Exploring the audio 5.1 surround in VV4, I'm posting a bit of info I've found so far in hopes that someone else might find it useful. Know 5.1 topics have been rehashed a couple of times, so I'll try and avoid same old BS, confident y'all will let me know...
For testing I stuck to the simplest route I found yielding 6 channel sound: Import a stereo wav file to the timeline twice (on two tracks), set the project audio properties to 5.1, set the panning on 1 track normally (remember to set the center volume), and set the panning on the second track to LFE only. You can then render to AC3 if you've got the plugin, render to RealMedia or WinMedia surround, or go to 6 separate sound files in the wav, aif, and avi formats (there may be other formats that work as well).
Please remember that 6 audio channels or files don't just increase the size of your rendered project - a Winmedia 9 video created using CBR 5.1 sound (at the lowest bitrate setting for 16 bit, 48 kHz) reports an audio bitrate of 1694 kbps! When/if combined with a similar video bitrate, older/slower systems will likely not be able to play this video at good quality (or at all) - VBR would add to the system demands. FWIW, found something on the MS site recomending dual CPUs for multi-channel playback. Know it's not that bad, but I'm still testing so don't have a cutoff point yet.
The avi format is useful if your file sizes are large, as avi files do not have the absolute size limitations imposed by the wav format in windows (I've seen both 2 gig and 4 gig published as limits, & of course you can't go above 2 gig for any file *practically speaking* in fat32). Remember that you're talking whatever file size times 6 if you combine all the channels into one file..
Microsoft has very recently released a utility (WavAviMux.exe) and in their words: "This tool will combine 2, 6 or 8 mono WAV files into an audio-only AVI file that can be used as a source with the Windows media encoder. This tool enables you to create audio files longer than the 4 GB limitation of the WAV format. The tool can also add a video stream from an AVI input file into the AVI output file. Any audio streams in the input AVI will be ignored." The created avi file can probably be used in other software as well.
Microsoft Windows has it's wav file format that was developed a few years back, with several limitations due in part to it's age. Some software can save audio files in their own modified wav format, and Microsoft now has what their "WAVFORMATEXTENSIBLE structure" for wav files that allows multichannel, 24 bit etc... While Vegas does not recognize this type of wav file, it can be both read and created by at least a few audio programs, including Cooledit.Pro, and used as the input to WinMedia Encoder 9.
[t'would be nice if Vegas 4 could read/write those devils.]
A work-a-round to create a multi-channel wav file from Vegas 4, is to first create a 5.1 audio file using the WinMedia 9 lossless audio codec (to select this you have to first chose VBR). You can then use another (recently released) Microsoft app [wmal2pcm.exe] to convert the wma file created in Vegas to a WAVFORMATEXTENSIBLE structure wav file.
The aif file format can contain multiple channels in one file, is probably recognized by more software, and might then be used as input to a mpeg2 encoder for example - either bc (backward compatible) or nbc (not backward compatible). One problem is that you might need a program to combine the 6 channels into one file depending on your encoder software [pcm2aiff.exe will combine 6 wav files into one aif as an alternative, but I have no idea yet the quality of conversion]. Mpeg2 multi-channel audio has a larger file size then AC3, and as far as I could find out, is not as universally recognized by players, but it seems maybe a part of the DVD spec.: http://www.disctronics.co.uk/technology/dvdvideo/dvdvid_intro.htm
Going to AC3 from wav or aif files, without the SonicFoundry plugin, could also be done using a separate encoding prog. (see digital-digest.com for free downloads) and AC3 is included with some other DVD authoring apps etc...
In sum, Vegas 4 seems to do a great job creating 6 channels of audio, but the output options are somewhat limited. On the other hand, today there's not a huge number of options available anyway, & Vegas 4 handles the most common ones. 5.1 is also not necessarily the only way to go, as it seems quite possible to create a rough equivalent to the Dolby Surround Pro Logic encoding that's still quite common and popular. To start with:
http://www.dolby.com/ken/
http://www.dolby.com/tech/whtppr.html
http://profs.sci.univr.it/~dafx/Final-Papers/pdf/Carugo.pdf
http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/1997_articles/jan97/dolbysurround.html
------------------------------
Quite a few folks become interested in adding 5.1 audio to their video projects, and at about the same time, questions of 24 bit audio seem to surface as we seek some ultimate (if mythical) quality peak. I came across a few common-sense type arguments that helped me out at least...
Consider your source... If your keyboards have 16 bit DSPs &/or recorded samples, you're more or less taking up more disc space to record the same thing in 24 that you'd get in 16. Consider your environment (including your PC)... Will you get max quality & range, or will you use the increased depth and range to record essentially more noise. What software will you use... Audio apps may handle 24 bit recording, but will whatever app you use to capture video do it as well - are you willing to capture twice? What is your audience... If your mix needs to be compatible with all sorts of sound systems, &/or if you need to do 2 or more audio versions on your DVD, will your audience, and You, benefit.
Not saying 24 bit audio is a bad thing - feel entirely the opposite - but it's not always practical in every situation... And this brings me to a few words on sound cards, mainly because I've seen a bit of information here in the Vegas forums that might indicate a bit of bias somewhat reminiscent of the old MAC/PC wars.
24 bit sound cards are cool, but until recently they came with a hefty price tag and limited features, & IMO, overpriced as is most musician related electronic gear. Also IMO, with most musician type sound cards you get limited features, occassionally buggy drivers, and sometimes have to worry if that next windows update or upgrade will break your drivers, not to mention worrying over how long before it's fixed, if it's fixed. It's simply a limited market with all that that implies - there may not be huge amounts of cash to keep a huge driver developer team on the ready.
Again, I'm not saying don't buy a musician type card, just please beware of the downsides because you'll have to live with the thing, and it's designed to fill a very specific need. If you don't run two or more sound cards, you might not be able to play your games, can't just plug in many brands/models of 5.1 or 6.1 speakers, might not be able to use the sound card with non-music apps. and so on... It's definitely not what the average PC user is used to, so please expect some compromises.
In general be wary of audio chips designed to be placed on a motherboard; they are most often designed to be a cheap solution, and as such, focus on using the CPU with the minimum number of components (the other chips and stuff on a sound card's circuit board). C-Media makes a few that are used by Hercules and others on their sound cards - IMO they sound OK for a lot of folks, but recording is the pits. VIA makes a newer chip through an acquired company, but it's still something that to my knowledge was originally intended to be placed on a motherboard. A prime example of cards using this chip is the M-Audio Revolution - several other musician-oriented companies have versions as well, stretching I think up into the $300 - $400 range.
On-line reviews show this chip using more CPU power then most others, so it might slow things down a bit. Sound on the Revolution is good, and the card is quiet, but the drivers leave a bit to be desired... Trying it out, the sound card applet has to be running if you're going to hear any incoming sound, whether you're recording or watching TV or whatever. What nixed it for me was the terrible lag - pulled up an app to view a cable TV channel, and had the TV monitor tuned to the same channel -> audio from the PC sounded like I added a maxed out echo effect. Now it might or might not lag in other applications, but I normally grab the audio and video streams at the same time, and this looked like it was going to be a sync nightmare so I bailed.
Good and Bad, M-Audio's tech support responded the same day when I informed them of the problem. That's Great. They also indicated that they were aware of the problem with video capture hardware, and were working on a driver fix or fixes. IMO bad, because I had already waited several months since the card's debut before I tried it, just because this sort of driver problem is so common. Nicest people in the world but if I can't use their product, sorry.
Creative's gotten a lot of words, good and bad, and it seems it's been that way forever. Whatever you want to say about them, they sell enough cards that Microsoft has to be accommodating, they've been around since PCs, they continually have drivers available, even if those drivers fix stuff that should have been fixed before product release (welcome to the real world). One advantage to owning a Creative card IMO is that so many PCs have creative cards, or sound chips that emulate them - if it sounds good on a SoundBlaster, it'll likely sound good on the majority of PCs out there.
Cutting through the crap and the hype, Creative sells 4 "recent" sound cards - well, 3 cards and one box - avoid the box. That leaves the Audigy 2, Audigy 2 Platinum, & the Audigy 2 Platinum External. The latter is their current top of the line, allows you to record 6 channels simultaneously, is the only one with a pure 24 bit path, and offers 24 bit recording using ASIO 2 drivers. [VERY briefly, ASIO drivers let audio applications access different parts of the card directly, and are faster usually then directX]. It's more expensive, does not have balanced inputs, is a different card then the other Audigy 2s (I believe it uses a different AD chip in the break-out box then what the other two have on the card).
The Platinum gives you a connection panel, taking up an external drive bay, and apparently connects with the card digitally so you can't just access the card's connection pins directly as on the live etc., so without the connection panel you're limited to one external, 2 channel line in. If you can live with one external input, the plain Audigy 2 is the best value [especially as an OEM version is available for about $20 US less]. According to web reviews (check them out) all 3 are pretty quiet, which is usually what you're concerned with when recording, even as compared to ~$400 musician oriented cards; the Platinum Ex is slightly quieter then it's 2 brethren.
Starting with the Live! series, Creative moved their cards to a 48 kHz clock. The usual frequencies for audio sampling you run into go 8, 11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192. It can be difficult, especially real-time in hardware, to move from one frequency to another - 48-24 = 24 [cool] 48-16=32 [cool] 48-3.9=44.1 [NOT cool]. So if you have a sound card running at 48,000 , & as far as I know regardless the brand, the card itself is not going to do as great a job if you ask it to record or play back audio at 44,100 [which means unfortunately music CDs etc.] Perhaps trivia, but useful if you have a 48,000 card and are recording currently at 44,100, and it is something I've seen talked about in the forums, usually along the lines of creative...bad.
Something that is legitimately on the downside, the 2 cheaper Audigy 2s are reportedly half 24 bit cards; Creative fixed the problem with the later released Audigy 2 Plat. Ex.. These first two Audigy 2s are 24 bit / 96000 cards, but the effects engine still runs at 16 bit / 48,000. Allegedly, if you use an input other then line in, if you use anything but basic speaker set-up, if you use any of the effects, &/or if you use the stereo-to-surround up-mix, the audio is downsampled, manipulated, then upsampled again. This is not cool, even though in this case 96-48=48 so it's not *that* bad, you've still got 16 bit audio when you recorded 24.
luck
mike
For testing I stuck to the simplest route I found yielding 6 channel sound: Import a stereo wav file to the timeline twice (on two tracks), set the project audio properties to 5.1, set the panning on 1 track normally (remember to set the center volume), and set the panning on the second track to LFE only. You can then render to AC3 if you've got the plugin, render to RealMedia or WinMedia surround, or go to 6 separate sound files in the wav, aif, and avi formats (there may be other formats that work as well).
Please remember that 6 audio channels or files don't just increase the size of your rendered project - a Winmedia 9 video created using CBR 5.1 sound (at the lowest bitrate setting for 16 bit, 48 kHz) reports an audio bitrate of 1694 kbps! When/if combined with a similar video bitrate, older/slower systems will likely not be able to play this video at good quality (or at all) - VBR would add to the system demands. FWIW, found something on the MS site recomending dual CPUs for multi-channel playback. Know it's not that bad, but I'm still testing so don't have a cutoff point yet.
The avi format is useful if your file sizes are large, as avi files do not have the absolute size limitations imposed by the wav format in windows (I've seen both 2 gig and 4 gig published as limits, & of course you can't go above 2 gig for any file *practically speaking* in fat32). Remember that you're talking whatever file size times 6 if you combine all the channels into one file..
Microsoft has very recently released a utility (WavAviMux.exe) and in their words: "This tool will combine 2, 6 or 8 mono WAV files into an audio-only AVI file that can be used as a source with the Windows media encoder. This tool enables you to create audio files longer than the 4 GB limitation of the WAV format. The tool can also add a video stream from an AVI input file into the AVI output file. Any audio streams in the input AVI will be ignored." The created avi file can probably be used in other software as well.
Microsoft Windows has it's wav file format that was developed a few years back, with several limitations due in part to it's age. Some software can save audio files in their own modified wav format, and Microsoft now has what their "WAVFORMATEXTENSIBLE structure" for wav files that allows multichannel, 24 bit etc... While Vegas does not recognize this type of wav file, it can be both read and created by at least a few audio programs, including Cooledit.Pro, and used as the input to WinMedia Encoder 9.
[t'would be nice if Vegas 4 could read/write those devils.]
A work-a-round to create a multi-channel wav file from Vegas 4, is to first create a 5.1 audio file using the WinMedia 9 lossless audio codec (to select this you have to first chose VBR). You can then use another (recently released) Microsoft app [wmal2pcm.exe] to convert the wma file created in Vegas to a WAVFORMATEXTENSIBLE structure wav file.
The aif file format can contain multiple channels in one file, is probably recognized by more software, and might then be used as input to a mpeg2 encoder for example - either bc (backward compatible) or nbc (not backward compatible). One problem is that you might need a program to combine the 6 channels into one file depending on your encoder software [pcm2aiff.exe will combine 6 wav files into one aif as an alternative, but I have no idea yet the quality of conversion]. Mpeg2 multi-channel audio has a larger file size then AC3, and as far as I could find out, is not as universally recognized by players, but it seems maybe a part of the DVD spec.: http://www.disctronics.co.uk/technology/dvdvideo/dvdvid_intro.htm
Going to AC3 from wav or aif files, without the SonicFoundry plugin, could also be done using a separate encoding prog. (see digital-digest.com for free downloads) and AC3 is included with some other DVD authoring apps etc...
In sum, Vegas 4 seems to do a great job creating 6 channels of audio, but the output options are somewhat limited. On the other hand, today there's not a huge number of options available anyway, & Vegas 4 handles the most common ones. 5.1 is also not necessarily the only way to go, as it seems quite possible to create a rough equivalent to the Dolby Surround Pro Logic encoding that's still quite common and popular. To start with:
http://www.dolby.com/ken/
http://www.dolby.com/tech/whtppr.html
http://profs.sci.univr.it/~dafx/Final-Papers/pdf/Carugo.pdf
http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/1997_articles/jan97/dolbysurround.html
------------------------------
Quite a few folks become interested in adding 5.1 audio to their video projects, and at about the same time, questions of 24 bit audio seem to surface as we seek some ultimate (if mythical) quality peak. I came across a few common-sense type arguments that helped me out at least...
Consider your source... If your keyboards have 16 bit DSPs &/or recorded samples, you're more or less taking up more disc space to record the same thing in 24 that you'd get in 16. Consider your environment (including your PC)... Will you get max quality & range, or will you use the increased depth and range to record essentially more noise. What software will you use... Audio apps may handle 24 bit recording, but will whatever app you use to capture video do it as well - are you willing to capture twice? What is your audience... If your mix needs to be compatible with all sorts of sound systems, &/or if you need to do 2 or more audio versions on your DVD, will your audience, and You, benefit.
Not saying 24 bit audio is a bad thing - feel entirely the opposite - but it's not always practical in every situation... And this brings me to a few words on sound cards, mainly because I've seen a bit of information here in the Vegas forums that might indicate a bit of bias somewhat reminiscent of the old MAC/PC wars.
24 bit sound cards are cool, but until recently they came with a hefty price tag and limited features, & IMO, overpriced as is most musician related electronic gear. Also IMO, with most musician type sound cards you get limited features, occassionally buggy drivers, and sometimes have to worry if that next windows update or upgrade will break your drivers, not to mention worrying over how long before it's fixed, if it's fixed. It's simply a limited market with all that that implies - there may not be huge amounts of cash to keep a huge driver developer team on the ready.
Again, I'm not saying don't buy a musician type card, just please beware of the downsides because you'll have to live with the thing, and it's designed to fill a very specific need. If you don't run two or more sound cards, you might not be able to play your games, can't just plug in many brands/models of 5.1 or 6.1 speakers, might not be able to use the sound card with non-music apps. and so on... It's definitely not what the average PC user is used to, so please expect some compromises.
In general be wary of audio chips designed to be placed on a motherboard; they are most often designed to be a cheap solution, and as such, focus on using the CPU with the minimum number of components (the other chips and stuff on a sound card's circuit board). C-Media makes a few that are used by Hercules and others on their sound cards - IMO they sound OK for a lot of folks, but recording is the pits. VIA makes a newer chip through an acquired company, but it's still something that to my knowledge was originally intended to be placed on a motherboard. A prime example of cards using this chip is the M-Audio Revolution - several other musician-oriented companies have versions as well, stretching I think up into the $300 - $400 range.
On-line reviews show this chip using more CPU power then most others, so it might slow things down a bit. Sound on the Revolution is good, and the card is quiet, but the drivers leave a bit to be desired... Trying it out, the sound card applet has to be running if you're going to hear any incoming sound, whether you're recording or watching TV or whatever. What nixed it for me was the terrible lag - pulled up an app to view a cable TV channel, and had the TV monitor tuned to the same channel -> audio from the PC sounded like I added a maxed out echo effect. Now it might or might not lag in other applications, but I normally grab the audio and video streams at the same time, and this looked like it was going to be a sync nightmare so I bailed.
Good and Bad, M-Audio's tech support responded the same day when I informed them of the problem. That's Great. They also indicated that they were aware of the problem with video capture hardware, and were working on a driver fix or fixes. IMO bad, because I had already waited several months since the card's debut before I tried it, just because this sort of driver problem is so common. Nicest people in the world but if I can't use their product, sorry.
Creative's gotten a lot of words, good and bad, and it seems it's been that way forever. Whatever you want to say about them, they sell enough cards that Microsoft has to be accommodating, they've been around since PCs, they continually have drivers available, even if those drivers fix stuff that should have been fixed before product release (welcome to the real world). One advantage to owning a Creative card IMO is that so many PCs have creative cards, or sound chips that emulate them - if it sounds good on a SoundBlaster, it'll likely sound good on the majority of PCs out there.
Cutting through the crap and the hype, Creative sells 4 "recent" sound cards - well, 3 cards and one box - avoid the box. That leaves the Audigy 2, Audigy 2 Platinum, & the Audigy 2 Platinum External. The latter is their current top of the line, allows you to record 6 channels simultaneously, is the only one with a pure 24 bit path, and offers 24 bit recording using ASIO 2 drivers. [VERY briefly, ASIO drivers let audio applications access different parts of the card directly, and are faster usually then directX]. It's more expensive, does not have balanced inputs, is a different card then the other Audigy 2s (I believe it uses a different AD chip in the break-out box then what the other two have on the card).
The Platinum gives you a connection panel, taking up an external drive bay, and apparently connects with the card digitally so you can't just access the card's connection pins directly as on the live etc., so without the connection panel you're limited to one external, 2 channel line in. If you can live with one external input, the plain Audigy 2 is the best value [especially as an OEM version is available for about $20 US less]. According to web reviews (check them out) all 3 are pretty quiet, which is usually what you're concerned with when recording, even as compared to ~$400 musician oriented cards; the Platinum Ex is slightly quieter then it's 2 brethren.
Starting with the Live! series, Creative moved their cards to a 48 kHz clock. The usual frequencies for audio sampling you run into go 8, 11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192. It can be difficult, especially real-time in hardware, to move from one frequency to another - 48-24 = 24 [cool] 48-16=32 [cool] 48-3.9=44.1 [NOT cool]. So if you have a sound card running at 48,000 , & as far as I know regardless the brand, the card itself is not going to do as great a job if you ask it to record or play back audio at 44,100 [which means unfortunately music CDs etc.] Perhaps trivia, but useful if you have a 48,000 card and are recording currently at 44,100, and it is something I've seen talked about in the forums, usually along the lines of creative...bad.
Something that is legitimately on the downside, the 2 cheaper Audigy 2s are reportedly half 24 bit cards; Creative fixed the problem with the later released Audigy 2 Plat. Ex.. These first two Audigy 2s are 24 bit / 96000 cards, but the effects engine still runs at 16 bit / 48,000. Allegedly, if you use an input other then line in, if you use anything but basic speaker set-up, if you use any of the effects, &/or if you use the stereo-to-surround up-mix, the audio is downsampled, manipulated, then upsampled again. This is not cool, even though in this case 96-48=48 so it's not *that* bad, you've still got 16 bit audio when you recorded 24.
luck
mike