Please Help: Converting a DVD with Mono (on Dolby 3.1) soundtrack to full 3.1 or 5.1 channel sound

Hi,

My father has just purchased a set of Margaret Rutherford "Murder" DVDs Black and White films from 1961.

When he plays them on his HD DVD-player with Dolby 5.1 system, they sound wrong, boomy and indistinct. Playing them through my PC they sound fine. I have copied one using DVDFab and it shows that the sound is Dolby AC-3/1 English and Dolby AC-3/1 German. The wrapper says that the Audio is 1.0 mono.

I'm guessing the problem is that the HD player is playing the sound of the one channel through one speaker (and perhaps the Woofer).

I might be able to fiddle the settings on the HD player to make these play correctly when I visit him next time, but I was wondering if anyone has successfully remapped mono sound on a DVD into full 5.1 (ie: all 5 channels the same), and what tools were used.

I have lastest versions of DVDFab, VideoFab, Nero 9, FFdshow, Super, AVIsynth installed. I'm thinking that AVIsynth might be the way to go.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Try, and I am stressing try with ConvertxtoDVD, it has a 5.1 output setting..You could also try by demuxing with say, PGCdemux or similar and convert your audio stream with Belight or DAudioK, etc, to 5.1ch. audio...Then re-author a new DVD..
I haven't tried yet but, I think maybe DVDFab will extract and convert to 5.1 ch...someone will chime in if it does...

The muddy audio may be the result of the DVD audio being poorly processed from a low quality optical soundtrack. The A&E DVDs of Danger Man/Secret Agent Man are this way. Not much you can do with them.

R.I.P. #6.