Stereo from Dolby?

I cannot satisfactorily get stereo from commercial Dolby DVDs on my XP SP2 /
WMP11 / realtek 6 channel codec system - voices get lost in the background
music though they all play fine on my dedicated DVD player + stereo amp
system. Non Dolby DVDs (kids educational titles free with Sunday
newspapers) play fine.
Am I right in thinking that this is a problem of down-mixing Dolby 5.1 to
LoRo stereo - voices are predominantly in 'middle front' which is being
lost?
Also that this conversion is a function of the player (eg WMP 11) or
plug-ins rather than the Realtek codec setup?
Any advice on how to fix this would be appreciated.
PowerDVD (with same problem) and Intervideo Home Theatre are also available
to me as they came bundled with the Intel motherboard if that would help.
Sorry if this is such a novice question!
Regards
Phil

Phil
Thu May 01 02:16:08 PDT 2008


"Phil B" <phil.remove.brady@hotmail dot co dot united kingdom> wrote in
message news:b82dnSyDoOYNq4XVnZ2dnUVZ8taknZ2d@bt.com...
>I cannot satisfactorily get stereo from commercial Dolby DVDs on my XP SP2
>/ WMP11 / realtek 6 channel codec system - voices get lost in the
>background music though they all play fine on my dedicated DVD player +
>stereo amp system. Non Dolby DVDs (kids educational titles free with
>Sunday newspapers) play fine.
> Am I right in thinking that this is a problem of down-mixing Dolby 5.1 to
> LoRo stereo - voices are predominantly in 'middle front' which is being
> lost?
> Also that this conversion is a function of the player (eg WMP 11) or
> plug-ins rather than the Realtek codec setup?
> Any advice on how to fix this would be appreciated.
> PowerDVD (with same problem) and Intervideo Home Theatre are also
> available to me as they came bundled with the Intel motherboard if that
> would help.
> Sorry if this is such a novice question!
> Regards
> Phil
>
>
Solved it - solution here for anyone else with the same problem.

Extracting stereo from Dolby is clearly a function within the player - WMP11
in this case, but it's not doing it. The plug in AC3filter however does it
a treat, and is nicely integrated with WMP11. Individual volume controls
for each channel, and a super matrix to mix to your wishes.
Can even boost the centre channel to really push voices above the background
music!

Phil