HTML5 Audio Tag and Surround Sound

I’m going to add quite a bit of content to this site soon, and have been looking into ways of embedding surround sound audio. The HTML5 Audio tag looks ideal for this and, it seems, some browsers will support 5.1 surround files….hooray. However, they all seem to support different format surround files……booo! Anyway, as a test, try the embedded players below.

Initial findings:

  • Chrome on PC – seems to successfully downmix to stereo and play multi-channel OGG, AAC and WAVE versions
  • Chrome on MAC – same as above EXCEPT, it doesn’t downmix to stereo, it only reproduces front channels (including Centre)
  • Firefox on PC – recognises ogg….refuses to play anything. Nothing else recognised (shame on you, firefox)
  • Firefox on Mac – plays ogg correctly in multi-channel, but over stereo reproduces front left out the left speaker and Centre front out of the right speaker! Doesn’t recognise any other formats.
  • Internet Explorer 9 on PC – correctly plays and downmixes AAC and WAVE versions (from what I can tell)
  • Internet Explorer 8 on PC – doesn’t recognise anything
  • Safari on Mac – Doesn’t play OGG, plays the rest. Downmixes to stereo including all channels, but downmixes AAC and WAVE by just routing surround Left and Right to the left and right front speakers, but seems to do a more complex downmix of AC3 to the front left and right (includes phase shifts by the sounds of it!)

This is a simple 5.1 test file with Microsoft Anna reporting speakers to you….

Ogg Vorbis :
AAC :
AC3 :
WAVE :