After digging into the documentation of windows media () and debugging the wm audio player example, I found that >2 channel audio output and 24bit precision has to be enabled directly using IWMReaderAdvanced2 interface, which is supported by the newer directshow source filter (WM ASF Reader), but unfortunately most of the calls are not implemented including the needed SetOutputSetting() call. To sum it up, currently I see no chance playing multichannel audio wma in a directshow player.
:( What about other audio codecs that can handle >2 channels? I'm basically trying to make a divx movie with 5.1 sound (not AC3, because it takes too much space). I thought wma9 would be suitable, but it turned out to be unplayable in players with subtitle support. So is there a way to do it? Is there a convenient codec for such compression and playback?
Ok... Found the solution. There is Windows Media Player 9, which plays it all - wmv9 and subtitles. But the subtitles have to be in .smi format (sami). Is there a way i could lift them over the video, so they wouldn't be at the bottom of the screen? Maybe some overlay or sth. I'm wondering if vobsub starts only when .avi is played? What about wmv?