Multichannel Codec Support

Created:

While working with spatial and multichannel audio across different target platform; what codec is available is not always what is preferred. This post is to keep tabs on the different expectations of each codec and how it handles multichannel audio streams/files.

FFmpeg

The following are FFmpeg’s handling of the codecs below.

libopus (OPUS)

We highly recommend using -c:a libopus instead of -c:a opus for proper multichannel handling from FFmpeg due to the following reason:

mapping_family

A very handy feature and addition to OPUS codec is the mapping_family argument. By using -mapping_family:a 255 you can safely encode into opus with multichannel streams up to 255 channels.

  • default default behavior is -1 which basically is 0 if input is mono/stereo and automatically 1 if input is greater than 2 channels but equal to or less than 8 (2 < channels < 9)
  • 0 for mono/stereo
  • 1 for adding LFE filtering to multichannel inputs
  • 255 for discrete channel handling or to unspecify the channel_layout (thank you!!!)

filter_complex

You can get different channel orders by using different techniques to interleave multichannel streams in FFmpeg:

  • amerge
  • join

Using amerge tends to avoid channel_layout issues such as automatically processing and filtering LFE channels, however this could lead to issues later when other audio libraries or media handles assume your audio is something it is not.

Using join if possible should use octoganal (for 8 channel) or any channel_layout that tends to treat all channels more discretely (to avoid issues with channel order and filtering LFE channels when unintended). Not every codec can support all channel_layouts and not every codec has a nice way to indicate “LEAVE MY CHANNELS ALONE!”.

Channel Ordering

The following is an example of making a discretely handled 8 channel audio file.

amerge

ffmpeg -i 000.wav -i 001.wav -i 002.wav -i 003.wav -i 004.wav -i 005.wav -i 006.wav -i 007.wav -filter_complex "[0:a][1:a][2:a][3:a][4:a][5:a][6:a][7:a]amerge=inputs=8[aout]" -map "[aout]" output.wav

ffmpeg -i MERGED-amerge.wav -c:a libopus -mapping_family:a 255 -application:a audio -b:a 384K MERGED-amerge.opus

join

ffmpeg -i 002.wav -i 000.wav -i 001.wav -i 003.wav -i 004.wav -i 005.wav -i 006.wav -i 007.wav -filter_complex "[0:a][1:a][2:a][3:a][4:a][5:a][6:a][7:a]join=inputs=8:channel_layout=octagonal[a]" -map "[a]" output.wav

ffmpeg -i output.wav -c:a libopus -mapping_family:a 255 -application:a audio output.opus

vorbis (OGG)

Channel Ordering

The following is an example of making a discretely handled 8 channel audio file.

amerge

ffmpeg -i 000.wav -i 002.wav -i 001.wav -i 007.wav -i 005.wav -i 006.wav -i 003.wav -i 004.wav -filter_complex "[0:a][1:a][2:a][3:a][4:a][5:a][6:a][7:a]amerge=inputs=8[aout]" -map "[aout]" MERGED.wav

ffmpeg -i MERGED.wav -c:a libvorbis -q:a 10 output.ogg

aac (AAC/M4A)

Channel Ordering

The following is an example of making a discretely handled 8 channel audio file.

join

ffmpeg -i 006.wav -i 000.wav -i 001.wav -i 007.wav -i 004.wav -i 005.wav -i 002.wav -i 003.wav -filter_complex "[0:a][1:a][2:a][3:a][4:a][5:a][6:a][7:a]join=inputs=8:channel_layout=octagonal[a]" -map "[a]" output.wav

ffmpeg -i output.wav -c:a aac -b:a 1024k -q:a 10 output.aac

fdk-aac (AAC/M4A)