"surround panning with autom is completely haywire"

no it isnt.. it does precisely what it claims to do... hell i wish the video filters were as "live" as this..

So Padre, what am I doing wrong? It sure isn't behaving the same when automated as not.

I have found a similar situation, getting sound from the rear speakers when it should be coming only from the front. The surround master display shows "-inf" but the rear speakers are still live. Rendering to AC3 produces a correct file (that is, it plays correctly in Media Player Classic); only the playback in Vegas is wrong.

This also happens when I try the same test in V7 -- but I am sure that was not the case before I installed V8. So it appears that the V8 installation corrupted something basic.

Rendering works right? That's a start. I can guess at it, do a short render and see how it sounds.

Regarding V8 breaking it for all versions - hmm. I know it used to work right, haven't done a surround project in a while. I have 6,7,and 8 on my machine now. I was thinking about reinstalling 5 to see if that was the version that worked. I have a laptop with 7 that I haven't put 8 on yet. I'll see how it works there. It just is a dog compared to my quad....

thanks all,
Rocky

Fired up my laptop which has Vegas 6d on it - same problem. This machine has never had V7 or 8 installed, so it's not V8 breaking it. It must be V5 that I remember working correctly. So this has been broken now for 3 versions? Doesn't anyone out there do surround? Please fix it Sony.

Verified that Vegas 8 does render automated surround pans correctly, it just doesn't play them right.

All my stuff is surround with a second track on the dvd for downmixed stereo.
I have been trying to get the surround pan to work properly for years - without any great success.

If I fiddle with the ac3 encoder by turning off the LFE I get the best experience from my dvd's. Downside to that is DVDA insists on re-encoding the audio which adds a fair bit of time to the burn process.

I have no projects that are only one track so that is not an option.

This trouble has been going on since my first installation, 5 I think it was, and my current 7d is no better.
Maybe I should go through the hassle of emailing tech support. It sure is not a good surround encoder as it is.

the issue here is WHAT you are trying to do?
What is it your trying to achieve? is it a stereo track your trying to mix in 5.1 or what?

The surrond mixer in Vegas is good, that to give you an idea, of its worth, i sold off almost 30k worth of hardware encoders when softencode was released.. its THAT good..

the issue of bleeding seems to be from the fact that your channels are still live..
If you dotn want bleed through to th rear, turn off the rear speakers. Just click on the blue speaker icon and voila.
In regard to panning, when automation is set to on, the panner will always shift back to centre.
sometimes THIS pisses me off, but its a simple matter of just clicking and dragging druting playback. Vegas will interpolat teh KF's anyway, so you wont notice the effect.

I dont know what your trying to achieve so i cant help

give me more info and i can walk u through it

email your veg to djpadre@hotmail.comI can see what your trying to do, but it seems you havent allocated the channels correctly

The bleed through issue that I have noted above occurred with rear speakers turned off using the icons as DJPadre suggests. It is not an issue of mistaken use of surround automation. The resulting AC-3 files play correctly in Media Player Classic; they just don't preview correctly in V8. I haven't tested yet in V8.0a.

The resulting AC-3 files play correctly in Media Player Classic; they just don't preview correctly in V8. I haven't tested yet in V8.0a.

I am having a hard time with this. Why? Because the playback signal path is the same path we render from. The only difference is that we don't send to hardware when rendering. (It has to be this way otherwise everything rendered could potentially be different.)

Thanks, Peter, for your very prompt reply.

I will do the best I can here. What I reported earlier was the best I could remember from tests a month ago. I have not attempted to reproduce it exactly. But what I have demonstrates what I think is the problem in a slightly different form. The veg, test tone, and sample AC-3 are zipped here.

The front speakers preview (in V8.0) correctly. The rear speakers are both live when either one is to play. The rear speaker not selected plays about 6db less than the selected one -- but both play. A rendered AC-3 file plays correctly in Media Player Classic using the same hardware.

I am using the Direct Sound Surround Mapper. I am using my on board Realtek AC''97 connected to a Logitech 6 channel system via analog connection to the sound ports on the mother board(blue to blue, green to green, orange to orange as specified by Logitech -- mother board specs are here). The Logitech master module decodes to the appropriate speaker.

This set up has worked correctly in the past (I use a version of this test veg to balance the speakers from time to time). Preview in V7.0 and V8.0 both behave incorrectly since V8 was installed.

This may indeed be a problem with my hardware or setup, but that hardware and setup have not changed in over a year. Moreover, Media Player Class plays correctly through the same setup, as it has for many months.

Any insight anyone can provide into my current problem would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Larry

Peter, here is my setup.

Windows Classic wave drivers. Echo Layla 3G set to WDM driver model. 6 physical channels used of 8. 3/4 assigned to FL/R, 5/6 assigned to C/LFE, 7/8 assigned to Sur L/R.

3 stereo tracks. 2 of them muted.

Track #1 is unmuted (F L/R, physical channels 3/4) and has panning set to Balance 0 dB, center faded to -inf so the signal is shown in the panner as -6dB in each of Front L and Front R channels.

With automation OFF and surround pan fully forward and centered, when playing you get signal in the 2 front channels on the mixer and out of the physical channels. Zero out of all other channels as I expect. If you move the surround pan fully back and centered, you get signal out of the 2 rear channels both on the mixer and out of the physical channels and zero out of all of the others.

Turn automation on. Show automation controls, automation on latch. When the surround pan is fully forward and centered you get signal out of the 2 front mixer channels and physical channels and zero out of everything else. This is what I expect. Move the surround pan fully back and centered. You get FULL signal on the FRONT L/R mixer channels and physical channels, and also on the rear mixer and physical channels. There is no way I can discover to fully pan the 2 channels to back with automation on.

Render. The signal will be fully panned back without any out of the front channels.

Any other info you need, just ask.
thanks,
Rocky

"Show automation controls, automation on latch."

Set it to automation write (touch)

This should solve your problem. I just did a surround pan with a car moving from right to left and behind camera and touch will retain the final KF position (as opposed to centering)

Worked a treat, no issues here... this was in V6 and & and V8s on teh lappy so i havent tried it, but this is how the panner works and ive been using it since V4, and never had a problem

What speaker config are you using? in vegas i mean

I think you've got the touch and latch functionality reversed. Latch leaves the panner in the last position. In any case, it doesn't make a difference in the automation panning behavior. At least it doesn't make it behave correctly.

I think I described by speaker configuration in my previous post.
Phys Channels 3/4 = FL/FR
Phys Channels 5/6 =C/LFE
Phys Channels 7/8 = SL/SR

All tracks are muted except one stereo track. That track is being panned from FL/FR to SL/SR.

The behavior should be the same given the same steady state position of the panner icon whether or not automation is on or off. It's not.

not confused as i just used this config before i put that post up

I echo Bastinado's comment: The behavior should be the same given the same steady state position of the panner icon whether or not automation is on or off. It's not.

In my case I'm using Soundscape Mixpander9 as soundcard, ASIO drivers, 5.1 setup. Extremely well set-up PC for audio/video, and other programmes always behave properly and consistently (apart from known bugs of course!).
I've been working in 5.1 exclusively for more than 10 years, therefore feel I am familiar with what should be occurring... .

Vegas setup:
VegasPro8.0a build 179
all channels 5.1 surround, MONO tracks.
All channels routed direct to Surround Master.
ASIO Streams 1/2 = FL/FR
ASIO Streams 3/4 = C/LFE
ASIO Streams 5/6 = SL/SR

For this example I have just one MONO track playing = 0dBfs Tone
Panner Type = Film
Automation Write = Latch

Start with Pan = FL (-6dB)
- Press Play, and there's output from FL (0dB), AND also output from SL (-5dB) !! All the speakers except FL are showing -Inf.
- While Play, move Pan to SL, and there's output from SL (-5dB), AND also from FL (-2dB) !! All the speakers except SL are showing -Inf.
- While Play, move Pan to SR, and theres output from SR (-9dB), AND ALL other channels (exceptLFE) FL=-14dB, FR=-1dB, SL=-14dB, C=-14dB. All the speakers except SR are showing -Inf.
- While Play, move Pan to FR, and theres output from FR (0dB) only. All the speakers except FR are showing -Inf.
- While Play, move Pan to C, and theres output from C (-15dB), AND also from FL (0dB). All the speakers except C are showing -Inf.

Playing back all this with Automation in Read I get the same result.

I found during this that the results are not always the same each time Autom is recorded, and indeed, sometimes it all worked as expected during Autom Write. i.e. the problem is intermittent, however I get it more times than not.

I'm thinking 'haywire' is an understatement!

Anyone wants a demo veg of above find it at http://download.yousendit.com/ED0D91BC5F9E2F62 for the next 7 days
- the first track has the soundfile and autom, the next 6 tracks (muted) are the rendered result.

BTW the "Constant Power" Panner is broken: I can never get any output from FL or FR outputs, and there's always output from Centre, regardless of Pan position, with or without Automation.

For a few minutes today I thought 8.0a had fixed it but alas, no. It is intermittent for me too. It worked right for a while, then stopped.

Regarding the discussion on latch vs. touch, here is a copy from the manual:

Write (Touch)
The envelope/keyframe value is applied during playback, and the control follows the envelope/keyframe settings during playback and when you position the cursor.

Envelope points or keyframes are created only while a control is being adjusted. When you stop adjusting the control, automation recording stops and the existing envelope points/keyframes are unaffected.

My comment: thus when you stop adjusting the keyframe following the last adjustment point takes control using its settings for speed and smoothness. This causes the pan position to start changing as soon as you stop adjusting. In my case I want it to stay where I left it until I adjust it again, thus I use latch.

Write (Latch)

The envelope/keyframe value is applied during playback, and the control follows the envelope/keyframe settings during playback and when you position the cursor.

Envelope points or keyframes are created when you change a control setting, and recording continues until you stop playback. When you stop adjusting the control, the control's last setting overwrites the existing envelope points/keyframes.

After more testing, I've proven rendering does not work correctly either, at least for me. Thus surround panning automation is completely unusable. There must be some plugin or something that breaks it for those of us it doesn't work for.

I've tested this on a new, clean install of XP SP2 with nothing installed except Sony apps and plugins for them.

I've now confirmed it broken for Vegas 5,6,7,8 and submitted a case to tech support.

Rocky

that is strange, everything is working fine for me, preview as well as the encoding. I have never had any problem with it (using surround in 6,7 and now in 8). As for the Constant Power mentioned earlier - if you move the Center slider on the Surround Panner slightly to the left (i.e. decrease the center level) then the FL and FR start to work.
As for the computer configuration I have noticed one thing - if the soundcard is set in its Control panel as it has two speakers then even if you have assigned appropriate channels in Vegas, the soundcard uses only front speakers. At least this is how it works on my SB Audigy 4. When the soundcard is setup to use 5.1 speakers then the panning works correcly.

This problem still exists in V8.0b