2021 No Surround Sound At All

[btreinders]

I thought versions past 2018 did not have HD audio but did have 3D audio 5.1? Even the user's manual says you can select 3/2 (L, C, R, SL, SR) but for me that box is always grayed out with 2021. Any ideas?

[Ken Berry]

If the surround sound is Dolby, then Corel for some very strange reason have discontinued support for it. You can only use dual channel Dolby in VS 2021 under Windows 10. For users still having Win 7, Dolby has totally gone.

[btreinders]

I am just trying to get the music to play in surround sound. Not Dolby.

[Ken Berry]

OK -- but what codec is used for your surround sound? I was under the impression that surround sound was associated with Dolby...

[btreinders]

I just want to take stereo music and make it play in surround sound like 2018 would do. If the 2021 user's manual says you can select it then I would just like to know how to. I don't care what codec I use as long it works. Thank you for the replies.

[btreinders]

So no idea why I can't select surround sound in 2021 even though the user's manual shows it as an option? Thank you.

[Ken Berry]

I suspect you would find that the VS surround sound option was based on Dolby, and remains there even though Corel has now withdrawn support for Dolby surround. The latter decision would probably have come after the VS GUI was designed...

[Davidk]

Dolby codecs were included with the win8 and win10 OS. As a result, after 2018? (about 5 years after win8 was first released) editor vendors like Corel removed dolby codecs from their product, and if you are running those versions with video that has dolby sound under win7, the video will be mute: the editor does not have the required codecs, and neither does the older OS.
Video studio is not the only editor program affected by this - Power Director 18 and onwards is similarly afflicted. Corel has been notably silent of the reason why dolby was removed from VS, despite many complaints. The answer given here was supplied by Cyberlink support in response to similar complaints about Power Director. No doubt there are other editors in the same boat with their recent versions.

Three solutions are possible:
1. if you have one, use an older version of VS with any video clips that contain/support dolby sound. Entirely workable as those older VS versions are functional under the newer windows OS'.
2. upgrade your OS to one which has the dolby codecs integral to it; or
3. run the video clips thru a translation program that can produce audio that the editor supports. For example, LPCM

For future video recording you could review the sound configuration options of your video camera and change them to a supported alternative, if there is one.