Re: 5.1 sound in windows media player.
I think you misunderstand how PC surround sound works.
Assuming you're playing standard MP3s, media player is producing output in stereo and sending it off to directsound. DS then gives that to the soundcard driver, which gives it to the actual hardware. It's up to the driver to do any fiddling with the sound to upmix to 5.1, not media player, as Microsoft haven't licensed any upmix tech for media player (nor have they developed thier own).
For example, I have a Creative Audigy2 ZS. It has four modes to handle upmixing.
1) Do nothing (front 3 speakers + sub only - centre speaker uses 50/50 mix of L/R at a lower volume)
2) CMSS Music (creative's version of dolby prologic music mode)
3) CMSS Movie (creative's version of dolby prologic movie mode)
4) Dual stereo (both left speakers do left, both right speakers do right, centre speaker works as in "1", and sub)
I usually leave it on 4.
I use Power DVD to play DVDs or downloaded TV episodes, and that has it's own implimentation of real Dolby ProLogic2 so always sends a 5.1 signal to DS (either real 5.1 from the DVD or interpreted 5.1 from running the 2 channel source through it's DPL filter).
Games that support surround sound also send 5.1 to DS, otherwise it works the same as playing a stereo MP3 in media player (ie. it falls back to the soundcard to decide what to do with it, which depends on which mode I've set).
The only way you'll get guarunteed reproduceable surround sound audio is to buy a DVDA disc of a surround sound album. Everything else is just guesswork by the soundcard or audio player if it has the technology.
If you're happy with interpreted surround then play your MP3s through a player that has Dolby ProLogic (or equivilant).
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