Audio setup for NEO on Maca platform

[Raymond Krystof]

Question. I’m running NEO 4K on a Mac Pro with Premiere CS5. In accordance with 4K installation instructions I installed Quick time 7.6.6 and Perian 1.2.1 for support prior to installing 4K. I’m converting AVCHD files that have 5.1 audio tracks using the latest version of Remaster. The resulting “.mov” files result in a 2 channel stereo audio. I suspect there is a setup sequence that I’m overlooking to transcode the audio as 5.1.

Anyone able to shed some light here?

[Raymond Krystof]

Well I just downloaded and installed todays update for Neo 4K which posted that it fixed some problems relating to multi channel audio tracks.

Importing newly transcoding files still identify and show only 2 stereo channels, but now there isn' t any signal or sound at all?

Any body have a clue what I might be doing wrong?

[Craig Davidson]

The code requests the number of channels from the MTS audio stream and uses the channel configuration defined in the stream to set up the Perian Audio Codec. Either the MTS stream is only reporting a stereo stream, or the QuickTime wrapper is not allowing the Perian decode to decode to 5.1.

The recent fix had to do with multiple tracks of QuickTime audio, each track possibly having multiple channels. For instance when capturing using a Kona card from HD-SDI, the capture settings default to 16 tracks of mono audio. This can also be captured as 8 tracks of stereo. A single track of audio in QuickTime can have 1, 2, 3, 4 5.1 etc. channels of audio.

You should submit this issue to support and supply a short source file with the 5.1 audio. All the camera material we have seen is just recording 2 channel stereo.

[Raymond Krystof]

Craig,

Thanks for the input. I think I understand what you are saying and I will send off a raw camera clip and a transcoded version to support. Based on a response I got from David Newman on another post I’m not sure this is a Cineform problem. However, I’d be grateful if you guys could help.

To elaborate, the source material is from a Panasonic HS700. My observation so far is that a native “raw” .mst file from the camera imported into Premiere CS5 shows to be a “48000 Hz - 32 - Bit Float - 5.1” file when interrogated by Premiere info. When I drop the file into a sequence time line it puts the audio track into Premiere’s Audio 4 time line and clearly shows 6 separate tracks labeled “L, R, Ls, Rs, C, LFE”. The transcoded “mov” clip when interrogate by Premiere info is identified as “4800 Hz 32 - Bit Float - Stereo”. When I place the file into a Premiere sequence time line it puts the audio track into Premiere’s Audio 1 time line and clearly shows 2 separate track labeled “L, R”.

I’ve experimented with settings in Perian changing settings from the default “Dolby Pro Logic” to “Dolby Pro Logic II” and “Multi - Channel Output”. I’ve also messed around with settings on Mac’s Midi utility. Somewhere in this mix I lost audio conversion altogether. However I’ve gotten it back settling on Perian set on “Dolby Pro Logic II” and Mac’s Midi settings left as default, I think. But now transcoded clips result in Premiere locking up? I’m pretty sure that my problem is the combination of settings between Perian and the “midi” utility within Mac. Until I get this squared away I’ll only use Neo 4K for my archive of HDV material.