Dolby Digital does have (up to) six discrete channels. Perhaps you're thinking of Dolby Prologic, which is 'matrixed' to multiple channels but only encoded as two discrete channels.
In other words, the receiver takes a stereo signal and processes it to give surround sound. Dolby Digital is one of a few ways of encoding multichannel audio. DTS is a competing encoding. Most encodings are compressed, though DTS-HD Master Audio, found on many Blu Ray movies, is uncompressed. I'm not sure if Dolby has an uncompressed, multichannel encoding available.
EDIT: Dolby TrueHD is uncompressed, an apparent competitor to DTS-HD Master Audio. From my understanding of what I've read, 6.1 discrete is passing 6.1 channels of signals to be processed by a device with 6.1 decoder. This means you have to connect your Mac to a 3rd party device to run 7 RCA cables to your surround reciever. From Handbrake: 'Another method is to create 5.1 channel AAC audio tracks.
For the Track Mix, select '6 channel discrete' from the drop-down menu, and your movie will contain discrete surround sound in the modern AAC format. This takes up less space than AC3: instead of 448kbps, you can do well with 384kbps (64 kbps per channel). Its real benefit is that it doesn't make QuickTime barf. Sadly, it is very difficult to hear all those discrete channels of sound. It cannot be sent over an optical cable to a home theater amp. If you try, whether on a Mac or an AppleTV, you will only hear 'downmixed' surround sound, similar to Dolby Pro Logic.
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To hear the discrete surround sound in all its glory, you will need to attach an analog surround sound device to your Mac. One popular device is the Griffin FireWave. Then, you have to attach a cable to your amp/receiver for each of the six speaker channels. It cannot be done over optical/HDMI'. Technical Specifications Audio Ports: 3 - 1/8' (3.5mm) stereo minijacks (Left/Right, Center/Subwoofer, Left Surround/Right Surround) FireWire Ports: 2 Supported Audio Formats: Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II Additional audio configurations are supported through Mac OS X's Audio MIDI Setup utility Frequency Response: 20-20,000Hz Line-out voltage: 2Vpp Size: 132mm (5.20) wide x 77mm (2.83) deep x 25mm (0.98) tall. A different approach Call me nuts - but here's my current 'logic' on this (sorry.) Currently, the Handbrake Pro Logic II setting does not encode the.1 (sub) channel. This really bummed me out, because I didn't do my homework, and encoded most of my DVD's before actually being able to hook up to a new surround AV receiver.
So, when I noticed things were sounding flat, and specific examples of heavy rumble that I knew by heart that were simply not there - I had to re-group. PROBLEM 1: No sub woofer for Handbrake's Pro Logic II - bummer. PROBLEM 2: 6 Channel Discreet setting preserves the individual channels, but is converted to a stereo signal through the TOSlink cable. HOWEVER: My receiver's Pro Logic II setting converts that stereo stream back into surround. No, it's not digital to be sure, but the matrix INCLUDES the Bass frequencies that handbrakes PLII converter leaves on the cutting room floor. Since I started re-ripping my collection with the 6 channel discreet setting - all the new rips have a heckuva lot more oomph.
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And I don't think it's only because the discreet setting defaults to 384k for the channels, as opposed to the PLII maxing at 160k - I really think there is much more bass brought to the viewing party by using this 'round about method. As I said - call me nuts, but that's the direction I'm taking. Not perfect, but much more satisfying than the PLII setting. It does add another 10% or so to the files with the higher audio bandwidth, but hey, that's why we've bought those nifty terabyte drives, right? ANy particular reason you don't simply pass through the original untouched AC3 Dolby Digital from the DVD and let the Apple TV or Mac pump that out of the optical to your AV receiver? Then you will have the exact same audio as when playing from the DVD. Personally I think it would be crazy to extract the 5.1 channels from the AC3 and reencode as AAC just to save a few bytes of file size.
That's just asking for a world of hurt. There is no way that's going to sound better than the original AC3. Mind you - one benefit of multi-channel AAC is that you can transcode from DTS to AAC and get better audio than the AC3 that way (since MP4 doesn't yet have DTS pass-through). I would love to use pass through. Unfortunately, it doesn't work properly.
Even with Perian, you wind up with the center track all over the left channel, and a funky, compressed sound field. According to Handbrake, it's a Mac flaw: 'The next method is called AC3 pass-through. This just copies, bit-for-bit, the Dolby Digital soundtrack on your DVD. AC3 pass-through is possible in the.avi,.mkv, and.mp4 containers. QuickTime cannot understand AC3 audio. You can download a 3rd party QuickTime component from the open-source Perian project, which will allow the files to play in QuickTime, although pass-through from there to a surround receiver is currently broken due to a bug on Apple's part.
If you use the.mp4 container, you can only play the audio in VLC, Perian, or on the AppleTV, and you have to end the file name in.m4v instead of.mp4. Using AC3 in.mp4 this way is standards-based, but it's a new standard and not everyone is on board yet. To use pass-through, make sure you have AC3 audio selected in the Codecs pop-up menu.' All-in-all, a dampening of my spirits.
Dolby users encountering Dolby Digital Plus not working or disappeared circumstance after is not an uncommon Dolby audio case. You can find it showing up in the programs list but not appearing on desktop icons. Whenever you launch the Dolby Digital Plus, error message reads, “The current Dolby Digital Plus audio driver version is XXXX and the software app expects driver version XXXX. Please install a valid driver and software application combination”. For most part, that malfunction has closely relationship with the audio drivers since Windows update always tries to replace the old drivers with the latest ones. While the Dolby Digital Plus audio driver may be incompatible with OEM audio driver, like Realtek Audio driver and Conexant Audio driver.
To fix this driver compatibility issue, you have to download the matched audio driver for your Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby Home Theater. If you are trapped in that trouble, you can have a try with below solutions to retrieve your Dolby atmos which have been proved effective by many Windows 10 Dolby users. See Also: Method 1. Repair Missing Dolby Digital Plus with Windows Built-in Program Press Win + X and then navigate to Control Panel - Programs - Programs and Features. Find “DOLBY HOME THEATER”, the place to download Dolby Digital Plus and fix common Dolby errors, right click on it and select Repair and then your PC will automatically update drivers to fix Dolby Digital Plus disabled problem.
Uninstall Conexant Audio Driver with Device Manager Uninstalling the Conexant audio driver in Device manager and then restart your computer. Windows will load the new Conexant audio driver version for you automatically.
Below is how. Press Win + x to open Device Manager. In Device Manager, double click on “ Sound, video and game controllers” to expand it. Right-click on the audio device (e.g. Realtek High Definition Audio or the Conexant HD Audio) and then select Uninstall in the context menu.
Restart your computer and then Windows will reload the Dolby drivers for Windows 10 to solve the audio issue. Roll Back to an Older Version Audio Driver After you upgrade to Windows 10 operating system, the current version of your audio driver may conflict with Windows 10 you can try rolling back to an older Dolby Digital Plus audio driver. Locate your audio device in Device Manager. Right-click on it and then choose Properties. Turn to the Driver tab, and you can get the current driver version.
Note: You'd better jot down detail version of the audio driver in case you need it later. Click on Roll Back Driver and follow the wizard to switch back to the previous version of the audio drivers. If Roll Back Driver choice fails, select Uninstall and then navigate to or your computer’s manufacturer website to install an older version audio driver. Or if you prefer a quick and safe to install audio drivers for your Dolby Digital Plus, a professional driver updater utility is recommended, like, an all in one driver update and management tool, takes only minutes from detecting driver issues to repairing problematic Dolby audio drivers for Dolby advanced audio device. Click the download button to let Driver Talent fix your problematic Dolby Digital Plus audio. Identify Dolby Driver Issues Launch Driver Talent and it will begin to scan all the drivers installed on your computer. All the outdated, missing, broken, or other incorrect driver issues can be detected within seconds.
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Download and Update Dolby Digital Plus Audio Drivers Click “Repair” and Driver Talent will download and install the best-matched Dolby Digital Plus audio driver automatically. You can also update Dolby audio drivers to the latest version. But it is NOT recommended to keep the Dolby drivers up-to-date all the time, especially Dolby audio drivers for Windows 10, for doing so may lead to system and drivers incompatibility. Note: In case you need to reinstall a specific Dolby audio driver later, you’d better with Driver Talent before update any driver. Reboot Your PC Restart your computer and reinstall Dolby Digital Plus or Dolby Home Theater software to make the updated Dolby audio drivers take effect.
Note: Apart from drivers downloading and updating, Driver Talent comes with more advanced features, say before installing any new drivers, VR support check, etc. If you have any further trouble about how to resolve Dolby Digital Plus not working error for Windows 10 or you have better solutions, please let us know by leaving us comments below.