[MPlayer-dev-eng] How to retrieve the actual number of audio channels?

[Ingo Brückl]

wm4 wrote on Mon, 24 Mar 2014 21:15:52 +0100:

> On Mon, 24 Mar 2014 17:20:41 +0100
> Ingo Brückl <ib at wupperonline.de> wrote:

>> It seems that sh_audio->channels only reports the number of channels of a
>> downmix(?):
>>
>>   AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, ac3be, 448.0 kbit/29.17% (ratio: 56000->192000)
>>
>> How can I retrieve the information about the actual 6 channels, not just
>> the 2 channels (which I still don't understand with AC3 pass-through
>> S/PDIF, by the way).
>>
>> I would then block balance control for number of channels != 2.
>>
>> (This question may be related to my recent postings "Sound issue with ac3
>> on PC speakers" on the user list.)

> Maybe this was already explained in that thread, but this is how spdif
> works. It pretends that the audio stream is PCM, and uses a "fake"
> audio format for that, like 2 channels at 48000Hz. What really happens
> is that the audio stream contains compressed audio packets, framed into
> the spdif protocol (or whatever it's called), and padded to achieve the
> same bitrate as the "fake" audio PCM would.

Thanks for the excellent explanation. I'm finally going to understand.

If I get you right, MPlayer does this "fake" audio in order to have an
old-fashioned audio stream (because it really hasn't one due to the
pass-through S/PDIF). This is the reason why the "reported" audio doesn't
play with the PC speakers, because it isn't what it pretends to be.

Right?

> So, these streams contain compressed packets. The only way to know to
> what these decompress are either:
> [...]
> 3) rely on what libavformat returns in the stream header, since
>    libavformat already does 1)+2) automatically

Is this what

  ==> Found audio stream: 0
  ======= WAVE Format =======
  Format Tag: 8192 (0x2000)
  Channels: 6
  [...]

does report? Since the channel information is/was available somewhere
sometime, is there a way to (and how?) access it?

> Looks like you want 3)

Yes, but on the other hand, can't the "fake" audio PCM have the actual number
of channels instead of two, since it's a fake anyway?

> but of course that doesn't work with the builtin demuxers used e.g. for
> DVD.

What a bummer!

Ingo