[Bug 40732] totem-gstreamer does not support 5.1 surround sound

[Johann Gile]

Public bug reported:

Affects: totem totem-gstreamer (Ubuntu)
       Severity: Normal
       Priority: (none set)
         Status: Unconfirmed


Description:
Steps to reproduce the problem:

Get a file with 5.1 surround sound. I'm using the Dolby City trailer
which comes as MPEG 2 with AC-3 audio equivalent to a DVD as well a
surround ogg testing file. Both can be downloaded free of charge from
http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/media/large/dolby.vob and http://www-
personal.usyd.edu.au/%7Egmonro/download/cid_ind.ogg .

Make sure your 5.1 speaker set is correctly plugged in, a 5.1 switch is active and volume is set to a sane value.
Activate the Gnome Mixer Applet.
Go to Edit->Preferences and make sure Surround, Surround Jack Mode, LFE, and Channel Mode are active.
Go to Playback, set Master, PCM, Surround, Center, and LFE to 100%, then go to Options choose Surround jack mode according to your setup and set Channel Mode to 6ch.
Open a console and execute "speaker-test -c 6 -D plug:surround51", if everything is set up correctly you should be able hear static noise from all 6 speakers.

Use synaptic or apt-get to install these additional packages for the test, make sure universe/multiverse are enabled:
gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly (for MPEG 2/AC-3 support)
xine-ui
libxine-extracodecs (for MPEG 2/AC-3 support)
mplayer

Start totem, go to Edit->Preferences->Audio, set Audio output type to 5.1-channel.
Open the Ogg test file and observe that you will not get correct surround output.
Open the Dolby test file and observe that you will only get stereo output.

Start xine, right click on th ui and select Settings->Setup->GUI, set Configuration experience level to Master of the known universe, click Apply, select Audio, set Speaker arrangement to Surround 5.1, then click Apply.
Open the Ogg test file and notice you are getting no correct surround sound.
Open the Dolby test file and notice you are getting correct 5.1 surround sound from all 6 speakers.

Start mplayer with "gmplayer -channels 6" from a console.
Open the Ogg test file and notice you are getting correct 5.1 surround sound from all 6 speakers.
Open the Dolby test file and notice you are getting correct 5.1 surround sound from all 6 speakers.

Start vlc.
Open the Ogg test file and observe that you will only get stereo output.
Open the Dolby test file and observe that you will only get stereo output.

Use synaptic or apt-get to install the totem-xine package in order to
get the xine backend for totem, totem-gstreamer will be deinstalled
automatically.

Start totem, go to Edit->Preferences->Audio, set Audio output type to 5.1-channel.
Open the Ogg test file and observe that you will not get correct surround output.
Open the Dolby file and observe that you will now also get correct 5.1 sorround sound with totem.


Conclusions:

totem-gstreamer does neither play Ogg surround nor AC-3 surround sound correctly.
totem-xine does play AC-3 surround but not Ogg surround sound correctly.
xine plays AC-3 surround but not Ogg surround sound correctly.
mplayer plays AC-3 surround sound as well as Ogg surround sound correctly.
vlc does neither play Ogg surround nor AC-3 surround sound correctly.

totem-gstreamer is the default media player and should support 5.1
surround sound.


Guilty parties involved:

A fresh install of the Ubuntu Dapper Beta from 04/20/2006, no
modification except the ones described here.

xine-ui                                          0.99.4-0ubuntu5
libxine-extracodecs                              1.1.1+ubuntu1-2
libxine-main1                                    1.1.1+ubuntu2-6

mplayer
0.99+1.0pre7try2+cvs20060117-0ubuntu6

vlc                                              0.8.4.debian-1ubuntu5
vlc-plugin-alsa                                  0.8.4.debian-1ubuntu5

totem                                            1.4.0-0ubuntu2
totem-gstreamer                                  1.4.0-0ubuntu2
totem-xine                                       1.4.0-0ubuntu2

gstreamer0.10-alsa                               0.10.5-0ubuntu3
gstreamer0.10-esd                                0.10.2-2ubuntu2
gstreamer0.10-gnomevfs                           0.10.5-0ubuntu3
gstreamer0.10-plugins-base                       0.10.5-0ubuntu3
gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-apps                  0.10.5-0ubuntu3
gstreamer0.10-plugins-good                       0.10.2-2ubuntu2
gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly                       0.10.3-0ubuntu1
gstreamer0.10-tools                              0.10.4-1ubuntu1
gstreamer0.10-x                                  0.10.5-0ubuntu3
libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0                  0.10.5-0ubuntu3
libgstreamer0.10-0                               0.10.4-1ubuntu1

-- 
totem-gstreamer does not support 5.1 surround sound
https://launchpad.net/bugs/40732