Isn't that what the Downmix button (5.1 to stereo or stereo to mono) is for?

Mike

Yes that's exactly it. It is a bit of an annoyance remembering to hit the downmix button for the stereo output but it does the trick. And of course you have to unhit it afterwards :)

Bear in mind that a 5.1 mix that is merely collapsed to a two channel mix rarely is ideal. You're almost always best doing a separate mix.
Yes, a stereo system can take a 5.1 mix from a DVD and downmix it, but for critical work, you're best off creating a second mix and giving the viewer the option.

What I usually do is complete a mix in 5.1 Then save the project and render.

Then while it's rendering I open another instance of Vegas and open the same 5.1 project. I use ALT+ENTER and change it to a stereo project. Then I can quickly make changes to make stereo sound good, usually a slight EQ and level adjustment. I also have to add a limiter to the Master section. Then Render that.

The Stereo version usually finishes faster than the 5.1 that I started first.

~Jay

Just had to send out 5.1 and stereo master mixes to a post house for layback onto the HD master. I'm curious as to why the stereo downmix is so much softer than the 5.1. Unless I added 3-4 dB at the output stage (using Wavehammer), the stereo mix was lower overall than just the center channel of the 5.1, and I could find no options for tweaking at the rendering stage. This was a 24-bit stereo .wav, not an AC-3.

Cool! I've never used the Downmix button before, but it brings up a question: What rules are used in the downmixing? Front and back are just mixed equally?

The reason I ask is because I am under the assumption that a surround-sound DVD is also downmixed by a DVD player (if set up to output stereo), but according to the metadata accompanying the ac-3 audio. I think one has the choice of either ignoring the rear audio or mixing it 3db or 6db down.

For info on what the AC3 downmix options do (and lots more info on AC3 encoding) have a look at the 'Dolby Digital Professional Encoding Guidelines' document - [url=http://www.dolby.com/assets/pdf/tech_library/46_DDEncodingGuidelines.pdf]

Every DVD player can downmix 5.1 AC3 to two channels, the default is a Dolby Surround compatible downmix. Some players allow the user to override the metadata recommendations, so you don't have absolute control over the downmix.....note that LFE is always discarded....

Tony

Right, but strangely enough I have a better grasp over the Dolby options than the PCM options. When creating a full-bandwidth stereo downmix from a 5.1 mix, I can find no info on what Vegas is actually doing. I don't think it's simply re-routing all six files into two---otherwise why would the overall level drop so much? Why do we seem to have no access to the downmix parameters?

Same situation this week. The stereo downmix to 2 channels is generally pretty effective, but it drops the overall mix level by about 6dB. Does anybody know how to get at the downmix parameters? And I'm talking about full bandwidth rendering, not AC-3, where the parameters are readily accessible.

do NOT use downmix function... Its only for monitoring

This will cause an adverse effect on speaker positioning and your centre channel dialogue will more than likely shift to the original channel it was recorded on.. even if you have set it to combine or left only right only. if its in teh right youll hear the dialogue there if u downbmix.

Your best optin is to create a 5.1 master
As described above by another poster save it and reopen anotehr instance, change the properties and tweak until the soundtrack is viable and your mix is not phasing freq's or channels.

WIth Stereo, EQ is yoru friend, in fact its imperitive to get your EQ right as you dont have the luxury of a discrete centre channel so you WILL have freq's crossover quite often.

So far, I get far superior soundtracks in stereo than anything I have tried in 5.1 especially when I have the space for PCM.

John

** Every DVD player can downmix 5.1 AC3 to two channels, **

Interesting experience -- I've mixed down live events from 4 - 8 tracks to stereo masters for a couple of decades, thought my work was pretty good.

So when it came to our last big show, I did the same thing. However, after finishing my stereo DVD, I became curious and started playing around with 5.1 The results were fabulous because in addition to the stage and band feeds, I had a stereo mic in the back of the room for ambience.

Without going into too much detail, when I authored my surround DVD, I thought I needed both my original stereo track and my 5.1 track because I didn't think home players would do justice when downmixing the surround track to stereo.

To my surprise, the player-downmixed surround-to-stereo audio was better than my lovingly-wrought 2-channel stereo track; so much better, in fact, that my production master has only the 5.1 audio on it. Besides eating humble pie, I am simply amazed that 5.1 is so much better in either case.

to tweak this, just go into the extended bitstream info and you can tweak your downmix metadata to your hearts content.
I cant remember when was the last ltime i actually did a dual audio track for any of my DVD's.. i just use 5.1.. and have since Softencode was a standalone app.. before that i used to use HW..

My experience has been the same as musicvid - I've been really surprised at how good those DVD players downmix my 5.1. Of course maybe I just stink at mixing in stereo :)