5.1 Surround with Video Capture

gold wrote on 10/7/2003, 7:51 AM
To properly create 5.1 surround video segments and DVDs you need a sound card capable of playing 5.1 to hear what you are doing. What about capturing sound in the first place? Are any of the programs commonly available Vegas, Premiere Pro, DPS Velocity, etc. capable of capturing sound from a different source than video [note: analog NTSC video not DV preencoded] so that the Sound Blaster Audiiology 2 Platinum can be used [I know it has a mechanism for disabling itself from capturing copyrighted sound, but what if the source is not copyrighted-but actually 6 channels encoded into Dolby 5.1 optical with an external device). Better still is there a 6 independent channel input card that could be used for direct capture in a concert hall or church. In other words, has anyone had any experience with capturing 5.1 surround live and making a dvd from it?

Comments

filmy wrote on 10/7/2003, 9:33 AM
You might want to check out some of these sound cards and see if they are what you are looking for:

DSP24 MK II

DSP24 Media 7.1

DSP3000 M-Port

ProDif 96 Pro

miXart8
gold wrote on 10/7/2003, 12:44 PM
Filmy,
those are nice; have you ever used one to capture 6 channels all the way through to DVD?
thanks,
Gold
jbrawn wrote on 10/7/2003, 2:37 PM
I've cheated.

I did a suround project with three cameras shooting. I recorded the six audio tracks on the three camera when shooting (using Beachtek XLR adapters). After I captured the three DV streams, I lined them up on a tone burst I sent to all channels (from my Mackie SR-40 mixer). Even though the three video cameras were free wheeling, they stayed lined up within a field for a 45 minute shoot.

I put left and right on one camera, left rear and right rear on a second, and center and sub on the third.

Next time around, I'm hoping to use an ADAT HD-24 to capture the audio to hard disk, and then use FTP to bring the .WAV files from the HD-24 to the Vegas PC, bypassing the DV step (and the audio level compression -AGC- that the cameras do.)

Good Luck,

John.
gold wrote on 10/7/2003, 3:20 PM
John,
Thanks, I guess the timing on independent systems is more precise than I thought. So basically you had 3 stereo audio channels that aligned almost perfectly over time allowing them to be merged with no time adjustments.
cool,
Gold
I'm still interested in the capture card approach as this would greatly simplify the effort; can the video and 6 channels of audio be captured directly into the computer live--has anyone done this?
Spot|DSE wrote on 10/7/2003, 6:53 PM
Why use the Adat? why not use a card with a great converter and capture straight to Vegas? This is how we did the Three Tenors project, and have done several since, including the "Stand By Your Man" show (life story of Tammy Wynette) and other live Broadway shows. Card fed by either mics around the room or by subs from a mix. Works wonderfully. 5 mics input. No point in capturing LFE, because it will be useless in a live room anyway, unless coming from a mixer with dedicated sub group out that feeds the low enclosures. The M-Audio or Echo cards are GREAT for this.
gold wrote on 10/9/2003, 1:29 PM
SPOT,
thanks, I'll look at the M-Audio and Echo cards; more details on how you hooked stuff up would be helpful. I am guessing you had a separate video card that had sync capablilities with the 6 channel sound card.
Please elaborate,
Gold
Also, most of the cards mentioned cost a lot more than the Soundblaster Audigy II Platinum card with front panel input subsystem (sells for about $129 at Best); are they worth the difference in cost (the Audigy does 6 channels of 24 bits) but then you've gotta encode them (pre hardware so the XLR inputs are very tempting.
Spot|DSE wrote on 10/9/2003, 6:27 PM
I do my sync directly in Vegas, no capture card other than myADS pyro in most of my machines.
The files line up as a group, so it's no big thing to drop video in there and keep things in sync using the audio from the video track. If there is a delay due to distance from the source, it's very easy to advance the audio to match. Starting the shoot/audio record with a clapboard, hand clap, whatever to mark the sync point works great. Some folks use a flash that has a noise to it.
gold wrote on 10/10/2003, 12:31 PM
Spot,
thanks,
Gold