The history of surround audio formats is examined, and a low cost solution to multi-channel encoding is explored and developed, taking DSP techniques into consideration . The algorithm developed will process four channels of audio and encode them so that a Dolby Surround decoder (or a Dolby ProLogic decoder) will successfully decode the signals when used as part of a home theatre / home entertainment system. The algorithm is a low cost alternative to the Dolby Encoding System.