Audio editor / Dolby Digital 5.1

[Ilkka Pouhakka]

Does anyone know audio editor that I don't have to pay my arm and leg for, which would work with 6-channel Dolby Digital input where I'd be able to edit each channel individually?

[Jack Zhang]

Sony Vegas (although a Video Editor) was built on the old ACID software, so it would make an excellent audio editor and it supports 5.1.

[Ilkka Pouhakka]

I actually never thought of that. Great suggestion!
Thank you, I'll look into it.

[Gary Nattrass]

There are three aspects to all surround the first is the editing which can be done in any editor as you are basically just cutting 6 audio tracks, if you can link them it makes it a lot easier.

The second is actually monitoring the tracks and panning them around if you wish to and you generally need a plug in or hardware to enable you to do this.

The third in the encoding process which makes the digital stream of 5.1 or other surround sound and this can be the expensive bit as you may need to buy a licence decoder from dolby etc.

Personally I use MIX 51 in Pro tools which does the monitoring and decoding for Pro Logic 2 but to do full dolby digital or THX etc I would need to buy an encoding package which costs a lot more.

[Ilkka Pouhakka]

I'm still very new to the whole surround sound world... So, I have a problem.
I'm now doing some testing and I created new project with 5.1 audio in Vegas.

I have one video recorded with 7.1 audio track and during playback it plays with audio. After I put the video inside Vegas for editing, it gives me no audio track(s) and I can't hear anything either. I also believe that if I record gameplay from video game console with Dolby Digital 5.1, it would still have the same problem.

Do I need to separate the audio from the video into individual tracks before adding it into Vegas?
If so, what is the best way to do this with both, Dolby 5.1 and general (non-Dolby) multichannel audio?

[Gary Nattrass]

You will need a 7.1 decoder but I doubt any editing software will have one as 7.1 is a pro delivery format or will need to down convert it to 5.1 to be compatible with any plug ins that your editor has.

By this I presume you are just editing a 5.1 stream and listening to the decoded results not doing discrete six channel track manipulation.

Also I do hope that you have permission to use game footage as it is subject to copyright in the same way as any other content.

[Ilkka Pouhakka]

Actually, what I'd want to do is simply making 5.1 from game console and 7.1 (if possible) from PC into 6- and 8- separate mono channels (archive) and 2-channel stereo (final video). Mono channels would go into my archive as "unedited" and stereo for the final video. I can't really put it any more simple than this.

Are you aware of any programs that would work for me and with Dolby's audio?

As what comes to your concern about recording gameplay:
Game companies don't really have a problem with recording gameplay as I've talked with many of them as well as Dolby. Dolby even gave me information regarding the recording process.
Also, the capture card that I use is from Blackmagic Design (I have a strong feeling that you know them), which also advertises on their page that you can use it to record gameplay from game consoles.

...and last but not least, many people make their living out of recording gameplay to YouTube. It's completely legal these days as long as you are inside a network.

[Gary Nattrass]

I don't know a lot about games but would have thought that they would be copyrighted but there again I suppose that posting them on you tube promotes the gameplay and can be good for marketing.

What you need to produce discrete tracks from a surround stream is a decoder and I think you will need to pay dolby for a licence to do this within an edit package, you can also buy hardware decoders but I think you will find this quite costly.

You could possibly feed the stream into an amp with a decoder and then re-record some split outputs but it is not very convenient.

Dolby digital is basically an AES type data stream over two channels and can be edited once in a system with an external decoding amp for monitoring purposes but as said to de-compress the stream back into six or eight channels can be quite a challenge to do easily.

Maybe someone else can help more as I have mainly produced master surround tracks rather than do what you are wishing to do.

[Ilkka Pouhakka]

So, are you saying that my method of making the surround into separate mono channels for archive and then when needed adding it into editor and making it back into 5.1/7.1 is the wrong method?

[Gary Nattrass]

Not sure what you are trying to achieve but when we edit surround in TV if compiling from mixed material we keep the audio stream intact with the video and basically just have a monitoring decoder so we can listen to the tracks, there is no need to split it out to components unless we wish to add elements or change the soundfield but that is normally done at main edit and dubbing time before the master is created.