Surround Sound skews to the right channel

cspvideo wrote on 12/29/2016, 12:26 PM

I have one last issue to try and resolve with the newest version of DVD Architect. The other issues I've encountered have work arounds. So far I don't have one for this. I want my project created in 5.1 surround sound. My Vegas project is created with surround sound enabled, (48,000, 16 bit). I have three stereo audio channels. One is centered and forward. One is centered and centered. The third is LFE. When I create the Blu-Ray disc the channel with is center, centered comes out almost entirely on the right channel. I've tried the following. Rendering an AC3 file and selecting surround sound with no AGC. Rendering the AVCHD file with surround sound codec from within Vegas which creates a surround sound file with the the video stream. Both produce the same result. Here is what the sound layer looks like inside Architect.

You can see the right skew.

Here is what is look like inside Vegas.

Comments

Former user wrote on 12/29/2016, 3:12 PM

Are you rendering to a 5.1 AC3 file. Your first audio track file is only stereo.

cspvideo wrote on 12/29/2016, 4:13 PM

Yes. I am rendering a 5.1 ac3 file. Not sure what you mean about the first track being stereo.

Former user wrote on 12/29/2016, 7:00 PM

Sorry, I meant the first image in your post shows a stereo track, not a 5.1 track. But if that is from DVDA, that is normal. DVDA does not show a 5.1 track visually.

cspvideo wrote on 12/29/2016, 7:05 PM

The first image is from DVDA. The icon on the track shows surround sound.

Former user wrote on 12/29/2016, 8:07 PM

and you have burned this to a Bluray and the audio is not centered?

cspvideo wrote on 12/29/2016, 8:14 PM

No. It's about 85% to the right as you can see in the wave form.

cspvideo wrote on 12/29/2016, 8:24 PM

I did. I tried a number of different ideas to see what impact it might have. I ended up deleting the bus tracks. Same results. Sound file that comes into Architect is mostly to the right. I'm beginning to think this is actually a Vegas configuration issue because when I look at the track meters the sound also shows up mostly to the right.

Former user wrote on 12/29/2016, 8:27 PM

Your meters in Vegas would be a good indication of where the sound is going. If it is leaning heavily on the right, then there is a config problem. Can you post a screenshot of the mixer?

cspvideo wrote on 12/29/2016, 8:36 PM

It's weird. The mixer shows even distribution as designed. But the individual track meters show the audio issue. I have a working theory. The track that has audio that belongs to video works fine. It's the music tracks that have the problem. Those are m4a files. I am going to convert them to wav files and see what happens. And thanks for exploring the issue with me.

cspvideo wrote on 12/29/2016, 9:47 PM

Well I'm stumped. I tried different "flavors" of the music files: wav, mp3 and none of it made a difference. I expanded the track meters to see if I could visualize it. The track meters actually show balanced sound and so does the mixer. However, when the file is rendered and brought into DVDA there is absolutely an issue. My work around is to create a second music channel which plays left only and that creates a file that DVDA brings in as evenly distributed. I'll keep at it.

cspvideo wrote on 12/30/2016, 5:39 AM

The issue is the ac3 codec in Vegas. There were 2 different codes in Vegas 13. One was Pro and one was studio. Vegas 14 no longer integrates the Pro version. Only the Studio version and it has a long documented history of of phase shifting the surround mix when brought into DVDA. Only the pro version worked and it isn't available any longer.

Musicvid wrote on 12/30/2016, 6:40 AM

It's a preview bug in Architect using ac3 studio that goes back years.

Check your audio by playing the burned disc, and ignore the preview in Architect, which is stereo, but mishandles the PLII phase shift flag.

cspvideo wrote on 12/30/2016, 6:46 AM

I have and, regrettably, the phase shift is part of the disc. It comes out 85% right channel.

vkmast wrote on 12/30/2016, 9:05 AM

cspvideo, have you read the thread including this comment https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/upgrade-to-vp14-from-vp10--104681/#ca646975 and this thread https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/ac3-pro-render-missing-in-vp14--103633/ which is linked to in the "workaround" in the comment.

cspvideo wrote on 12/30/2016, 9:20 AM

Great. I will try that immediately. Thank you.

cspvideo wrote on 12/30/2016, 9:36 AM

That works great vkmast. Well not great. It should work the way its supposed to work without a hack. But it will do! Happy New Year.