Great - as that helped.

We are talking about having BOTH stereo and 5.1 on the SAME DVD, not German, English and Polish spoken lang. in ONLY one (Stereo or 5.1...)

Looking at Project Prop. you have ONE (1!) possibility of selecting Audio format, not BOTH 5.1 and Stereo.
How do you solve the issue of having BOTH 5.1 and Stereo with that setting?

I sure know how to select audio track, but it does not help regarding Stereo vs. 5.1.

And... it is not as easy as making all audio 5.1 and then say "sorry chaps, if you only have Stereo..." - mixing professional audio for Stereo and 5.1 are two compl. different things than just allowing "automatic" downsampling of the DVD-player.

So, how to set Project Properties to support true Stereo AND 5.1 at the same time?

When you set the proj properties you're generally telling DVDA what to expect & how to encode if nec. I think. Using 2 audio tracks for any video or title lets the user switch back and forth during &/or before playback -- this is normally how retail DVDs work, with maybe an extra language or 2 & possibly DTS. DVDA looks at the ac3 to determine what it is, & the ifo files will contain the proper info re: each audio track, & players normally don't have any problems.

I imagine it might get more involved if you were importing something besides ac3, but especially for 5.1 I wouldn't recommend it -- especially with no real advantage to be had. Otherwise in general the whole thing's pretty simple as far as DVDA is concerned.

If you want to add menu switching, rather than rely on the viewer's remote, easiest way is to create 2 identical menus, add some sort of visual feedback telling the viewer what's selected, and have buttons [say the one's switching between the 2 menus] also change the audio track in button properties. Or you could search online, copy & paste some scripting into your DVDA project if you want something fancier.

At any rate -- "So, how to set Project Properties to support true Stereo AND 5.1 at the same time?" -- You don't 'cause it really doesn't matter. Import your ac3 tracks, DVDA will know how to handle it, & players will play the results without problems.

MPM,

so the Proj. Prop. are just "recommendations"/"hints" what DVDA is to expect as input?

Alright - now, we're on track again. Then I just make Audio 1 = 5.1, Audio 2 = Stereo (both in Vegas), save both as ac3 and add them as A1 and A2 in DVDA and hope that it all will sort out when played in the DVD-player.

I made a meny with 4 flags as "point of entry" (to select lang.) on the DVD (which guides to different lang.-dependent menus), I guess I'll make the following page the "sound selection" page.

I will test and return with findings.

(Why is there no good book in DVDA - the PDF-manual is just a boring Help printed and only refs....)

I don't think you really need to have both on a DVD, as the Dolby Digital Encoder gives you the option of having a Ro/Lo stereo signal encoded along with the 5.1 surround. I've been doing music compilations of 6 channel live concert recordings, and when you play it back on a stereo playback device, the decoder grabs the Stereo Mixdown in the .ac3 stream. There are a lot of parameters in that encoder, takes LOTS of trial and error.

Worth the effort, imho. Too bad so many audiophiles dump on data compressed formats such as Dolby Digital, I personally think the Dolby guys/gals are brilliant. To my ears the much-data-compressed .ac3's sound better than CD. I do my original recordings in 96/24 6 channels, and feed that to the Dolby Digital Encoder, in Vegas 7, sometimes with Waves L3 in the main and surround channels.

Sorry to have wandered quite a bit in this post, hope it helps.

Rgds,
Rick Z

Rick,

I listened to a "commercial" DVD (a concert) with both 5.1 and Stereo "selection" in a somewhat "cheaper" DVD-player with headphones and the Stereo was a good as ever but the 5.1 was... not good. Don't know if the author of that DVD made a job or not, but if it only would have been 5.1 it would have sounded weird on a non-5.1 system.

Anyone else having experience of 5.1 and Stereo on the same DVD?

5.1 mixdown can work extremely well, with speech actually more legible than the stereo mix which I think is the emphasis, but it can also cause problems besides not always being very musically accurate. For PC use, most people don't pay the extra $ for 5.1, so the software player may or may not do a mixdown to stereo -- if not your viewer is out of luck. A good example is/was the cut down version of Nero distributed with drives.

Another potential problem is that most players I've seen offer different types of level equalization or sound compression tailored to the levels in the average film's theatrical soundtrack. Judging from your target audience in another post, I'd bet most of them use it. If your levels aren't at or near the extremes used for a movie, how will it sound?