5.1 export from Avid - pan or keep it centered?

Patryk_Rebisz

Patryk_Rebisz

Veteran
Exporting tracks to 5.1 mix after minor adjustments in the Avid... Do you take each track and pan it L or R (depending on which channel they supposes to hit) or keep it centered (as each track is already being fed only into a particular speaker)???
 
Has it previously been encoded to a 5:1 format or just separate tracks?
Are you attempting to downmix to mono or stereo?
Who or what is the end user?
What DAW are you using.
 
It was encoded to 5.1 from sound mixer but i still need to make some small changes.
I'm using Avid MC6 and the final is to print a DCP for festivals. As such it should stay as 5.1.
 
I would go back to the sound mixer and see if he or she can make the changes for you. That way the mixer has the final audio on their end for archival purposes. The mixer should send you discrete channels for the mix and you should pan them discretely into hard outputs in the avid.
 
I would recommend getting the original PCM tracks and the PTs session to work with. Extracting audio from a previously encoded mix file will cause problems, not to mention the quality hit from the compressed/re-compressed codec process.
That said, unless you can test the 5:1 playback in the theater where the film will be shown before hand, your asking for trouble. I further recommend rendering a mono and/or stereo mix for the festival PB. DO NOT depend on an auto down-mix if the theater doesn't have a 5:1 system.. or a system that's not calibrated properly (which is common).
 
Obviously i understand the ideal situation: go back to the sound mixer. But at this stage i can't afford it (we used a mixing place that costs more then we can chew on). So i'm looking for 2nd best option: how to do it yourself.
 
Well providing it's a small change I would ask the mixer, because their name is going out there and they don't want you remixing it, trust me on that one.

If you had it mixed then you should have the raw tracks, or at least be able to get them. If a director doesn't want the PT session I always archive it. Even so you should have been given the 5.1 tracks as WAV files, if not ask for them. You don't want to deal with un-encoding the 5.1 and then re-encoding it.

Personally I always push directors to do stereo for festivals. I know everyone wants 5.1, but having worked on major release films and heard the 5.1 mangled in regular theatres the odds of it sounding anything like you intended go WAY down if you send it out in 5.1.

Another possible "catch", others would be better at clarifying it than I, I'm not sure what the 5.1 encoding is for DCP. Some flavors of 5.1 you can't do yourself. If you paid a license fee to Dolby you may not be able to reencode it yourself. If DCP supports discrete tracks you may not need to. I haven't been involved in a DCP project so not clear on the issues.
 
I would ask what do you actually have in your AVID?

Is it a stereo track as in that case if it is 5.1 it is possibly derived from and AC3 stream an needs to be decoded so you can hear what is going on.

There used to be huge problems just re-editing AC3 streams as the audio is offset to the video framing and if you are just listening to a stereo downmix stream from a 5.1 master there may be huge implications to just re-ediiting and bouncing to file without any dolby quality control as others have stated.

It may also be that the dub stage has just given you an Lt Rt downmix on your picture master to enable them to retain their control of the dolby 5.1 mix.

Best check before you do anything on the cheap to save some $$$
 
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