AC-3 DE-Coder?

The_Voice wrote on 5/13/2003, 11:30 AM
O.K., so I now have Vegas 4.0b up and running nicely - finally... but - and there is always the big BUT - Why is there no AC-3 DE-Coder available. If I want to play back the (now) encoded files to see if they reallly meet my expectations, I have to go outside of SOFO into a 3rd Party player.

If someone sends me an AC-3 file, I cannot DE-Code it and work with it in Vegas, I have to send it out analog, to my outboard decoder, then record each track into Vegas in Analog... then, I can sort of manipulate it... not what I had in mind folks...

So the question is, does anyone know of a 3rd party DECODER in DX, which we can use to IMPORT files inot Vegas with? Or, with the changes ahead for SOFO, will SOFO come up with a DECODER for Vegas? One of the competition has one, however for $900.00 it's not a bargin.... The initals of the program are - "Nuendo".

Comments

SonyEPM wrote on 5/13/2003, 2:44 PM
DVD Architect can decode stereo AC3 (and decode 5.1 to stereo, downmixed) but this is for DVD preview purposes only. Most users are using the AC3 for DVD, so if you fit that profile your best bet is to burn the AC3-encoded mix to a rewriteable DVD (-rw, +rw) and listen through a hardware DVD player. AC3 playback in different players also can vary widely (due to various onboard filtering and other processes).

One last comment: since AC3 is highly compressed, you should only use this as the delivery compression step- decoding AC3 and remixing back to AC3 could be a huge and pointless quality hit. Compress at the end, never elsewhere.
The_Voice wrote on 5/13/2003, 3:25 PM
Thanks for the Information.

I have not played enough with DVD Architect yet to to understand it's intricies I guess.

So there is still no way to get the 5:1 mix - unmixed? I understand that this would be the final "end-user" encoding process, however, I have music clients and commercial clients whom require (or request) a proof copy for them to listen to before we do the final mix-down (then encode from there). Sometimes they want to take it home and listen to it overnight, and sometimes they want to listen to it right then and there to see if it is what they are "thinking". Burning to an RW DVD is a great idea, but again it takes multiple steps.

The other part of this is some other Studios are sending me files already encoded to AC-3 which they want me to "fix". (I assume they like the way I mix the LFO cahnnel and other tweaks) It would be simple to have them send the AC-3 file to "tweak" ONLY, and not the entire session. That's my thinking...

The_Voice
SonyEPM wrote on 5/13/2003, 4:09 PM
Again, due to the highly compressed nature of AC3, I'd advise against extracting AC3 mixes and remixing/re-encoding. You wouldn't compress your recordings down to MP3 and upload them to a CD mastering lab- same logic applies in this case. AC3 is a delivery format, not a source or even interim format.

You could have the other guys make you an AC3 encoded DVD evaluation master, for checking.

If any remixing is required, have the other studio send you PCM wav files for each track...or better yet have them do an OMF export and send the unmixed project (at least two 3rd party omf exporter/importer tools for Vegas are available). Do it this way and you'll have pristine source material and almost certainly a far better end result.

swattum wrote on 5/13/2003, 4:24 PM
BeSweet will happily decode 5.1 AC3 into 6 individual WAV files, or Stereo AC3 into WAV.

Usual disclaimers apply.
The_Voice wrote on 5/13/2003, 5:51 PM
This is the what I was looking for - from BOTH of you... the idea of the OMF never tool root in my head until now! And BeSweet could do the trick...

My THANKS to both of you - SonicEPM and swatum

The_Voice