If you have access to Vegas 13 or older, the Dolby Digital Pro encoder allows for variants such as this.

If you have access to Vegas 13 or older, the Dolby Digital Pro encoder allows for variants such as this.

True, but I'm trying to find a solution that doesn't involve those older versions ...

I am not aware of a 3:1 format or a codec that supports i. Use 5:1 and leave front/center and rear left/right silent. For your personal set-up you could create a PCM poly file and route the L/R/LFE channels accordingly.

Yes, I know you can do that. However that is not the desired outcome.

The request, and the desire, is for a 2.1 AC3 encoding method utilizing the Happy Otter Scripts encoder.

Happy Otter Scripts makes use of FFmpeg for audio encoding. To use HOS in its current state would require creation of a custom command line indicating a 3 channel (2.1) output and also specifying the mapping of the 6 channel wav audio rendered from Vegas to the 3 output channels.

If you have access to Vegas 13 or older, the Dolby Digital Pro encoder allows for variants such as this.

That's not quite my recollection for Dolby AC3; however, I have been doing 3.0 (not 2.1) AC3 mixes for my own use for two decades (I have great LCR Front speakers). I hate rear speakers and LFE because they are distracting and the programming is usually miserably encoded.

While it does work fine, it's rendering a bunch of empty/silent tracks that are redundant,

You've answered your own question; muting Rear tracks wastes nothing because there is nothing to decode, it is only your housekeeping instinct that is bothering you.

These are the AC3 options from V12

Here's an example of how to do it using R+ in HOS. A custom commandline has been created by changing the bitrate from 448 to 192 and adding the pan audio filter with the following syntax: -af "pan=2.1|c0=FL|c1=FR|c2=LFE"

Here is a screengrab of the R+ encoder settings dialog:

And the media info from the rendered file.

Here's an example of how to do it using R+ in HOS. A custom commandline has been created by changing the bitrate from 448 to 192 and adding the pan audio filter with the following syntax: -af "pan=2.1|c0=FL|c1=FR|c2=LFE"

Here is a screengrab of the R+ encoder settings dialog:

And the media info from the rendered file.

Perfect, thank you!