Windows 5.1 up conversion for music (Similar to WInamp A3d Plugin)

joejoeaz, the codebase of the AudioEngine rewrite is currently under review. Plans are, that the AudioEngine code should be integrated into XBMC mainline in the "May merge window" (time frame where new features can be submitted to the XBMC codebase). This merge window ends on May 10th - so with some luck (if review passes) it will already be available in the nightly builds after May 10th. If the review process however shows some major glitches that need to be ironed out before, it most likely will have to wait for the June merge window (unless devs can fix it in no time).

I really like the new development cycles that the team is using!

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but according to my tests, the quoted AE feature currently does "Output stereo signal to all speakers", not the originally requested "Upmix to 5.1". For a true upmix, I'd suggest having a look at the features of some nice foobar2000 plug-ins, notably "Channel Mixer" (foo_channel_mixer.dll) and "Free Surround" (foo_dsp_fsurround.dll and foo_dsp_fsurround_beta.dll).

I think this would require a working DSP which AFAIK is not yet available for AE (it's in the works)

AE does not yet incorporate user-configurable channel mapping/mixing, but does a math calc for up or downmix to preserve equivalent power while avoiding clipping. Anything fancier will wait until merge and "feature-freeze" is over. Even still, work is complete on a seperate DSP class in another branch.

We'll need to make final decisions on how to handle settings (being discussed in several threads now) as well as enlist some of our skilled GUI or addon programmers. All in good time.