Hardware for 5.1 (6 channel) monitoring?

[Michael Gissing]

Bit confused about your description. If you are trying to mix a six channel program on FCP then you don’t have surrround panning and buses so you can’t seriously be mixing for 5.1 . When you say Dolby Digital I assume you mean an AC3 encoded file which looks like a stereo interleaved file but if you put that in FCP – well I don’t even know if FCP can deal with it.

If however you mean discreet six channel as aif or wav files, then either Decklink or Kona cards embed multichannel audio in the SDI. You will need to decode this from the SDI and then to an appropriate amplifier.

If you mean something else then please – more info

[Philip Johns]

Ideally I’m talking about the Apogee Ensemble which is an awesome 36 channels of audio – however I don’t need 36 channels, I only need 6 – and I don’t need to spend the 3 grand or whatever it costs for it. I’m wondering if there’s an audio hardware card compatible with FCP where I can take my 6 AIFF audio files from sound post production, lay them on the timeline in the respective tracks and route the tracks to throw the sound to the various speakers. Make sense?

The Decklink card supports multi track? If so this may be an option but I was really trying to avoid going down the SDI route – that means I’d then have to upgrade my hard disks to keep up with the data rate and, once again, they’re quite expensive. I was going to go the HDMI video card.

Philip Johns

[Sean Oneil]

Recently I went through the same brainstorm. You can try this thing:
https://www.alesis.com/io26

I don’t know if that will work with FCP or not. Other than that, I came to the realization that the only way to do this requires:

1) SDI output

2) An AJA mini converter that converts SDI to 8-channels of AES/EBU audio.

3) Either a very expensive mixer that supports digital AES, or a D/A audio converter. Perhaps three Flying Cow boxes.

4) A mixer that supports 6 channel output. Or three mixers.

Not including speakers of course. Unfortunately that’s well over $3k you don’t want to spend.

Sean

[Philip Johns]

Yerk!

Yeah not ready to go SDI yet – thought there’d be like an audio card that you could plug into a mac and have 6 outputs like a Creative soundblaster or something similar. :o(

I think I’ll just stick with stereo monitoring for the moment until we’re pushing ahead with our second edit suite.

Thanks 🙂

Philip Johns

[Sean Oneil]

[Philip Johns] “hought there’d be like an audio card that you could plug into a mac and have 6 outputs like a Creative soundblaster or something similar. :o(“

The Alesis thing I sent you a link to is like an external soundcard.

Sean

[Peter Brauner]

I use the Focusrite Saffire as a soundcard. It has 8 outputs and therfore good to go for up to 7.1 surround. There is a bunch of others out there aswell like Motu.

I hvan´t set it up myself here at our shop, but I think it is just a matter of setting up the audio outputs in system preferences. As long as you don´t plan on mix 5.1 inside of fcp, which just dont have the tools for doing it in a streamlined way, there shoudn´t be a problem.

To remember though, the audio may slip out of sync if you run the video through a decklink or aja card since there may be a frame or two of delay in them. I know Intensity Pro have some delay.

cheers!

Peter Brauner
VFX Artist
Effektfabriken
http://www.effektfabriken.se

[Philip Johns]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for your post. I looked into MOTU, what about the V3HD? That looks perfect! It’s more than I wanted to spend but it seems like the swiss army knife of IO devices. I’m not ready to go SDI but this unit not only has HD SDI but component, HDMI AND an 8 channel audio output – what more could I want?? It sorts me out now with synced output. Plus all the other stuff on it. Has anyone purchased this unit? Does it live up to its promise?

Cheers, Phil

Philip Johns

[Chris Borjis]

a client of mine brought in his motu box and we monitored surround sound from a final cut project.

great little device.

[Philip Johns]

I’ve read in other posts that the AJA IO HD is a better system than the MOTO. Does anyone else think this? there’s like a $2000 difference between the two! The MOTO has more inputs / outputs as well.

Philip Johns

[Walter Biscardi]

[Philip Johns] “I’ve read in other posts that the AJA IO HD is a better system than the MOTO. Does anyone else think this? there’s like a $2000 difference between the two! The MOTO has more inputs / outputs as well.”

Yep, the Io HD is made by a broadcast video centric company that has been producing SD/HD hardware used in all manner of broadcasts for years. MOTU has been making audio equipment for years.

The MOTU has more inputs / outputs because they need them due to the separation of SD and HD. The AJA Io HD can auto switch between SD and HD via SDI and Compnent. It’s a smarter box and the only folks I know who are using the MOTU are either still complaining about them or have returned them for an Io HD.

There’s a reason there’s a $2,000 price difference. One greatly outperforms the other.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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