Premiere Pro and 5.1 / 6-Channel Embedded Audio (Cineform HR-1 Related)

[Dave Friend]

Brian,

My answers are based on assumptions not on actual experience. IOW, they are a “best guess.”

[Brian SaenzDeViteri] ” How does this audio import into Premiere?”
It would seem to me that it should behave much like what happens when you import a DV file but instead of using a stereo track it uses a 5.1 surround track. If you put one of these cineform clips into a sequence the audio would go to a 5.1 track. If the sequence does not have a 5.1 track then one will be added to the sequence and the audio will go there. To fully understand what 5.1 audio means in terms of PPro editing you should probably study the PPro User’s Manual. As you suspect, the same problems and limitations that you run into with two-channel (as opposed to stereo) field tapes in PPro would apply – only much more so because of the additional channels.

[Brian SaenzDeViteri] “is there any easy way to separate each of the 6-channels embedded audio channels into 6 separate mono audio tracks?”
PPro’s “Breakout to Mono Clips” command will turn the 5.1 sound into 6 mono audio clips. This adds work (potentially a lot of work!) if you want to keep the A/V sync relationship intact with the resultant clips.

BTW, as far as I know, HDV avi files only support two audio channels. So to make use of six audio channels you have to go to a “full” HD file format.

Anything useful so far?

Dave

[Tim Kurkoski]

This is only going to be of limited help, but I’ll share what I know.

When capturing from DV sources, Premiere Pro can only capture a single stereo pair, as you’ve experienced. It’s a limitation in the program (which I have been sending e-mails and feature requests to Adobe for years about).

But this Cineform module doesn’t appear to be capturing from DV, it’s capturing from another source. Premiere Pro doesn’t have any built-in way to capture from HD-SDI, so how the audio gets captured is entirely dependent on what capture software is being used. And as far as I can tell, it’s the Cineform module, and in their answer the audio capture wasn’t explained.

The reply they gave you appeared to a response to “How do I handle audio in the timeline?” as opposed to “How is the audio captured, and how many files are created?” I think that’s really the big question here.

Regardless, Premiere Pro can break multichannel audio files into individual mono clips if you need. Just select the file in the Project window, choose Clip > Audio Options > Breakout to Mono Clips. Not sure how that will work with embedded audio, but at the worst you’ll just have to generate a separate audio file.

[Brian Deviteri]

Dave,

Yes, the “breakout to mono” I’m afraid is probably the only option here. To maintain sync amoung all 6 of the channnels with the video, I’m guessing I’ll have bring the video into the timeline, then bring each of the 6 mono tracks into the timeline individually, then select all 7 of the source clips (1 video, 6 audio) and group them together.

As for HDV, this Cineform HR-1 isn’t an HDV recorder – it records HD-SDI streams. HD-SDI is basically uncompressed, if the camera can output it that way. The HD compression or HDV compression happens post stream during recording, either to tape or disk. So essentially the HR-1 can record uncompressed HD directly to the Cineform Intermediary codec (which is a really nice form of compression and pretty close to lossless if you ask me) instead of going to HDV, DVCPRO HD or other HD compression schemes (which tend to show compression in many situations).

Brian

[Brian Deviteri]

Tim,

Yes, Cineform has not explained their “recording” of audio very well for this unit. I know if they implemented a method to record each of the 6-channel streams into mono files, it could work, but essentially it would be performing the “breakout to mono” function within the recorder then.

As for their response, yes, it’s definately a how does the clip import into the timeline and what will I see. It makes sense with the way Premiere Pro handles audio though, but that’s not the way I want to edit 6-channels of audio. I cannot even imagine the difficulties I would run into with that kind of setup for precise audio edits and EQing for individual tracks.

Unfortunately, the “breakout to mono” option is looking like the only option right now. As I posted above, it looks like I would have to bring in the video, then bring in the 6 channels of audio, group them all together on the timeline and go from there. Not exactly the best method, but it’s a WHOLE lot easier than dealing with a combined 5.1 track of audio. I can work with this, but it may add a little time to an edit, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as I’m reviewing footage anyway.

I too have e-mailed Adobe about their audio support in Premiere. For a 5.1 track like this, I’d really like to see the ability to “expand” the 5.1 track with a pull-down into 6 seperate mono tracks (that are still linked with eachother and the video) and that can receive mono audio effects. Then for the main track I’d like to be able to pan each mono clip to channels and mix. Will it happen? Probably not anytime soon…

Brian

[Tim Kolb]

[Brian SaenzDeViteri] “Then for the main track I’d like to be able to pan each mono clip to channels and mix. Will it happen? Probably not anytime soon…”

Hmmm…yes, well for now, I’d say that you’ll be dealing with it in a “surround” 5.1 channel project.

Just out of curiousity…what is it that you’ll be recording that you would acquire sound with video in 6 channel?

TimK,

Kolb Syverson Communications,
Creative Cow Host,
2004-2005 NAB Post Production Conference
Premiere Pro Technical Chair,
Author, “The Easy Guide to Premiere Pro” http://www.focalpress.com
“Premiere Pro Fast Track DVD Series” http://www.classondemand.net

[Brian Deviteri]

I have a client that records a lot of “conference” and event style video with panel discussions, “round table” discussions, those kind of things with occasionally lots of people talking.

At the moment, they live mix audio from generally 4 or 5 sources. When it is a 4 source mix with one camera, they basically live mix two sources to channel one and the remaining two sources to channel two. As you can imagine, this can be a bit chaotic if someone screws up the live audio mix to tape. For their 5 audio sources, generally it is a two camera shoot so two sources go to camera 1’s channel 1, two sources go to camera 2’s channel 1, and the remaining source (usually a moderator or something like that) is split to channel 2 on both cameras and also serves as a sync reference marker on the timeline.

[Dave Friend]

[Brian SaenzDeViteri] “As for HDV, this Cineform HR-1 isn’t an HDV recorder”

I see that now. It seems that I got confused by reading about the Cineform codecs and attributing it’s HDV capability with what the HR-1 could do. Perhaps the inclusion of a 1394 port had me thinking HTV too.

[Brian SaenzDeViteri] “I’m guessing I’ll have bring the video into the timeline, then bring each of the 6 mono tracks into the timeline individually, then select all 7 of the source clips (1 video, 6 audio) and group them together.”

Yes, that is what I was thinking. You could also create a sequence for each clip (with one video and six mono audio tracks) and use a nested sequence approach. This might make things difficult at times because a nested sequence is not viewed as a reference clip. That is to say, any change you make to a nested source will be reflected in every instance used in another sequence. That could become a pain in the butt.

Dave

[Dave Friend]

[Timothy Kurkoski] “Premiere Pro doesn’t have any built-in way to capture from HD-SDI,”

Most likely you would be copying the files right from the HR-1 to you PPro system via the Gigabit ethernet connection. Then import the files into a project.

[Timothy Kurkoski] “And as far as I can tell, it’s the Cineform module, and in their answer the audio capture wasn’t explained.”
Best I can determine by reading literature on the cineform and HR-1 websites it is creating avi files. By definition then the audio is interleaved with the video in the same file. I have to assume that the Cineform codec, as installed in PPro, understands and deals with the number of audio streams within the file. But hey! I’m making what is (at best) and educated guess.

Dave

[Brian Deviteri]

You could dump all the files off to an external hard drive or RAID “server” source so you do not have to edit directly off of the HR-1. It has an operating system that I’ve been told is basically Windows XP based, so it can do file transfers without a PC attached and things like that. Kinda cool…

Since Cineform does not ship a “DV File Converter” program like Firestore does, the AVIs or whatever extension you are using, are all Cineform based files that can definately work in Premiere Pro (and probably Sony Vegas) with the right plug-in installed. Aspect HD has the Cineform HDLink utility to convert .M2T HDV files to Cineform .AVI’s, so I guess Cineform could morph that tool to perform similar functions to the Firestore DV File Converter, but I doubt that would address any audio conversions or processing. Most likely it could be upgraded be to be able to convert the Cineform AVIs to uncompressed AVIs, QuickTime for Final Cut, or OMF for Avid since both of those are closed format systems (and both based on Quicktime technology) and they will not allow the Cineform codec into their systems… so that could be the only way to edit material shot on an HR-1 within Final Cut or Avid.

As for the Cineform AVIs and audio in Premiere, I think it’s a 5.1 track unless you convert the embedded audio to mono tracks and group them on the timeline. I can’t see any other way that this could work unless Adobe updates the way Premiere does audio or unless Cineform adds a different method to record up to 6-channels of audio.