Can't choose left-right channel

aiki-a wrote on 5/27/2018, 8:35 PM

Hi,

I'm a self-learnt Vegas Pro user who's facing problems with audio channel.

Normally I get videos that allow me to choose left/right channel or to combine them. Now I have an interview file that only presents me with 1 channel which means I can't hear all the audio. Is there any way to get both left-right somehow else than doing the right click on the audio?

Or is the audio recorded in mono, so I can't get two channels? Can I always work with two channels when it's recorded in stereo?

Thank you so much in advance!

 

Comments

Former user wrote on 5/27/2018, 9:43 PM

It would seem it is a Mono track, which means there is no left or right. You can convert it to a stereo track, but there is no advantage to doing so other than to be consistent with your normal audio workflow.

Arthur.S wrote on 5/28/2018, 3:19 AM

Just curious...why would you want an interview to not be mono? What advantage is there using stereo?

aiki-a wrote on 5/28/2018, 3:56 AM

@Arthur.S

Sadly this is just a situation I am in. The recordings are done by someone else and at one point I just noticed that the host is recorded on "on one side of stereo" and the interviewee on the other. I guess it's just how the recording program does it... I'd be extremely happy with one simple mono but I haven't got it yet, though several settings of the recording program have been tried.

But when you ask about the advantages, then there actually is one that is definitely worth the stereo. And that is - if one person has some (continuous) background sound, with stereo at least half of the final video will be without that background noise. And if the noise comes in from the host side, stereo's even better, as the questions are usually way smaller part of the whole final interview :)

Dexcon wrote on 5/28/2018, 5:39 AM

I am not seeing ambient sounds behind an interviewer that are significantly different to the ambient sounds behind the interviewee as being desirable - as a listener, I would personally find it not only annoying but also distracting. Surely the approach would be to reduce the ambient sounds behind the interviewer to match as far as possible the ambient sounds behind the interviewee, or to add the interviewer ambient sound to the interviewee segments so that the whole interview sounds uniform and recorded at the same location at the same time.

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Former user wrote on 5/28/2018, 6:33 AM

okay, so you think you have only one channel of a stereo track, is that right?

EricLNZ wrote on 5/28/2018, 7:15 AM

Do you hear both tracks when you play it outside of Vegas?

aiki-a wrote on 5/28/2018, 8:33 AM

Thank you everyone for being so helpful! :)
@Former user yes it seemed to me that there was only one channel of stereo and I couldn't do anything to see the other one. The host tried to convert the file to different types and each time, a different result came with the audio, so I guess it is totally the "fault" of recording program, though I thought Vegas would be smart enough to get the two channels in every case.

@EricLNZ with the initial file, I could only hear one track outside of Vegas. But it has happened before that I might head one outside of Vegas, but when editing in Vegas, I can get my hands on both of the channels... THIS is what makes it weird, I never know when listening outside of Vegas and hearing only one channel, whether I can get two channels or not :D And the worst part is that I don't know what would be the solution here. Today, only thing that "saved my ass" was converting the file to other file types until I got one channel present in one file and another channel in another file (which means they were somehow present in the initial file but vegas didn't recognise).

 

Former user wrote on 5/28/2018, 9:40 AM

If you could post Mediainfo report about the file, maybe we can identify the problem.

aiki-a wrote on 5/28/2018, 9:52 AM

@Former user this is the file I downloaded from vimeo - the one who uploaded told that had all the audio. Does maybe vimeo process the file so that I finished up with having only one part of the audio? The same happened with sending the file via Wetransfer. So it seems my question actually has now developed into - what medium should we use to transfer big video files online without corrupting or damagind the files :)

When I got m4v file, that had stereo channels (instead the mono like on the image), Vegas told the file is corrupted and couldn't open it.

Former user wrote on 5/28/2018, 10:09 AM

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-how-to-post-mediainfo-and-vegas-pro-file-properties--104561/

 

This will give more reliable info about the file.

aiki-a wrote on 5/28/2018, 10:29 AM

Thaaaanks, here it is:

General
Complete name                            : C:\Users\aikia\Downloads\Allan Eesmaa on 2018-05-27 at 16.17.mp4
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID                                 : mp42 (mp42/mp41/isom/avc1)
File size                                : 492 MiB
Duration                                 : 59 min 17 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 1 161 kb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2018-05-27 11:38:32
Tagged date                              : UTC 2018-05-27 11:38:32

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L3.1
Format settings                          : CABAC / 8 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames               : 8 frames
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 59 min 17 s
Bit rate                                 : 1 040 kb/s
Width                                    : 854 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 23.109 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.110
Stream size                              : 441 MiB (90%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 155 r10 7d0ff22
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=8 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=9 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=2 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=15 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / stitchable=1 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=2 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=infinite / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=60 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=20.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=5 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=1650 / vbv_bufsize=1800 / crf_max=0.0 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Encoded date                             : UTC 2018-05-27 11:38:32
Tagged date                              : UTC 2018-05-27 11:38:32
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.601 NTSC
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.601
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.601

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : mp4a-40-2
Duration                                 : 59 min 17 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 118 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel(s)_Original                      : 1 channel
Channel positions                        : Front: C
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 49.9 MiB (10%)
Encoded date                             : UTC 2018-05-27 11:38:32
Tagged date                              : UTC 2018-05-27 11:38:32

 

And also the Vegas properties:


 

Former user wrote on 5/28/2018, 10:32 AM

That is a very strange file. The audio frame rate does not match the video frame rate and it shows that it has two channels but only one channel which it has determined is a Front Center channel. This is looks like part of a recording with a 5.1 sound option. Very odd.