Edius Neo and AVCHD with native Dolby 5.1

[rl2008]

and since this thread is loosely about 5.1, there are mics out there (this is not a wireless mis that gives you close pickup, but something else) that do 5.1 capture on your cam. This is one example

http://www.holophone.com/

They normally produce both discrete channels for a separate recorder (few cams have three stereo mic jacks :-) and a stereo track with 5.1 encoded into it in Dolby Pro Logic. The latter is a bit of a desperate measure, as you need to decode it before editing, but it will record in a camera that has a stereo mic jack.

[SoundFreak]

Sound is a very difficult topic as there are many variables between right and wrong and then again what defines right, what defines wrong ?
I have heard productions done by similar "tools" and they make me wanna force my Surround set-up to play in stereo only.
Similar example would be DVD Audio only playback, some love it in 4 or 5.1 others hate it and prefer / insist on 2 channel audio..............

Again sound is a difficult topic to address and to agree on, some people love the hall, arena, wow settings in the DSP of most Home Theater Amplifiers, I listen to it in the early eighties when they became standard in audio equipments and never used any of them since, ever.

Personally, a live event must portray a live feel to it, so a well blend audience noise etc is very welcome, when recording is done and all the ambiance sound is eliminated by use a gate (automatically mute the mic / signal on a preset audio level) on every mic in the recording it doesn't sound right, yet many people do it.

When surround is properly produced it becomes an almost natural transparent part of what you see and hear, the sound coming from a avchd home use cam is not, do your clients a favor and use it sparingly.

If only sound processing / mixing would be so easy as looking at a Wave Scope :)

[Ron Evans]

Agree Tony. Sound these days is more difficult than getting a good picture !!!! HDV or AVCHD cameras produce beautiful images with not a lot of effort compared to cameras of only a few years ago. Sound however has changed little in that time!!! It takes me almost as long or maybe more time to get the sound to my satisfaction than it does to edit the video. For the theatre productions I do it is important to get clean clear dialog but also the ambience of the theatre to get a good archive of the event. Getting rid of airconditioning fan noise etc without getting an over processed sound is difficult to say the least. Peoples brains are very good at removing background noise but a mic isn't !!!!!! Hence the mics in different places and the need to edit the audio.
All my stuff is difficult enough in stereo so I have yet to even try a 5.1 mix !!! The AVCHD 5.1 camera though gives me a lot of options for sound sources.

Ron Evans

[plasma_video]

"Personally, a live event must portray a live feel to it, so a well blend audience noise etc is very welcome, when recording is done and all the ambiance sound is eliminated by use a gate (automatically mute the mic / signal on a preset audio level) on every mic in the recording it doesn't sound right, yet many people do it."

Yes indeed, Tony. In fact, the dry audio off of the PA system I tap into is so dead, that I blend in audio from the cameras in post, or use the acoustic impulse tool in Sound Forge to recreate the liveliness that the audience experiences.

As Ron eludes to, the 5.1 "rear" pickup on the camera could be blended in as well for the stereo mix to add the "feel".

Our (this editing community) target audiences are using everything from an old TV with a 3 inch mono speaker, to the latest whiz-bang 7.1 systems to view our productions, so we always must keep that in mind when down a final mixdown. Currently, I have small computer speakers hooked up to the editing system, as well as a good stereo amp with decent speakers and a subwoofer so I can check the mix in different listening conditions. This is the same philosophy I've used at the radio stations I've worked for as well as at TV station now when adjusting our on-air processing.

I'm really looking forward to trying some 5.1, however. The key will be what does it sound like on a regular mono or stereo environment post mixdown.

Another thing to keep in mine is phase relationships. On my monitoring system, I can sum both channels to mono and listen for interchannel L/R phase artifacts - again to make sure the audience listening in mono does not have a degraded sound. I can only imagine how much more difficult it might be to manage phase releationships in the stereo mixdown from L/R Center/Rear/Sub.

[KevMull]

I've just started trialling EDIUS Neo 2 Booster and was surprised it doesn't allow for any DD5.1 processing or even pass-thru which wouldn't require a Dolby license.

Ho do 'lesser' products like TMPG Works and Corel Video Studio Pro manage DD5.1 authoring and at a much cheaper price? Is it becuase they are not aimed at the professional market?

I'm a hobbyist and my Pam TM300 records DD5.1 which is what I was hoping the software would do. Don't HD and 5.1 go 'hand in hand' these days rather than old fashioned 2.0 stereo? even for broadcast 5.1 is fairly common with HD channels.

A related question....

On EDIUS Neo 2 Booster it does allow for 6 channels to be exported ('printed' if you're a pro!) to AVCHD file but it only outputs 2.0 channels on playback, yet on my amp it clearly sees it as Dolby Digital and all 6 channels!

Is it possible to at least pass all 6 channels un-processed to the output file?