Windows Media Encoder banner art

Sourcing from multichannel audio files

Using Windows Media Encoder, you can encode multichannel audio, which means you can encode audio for a surround sound playback in six channels. Your content source must be one of the following:

You must use the Windows Media Audio Professional 9 codec and an audio format that supports multichannel encoding when encoding multichannel content. In addition, 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 will be folded down automatically to two channels for stereo speakers.

Windows Media Encoder automatically mixes down the six channels to two for playback with stereo speakers. You can control the mixdown distribution between the surround, center, and subwoofer channels on the Processing tab of the Properties panel. If you encoded the content to a file, you can also use Windows Media File Editor to control the mixdown in the output file.

Related topics


© 2000-2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.