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Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy Exported Movie Won’t Play in Stereo

  • Exported Movie Won’t Play in Stereo

    Posted by Ryan Hailey on December 26, 2009 at 5:46 am

    Hello Final Cut Geniuses-
    I NEED YOU HELP! here’s the scenario…

    I exported my new feature film as a Quicktime Movie with all of the audio mixed centered and not panned to either side. I projected the film at my apartment for friends already by hooking a computer monitor cord from my laptop to a projector, and then using an RCA to 1/8 headphone jack cord to hook the laptop up to a PA system. The PA system has two giant speakers, and the film played in stereo as planned. As I said before, there’s not one part in the movie that is supposed to be mixed to a certain side. I then went to my parents house to show them. I don’t have the projector anymore so I hooked the laptop up to their DVD player with an S-Video cord. That worked. Then I used the same RCA to 1/8 headphone jack cord to hook up my laptop to the DVD player. The DVD player runs through a big black audio reciever called a Pioneer VSX 1080 AH. Multiple things such as a DVD player, CD player, cassette player, TV, VCR and a VOD machine are hooked up to it. Except, when both the Right/red and white/left inputs were plugged into the DVD, the whole mixed soundtrack only came out of one speaker in my parents living room, when the whole room is rigged with multiple speakers. I messed around with it and found that when I played a Devo song out of iTunes, then the song would play in stereo surround out of many of the speakers, yet when I played my quicktime file, from Final Cut or from Quicktime itself, it was still out of only one, the center speaker under the TV. However, if I took one of the red or white RCA audio plugs out, then all of the audio would move to another single speaker in the room ( upper right of the TV ) and if you plugged it back in, it would immediatly switch to the center speaker. It didn’t make sense to me that a song from iTunes was in complete stereo and audio from a Quicktime Movie was mono. I understand that this is at the same time a Final Cut and audio hardware problem, but I was hoping one of you could help me out.

    Let me know if you come up with anything and I thank you in advance for taking the time to read this!

    Ryan Hailey replied 16 years, 8 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • David Roth weiss

    December 26, 2009 at 6:09 pm

    The answer is very simple, your parent’s “A/V receiver,” i.e. the Pioneer VSX 1080 AH, is set to decode the latest Dolby digital signal from DVDs or BluRays with a 5.1 mix, which typically sends the mono dialogue track to the center channel.

    If you want the mono signal to play either stereo (i.e. right & left front speakers) or from the five surround speakers, you need to change the settings on the receiver from Dolby digital to one of the many other available analog settings. Since each manufacturer names the settings a bit differently I can’t give you the precise name of the correct setting, but looking through the online version of the Pioneer VSX 1080 AH manual will certainly point you in the right direction.

    Hope this helps so that next time you can show your best work to your primary investors, whom you refer as Mom and Dad.

    David Roth Weiss
    Director/Editor/Colorist
    David Weiss Productions, Inc.
    Los Angeles

    POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

    A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

  • Ryan Hailey

    December 26, 2009 at 10:03 pm

    Thanks a lot. That did help and everythings good! Home premier is tonight.

    Sorry for the double posting. I have never used this forum site before so I posted my post on the FCP basics section and thought later I should have posted on the main forum. I appreciate the timely response though. HAPPY HOLIDAYS and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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