Subject:Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Posted by: gunhed

Date:6/18/2003 10:56:22 AM

I wanted to know if anyone actually uses the 5.1 Surround mode when working with projects. Can anyone confirm they are using it and it is functioning correctly? If so, what hardware setup do you have (sound card, ASIO driver, etc.)? What version of Acid are you using (pre-4.0c or post-4.0b)?

I'm curious what kind of headcount I can gather on who's works OK and who's doesn't.

I'd really like to produce some nice 5.1 music, but it doesn't seem to be working correctly. I'm using a Santa Cruz card with the Microsoft Sound Mapper on Acid Pro 4.0b.

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:6/18/2003 12:54:40 PM

I don't do 5.1 myself, but ideally, I believe that whatever you use should have discrete outputs for each channel—left and right front, left and right rear, and the LFE channel—preferably all on the same device.

You'd probably be much better off using ASIO. If not ASIO, then WDM.

HTH,
Iacobus

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: BWO

Date:6/18/2003 4:51:48 PM

I've been using Acid & Vegas for movie music and soundtrack 5.1 mixing.
I have Echo Darla and I use asio drivers. I'm using latest versions of both programs.

Surround panning works well except for the center channel issue.
I think this doesn't effect music mixing as much as movie soundtrack work.

To get 5.1 sound you need drivers that expose all 6-channels to Acid (Front L/R, rear L/R, center/LFE).

BWO

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: pwppch

Date:6/18/2003 8:40:10 PM

>>I'd really like to produce some nice 5.1 music, but it doesn't seem to be working correctly. I'm using a Santa Cruz card with the Microsoft Sound Mapper on Acid Pro 4.0b.
<<
You can not use the Microsoft Sound mapper to hear discreet 5.1 mixes.

You must use one of the following:

- DirectSound Surround Mapper: Your audio card MUST be DirectSound compatible and permit 5.1 mapping. Your audio card MUST be set as the default Windows Sound card and you MUST have the correct speaker configuration made in Windows.

- Wave Classic Drivers: The audio card must expose 3 discreet stereo pairs. You must assign one pair to the front, one pair to the center/LFE, and one pair to the rear mix positions.

- ASIO Driver: The driver must expose 3 discreet stereo pairs. You must assign one pair to the front, one pair to the center/LFE, and one pair to the rear mix positions.


Note that ACID does NOT stream encoded AC3 data to cards using a digital output. So if your card does NOT provide a means to route 6 discreet audio signals to 6 discreet speakers/amps then you will not be able to monitor your surround mix.

Peter

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: bjyow

Date:6/18/2003 11:36:37 PM

Doing 5.1 surround was the entire reason that I got the Acid Product.

I've only had it a few days so I'm still in the learning mode but thought I would
comment on play back of the 5.1 signal.

I have the JVC RX-8020V Receiver. The main reason that I picked this unit was because of two sets of video in/outs (one for the VCR, on for the NLE).

The other really nice feature is that the amp has an USB Audio input. To get 5.1 out of the receiver all I had to do was plug the USB cable into the receiver, W2K installed the drivers and ACID Pro is able to route sound to any of the 6 speakers (actually 8). The only thing that Acid does not seem to support is the 6.1 (Dolby EX) format. The receiver supports this (requires external amp) but I don't hear anything coming out of those speakers when using Acid. I do get output when playing a Dolby EX movie (Star War I, II).

Anyway I payed about $270 for the unit which is a great deal for what you get.

Bill

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: gunhed

Date:6/19/2003 9:28:54 AM

Thanks, Peter. I'll use the WDM to test with when I get home.

By the way, does Acid use the audio device driver (MSM / WDM / MSSM / ASIO) to render projects to WAV files or burn to CD? If so, this would explain the additional issues I've had with rendering my 5.1 output. Hopefully, changing to WDM will fix this problem for me. In the end, looks like I really need to invest in a pro audio card. :)

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: pwppch

Date:6/19/2003 12:10:26 PM

Rendeing does not use any audio hardware or even interact with audio hardware. Basically the file (s) you render to replace the audio hardware.

Peter

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: pwppch

Date:6/19/2003 12:12:35 PM

Correct, ACID does NOT support 6.1. It supports 5.1 surround.

No, there are no plans to support 6.1.

Peter

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: bjyow

Date:6/19/2003 11:47:39 PM

Follow up to my posting.

It seems that the JVC unit or the signal being sent to it via the USB cable is not
really 5.1 but is only stereo. At least when I was working with it tonight I did not hear anything coming out of the rear speakers unless the unit was in a pro logic type mode. So I may have posted the previous message to soon. I may also have the JVC unit setup incorrectly since I was playing around with the Dobly EX stuff.

Bill

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: gunhed

Date:6/21/2003 12:03:13 PM

Yep - the WDM choice fixed part of my problem. The other issue causing problems was an option on my Santa Cruz control panel - there's a checkbox labeled "Enable multiple wave out devices" which cause the individual channels to show up as options for the Surround Master. Once I made these changes, I was able to assign my channels, and the playback works flawlessly!

but...

I'm having problems reproducing surround on CD. This is what I hear when playing the CD:

It only plays back the front speaker channels (I can hear the sound assigned to the front channels in both the front and rear). No sound comes from the center speaker (I did not test the LFE). The sound assigned to the rear channels doesn't play out at all. I guess I'm missing something? I assume I don't have to buy the 5.1 DVD encoding package just to cut CDs?

BTW, I rendered to WAV files, and each channel plays back as expected - no problem there.

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: pwppch

Date:6/21/2003 3:54:34 PM

Redbook CD's don't support Surround sound.

You must burn AC3 to a DVD. You will need the DVD encoding pack for ACID to do this.

Peter

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: BWO

Date:6/21/2003 4:52:33 PM

5.1 surround sound cds can be made with Surcode CD-DTS encoder.
Ofcouse you need DTS decoder for playback.

BWO

Subject:RE: Does anyone use 5.1 Surround?

Reply by: pwppch

Date:6/22/2003 12:49:58 PM

This will produce NON standard CDs that will not be playable in CD players.

Peter