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Editing / cutting into LTRT stems with stereo clips — will there be a problem?
I am cutting trailers and reversionings of a movie that has no more money for mix work. I asked for stereo DME stems from the original sound house — not encoded as LT/RT — so that I can have simple clean stereo to add and subtract my own clips to and from, including new dialoge in places.
Question is, if all that they can do for free is give us LT/RT instead of simple stereo, am I on the path to trouble when I cut into that and add into that my own stereo clips? I will be creating DVDs and
digibeta masters that will be exhibited in environments (including festival theaters) that I cannot control.If your answer is, yes, that will be a nightmare for you Bill, you should kill yourself now, is there a way to “strip” the LTRT encoding from the encoded files to turn it into simple stereo? Maybe like converting into something else and back again? (And is that the right question?)
— Bill Russell
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9 Replies
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I think where you would run into trouble is if your program is played using a Dolby decoder. Then the LT RT will be decoded, but who knows what your new stereo material will sound like compared to that. But if the playback is strictly stereo, you should be able to mix old with new. Here are 2 links of software plugins that purport to turn LT RT and/or stereo into 5.1. https://www.tcelectronic.com/UnwrapTDM.asp and https://www.cycling74.com/products/upmix#pricing
John
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Thank you!
What I really need is some piece of software that can simply show me what is in my LTRT, can give me its separate LCRS tracks. Know of anything?
“THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA” –
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Hi Bill,
You might try Neyrink Sound Code. You might be able to play back your LtRt, and output as a straight stereo…then there would be no steering issues, I think. Or, if a ac3 is available, or you can rip a DVD of the show, you could play the ac3 back through Sound Code and output as straight stereo. I think this might be possible from a ProTools session.
Any home stereo system equipped with Dolby ProLogic will decode the LtRt to LCRS, so mixing and matching to DVD is not a great idea. I think you might be able to extract the 4 channels with a Dolby DS4e hardware encoder/decoder, but maybe not.
Or, you could remix your new pieces in 4.0 or 5.1, create an LtRt from that, and cut it into the existing LtRt….
I know, I’m a funny guy…this is a tough call, hope i have been even a little helpful.
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Hi Bill,
I’m going to suggest a test. If you can spare a couple of DVDs, try to lay the picture and LtRt into DVD Studio Pro or some similar program, then playback the DVD on a home system using ProLogic monitoring. It might not decode, and instead give you plain stereo. If this is the case, you could intercut without fear.
I posed your situation to some of my staff and they have heard of something like this, but untested. Maybe you will get lucky!
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Interesting, thank you Greg. I can do that. (In fact, I’ve figured I would need to test my work eventually on a ProLogic system.)
(So academically speaking, why / how would the encoding disappear anyway in DVD Studio Pro?)
“THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA” –
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It doesn’t make sense, theoretically… But apparently there can be some anomalies depending on whether the LtRt was hardware or software encoded. This enters into the world of maybes. One of my mixers told me he made a DVD this way and could not get it to decode, which in this case would be good for you!!
I suppose you could also layback to a CD, if your stereo receiver allows you to choose ProLogic for music playback. A track is a track, right?
Was this material theatrically released? Is the LtRt coming from a Digibeta master? Trying to ascertain if the LtRt was hardware or software encoded.
I guess it’s worth a try. Costs a little time and a CD/DVD…
Let me know how it turns out…
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“Was this material theatrically released? Is the LtRt coming from a Digibeta master? Trying to ascertain if the LtRt was hardware or software encoded.”
It was mixed for theatrical. The stems were bounced to our hard drive directly from the original mix session a while ago at a sound house. (Original session is inaccessible at least for now, if it exists at all, I dunno.) The only way I know they are LTRT stems is from how they are named: “Diag_LTRT_LR.WAV” “Music_LTRT_LR.WAV” etc..
I don’t have ProTools myself, I’m working simply on a Final Cut Pro timeline for this one with the aid of SoundTrack Pro. I’ll try a hybrid stereo / LTRL test mix next week, find someone with a surround entertainment system and feed my test DVD through it. I’ll report back. Then based on results (with the aid of your kind wisdom above, thank you for all that!) I’ll know if I need to buy or access some kind of software mentioned here to downmix the LTRT to stereo, or just brave it as is. Stay tuned….
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Interesting… an LtRt DME…usually they are they are straight stereo stems for TV… can’t see a value to an LtRt DME, but what do I know…maybe they just took the 5.1 busses and exported them as an LtRt. Yes, keep me posted.
The longer I work, the less I know.
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