DRM
Better ask that question on Audacity forums.
TO my knowledge both Shotcut and Audacity use FFmpeg to encode/decode many formats. And usually with audacity export you have to go to “external program” export and then usel ffmpeg directly (the audacity version of ffmpeg). Personally I have never been able to get DTS files (DCA ) out of Audacity… though maybe others have. And some say ffmpeg does not implement the full DTS specs.
But have got dolby digital like files out (open source approximations) of audacity.
so 5 channel dolby 5.1 is possible there.
With Shotcut I usually work multi channel dolby this way. Make a rough 5 track in audacity. Export it as 5 separate files rather than one 5 channel file. (audadcity can do it either way) Make sure you label the files so you know wihich file is for which speaker.
In Shotcut I make 5 audio tracks and import each Dolby 5.1 file (that is each separte file-channel) one by one and lay them on the audio tracks in Shotcut.
Then I sink the audio to video in Shotcut. Slice and move the audios around etc.
When done I export the finished audio tracks back out from Shotcut as separate files again.
That is, not only I turn off the video codec but I mute the 4 audio tracks I don’t want (big M button on left side of track in Shotcut) and then export to say AAC.
It’s a long process. Five times you, mute, 4 audio tracks and leae one to export.
So then I have 5 audio tracks files exported again.representing the dolby 5.1 channels.
I could reunite them in audacity. But since audacity uses FFmpeg I just go to FFmpeg directly.
Use ffmpeg to join the 5 audio files into a 5 track audio file.
Then use ffmpeg to join the audio back to the video only (video exported from Shotcut)
In this way thanks to ffmpeg you can end up with a video that has dolby 5.1 audio for 5 speaker systems.
It’s kind of long but its cheaper than usingf the commercial apps doing 5.1 audio with video.
Also some people tell me that dolby is better than DTS (DCA ) anyway. But a lot depends on the software
you use (not just on bit depth and frequency) and the hardware.
So you have to ignore some of the hype about high bit and frequency. (It’s like with cameras I’d rather have a 8 mpixel from a major manufacturer than a 20 mpixel phone camera any day, high numbers are just ad hype for phones)
Of course if FFmpeg does not do DTC fully then I’ll never really know anyway.if DTC is better than Dolby for audio… will have nothing to compare with as long as can’t get DTS files from ffmpeg.
Ray