft Windows XP and a player that is based on the Windows Media Format 9 Series Software Development Kit (SDK); otherwise, the audio is folded down automatically to two channels for stereo speakers.

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