5.1 to Stereo Downmix

sean@oregonsound.com wrote on 6/9/2008, 12:08 AM

Hey all. I've been unable to find any information on what exactly Vegas is doing when using the multichannel mapping to create a stereo downmix from a 5.1 mix. It seems to work well enough, but the levels are considerably lower than the 5.1 and there doesn't seem to be any access to the parameters such as those in the AC-3 encoder. Is this creating an effective Lt/Rt mix, or is it something less sophisticated than that? Any insight appreciated.

Comments

richard-courtney wrote on 6/9/2008, 5:56 AM

I usually encode for 5.1 and let the DVD hardware downmix.
Check Dolby Lab's website for white papers.

I'll edit with the link later if able.

sean@oregonsound.com wrote on 6/9/2008, 7:34 AM

The Dolby downmix options are fairly clear. It's the non-Dolby downmix I'm interested in, because many clients will ask for both 5.1 and Lt/Rt mixes without encoding. It's also a good way to check for compatibility, but without having access to the parameters it's a little hard to know how close it might be to the Dolby versions (and I'd prefer not to have to invest in Surcode unnecessarily).