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5.1 and stereo mix possible in one audio file?
I am trying to author a DVD for a short film for which I have both a stereo mix and a separately mixed 5.1 surround mix. As the film is being sent to festivals, it’s best that it has no menus and simply plays the film when put into a player. I realise that I could just put the 5.1 mix on and have it downmixed for those viewers who don’t have surround but that will be the overwhelming majority and so it seems silly to have the downmix performed when it will be inferior (compressed) to the stereo mix I already have.
Is there a way to have an 8 channel audio file – two channels the stereo mix and the remaining 6 being 5.1? And if so will DVD players pick the right channels as appropriate?
Or is the only way to do this to have a menu and two separate audio tracks?
Thanks for any thoughts!
Guy
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9 Replies
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No each has to be in it’s own stream. I doubt many festivals are watching DVDs in a 5.1 setup.
You put but streams in, then simply have a menu that asked which audio and that sets the stream and starts the movie.
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Thanks for that!
I guess I’ll just give the festivals a stereo mix on the DVD and send a 5.1 if one of the big ones wants a proper copy…
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Not sure if you are planning to send the Stereo file as uncompressed. If you are DON’T, make sure it is encoded as ac3.
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I was definitely planning to use the compressed aif/ wav! Why would you suggest reducing the quality to an ac3? Are there players out there that don’t play aif?
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There is no such thing as compressed Aif or wav on a dvd, it will be uncompressed and it takes up 1.5 Mbps of bitrate. Other than high end music titles nobody uses anything but ac3.
All players have to be able to play PCM audio but because of the bitrate it can cause problems, especially on DVD-Rs.
In the end we all make our own decisions.
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Hi Michael
Thanks for your perspective. I mistyped – I meant ‘uncompressed’ of course 🙂
Can you suggest what is a sensible maximum total bitrate for a DVDR?
Thanks
Guy
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IF using a VBR encoding method, I will not go over 7 Mbps for the max.
If using CBR I will not go over 7.5 Mbps.
Stereo is always compressed to ac3 @ .192 Mbps
NOTE: 2 titbits to always do when making the ac3. 1) Make sure the Dialog Normalization is set to -31 dB (this turns it off, which is what you what). 2) On the third tab set Compression to NONE. (it still gets compressed, this is more of a compression scheme). Doing both of those will eliminated surprises to the audio.
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Thanks for that Michael! I’ve done as you said.
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You can encode both mixes on the DVD and set the stereo track as the default. Even without a menu, the projectionist could select the 5.1 track using the DVD player remote if he or she wanted to.
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