Strange idea: using two stereo tracks from two cameras to convert to Dolby 5.1. Possible?

[John Rofrano]

[Dieter Moreno] “Searching the net it appears that its not possible to convert a single stereo track to Dolby 5.1, but I didn’t find any search results for converting two stereo tracks to Dolby 5.1”

5.1 Surround requires 6 tracks so 4 tracks is still going to come up short. You would still have to synthesize the other two missing tracks.

[Dieter Moreno] “I do indeed record in 60 fps, and my TV has a refresh rate of 60 Hz, and when I watch ABC the TV says “720p” and when I watch Fox the TV says “1080i”, so presumably to keep 720p in sync with 1080i then field rate is the same, both 60 fields per second, which would require the 720p version to be 60 frames per second.”

That’s an incorrect assumption. 1080i is 29.97 fps and 720p is 29.97 fps. Don’t get interlaced fields confused with progressive frames. NTSC video is always 29.97 frames per second.

[Dieter Moreno] “Or in actuality, with so few products (at least that are marketed towards consumers) that will support what I’m trying to do, would it be better if I just split the two stereo tracks into four mono tracks in Audacity and then panned each track separaretly in Pro Tools and export as stereo?”

Overall I’m not sure what you are trying to do. You don’t have 5.1 audio. I don’t understand why you would want to render to 5.1 audio when you don’t have the 6 tracks to begin with. What do you hope to accomplish? If you only have stereo audio then that’s all you have. If you just want the same audio to come out of all of your 5.1 tracks then you can easily do that right in Vegas Pro, you don’t need Audacity to Pro Tools. Just change your project audio 5.1 Surround and assign any audio you want to the 6 tracks.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Aaron Star]

If you want to record in 5.1 you could look into one of the following solutions:

1.) Get a Zoom H6N with the either the X/Y capsule or the XLR capsule. Then rig your talent with a lav or mono shotgun, and either two stereo mics or mono mics set in an X pattern. Of course there is the Holophone mic at $2K. The .1 channel could be recorded, but normally this is a generated rolled off channel for the low end frequencies only. Normally 5.1 is not recorded, but generated in the final mix.

Then bring all those channels into Vegas, edit, output to AC3-5.1.

5.1 editing in vegas demo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=130&v=KIvYOftIF4c

Only certain codecs support 5.1 channels of audio out of vegas. HDCAM will do 24 PCM mono channels, XDCAM 16 PCM mono, XVAC 8 mono PCM, Windows Media with WMA10 pro supports 7.1 channels in 24bit, AVC would be MP4 plus something like AC-3 muxed by some application that will do it. FFMPEG might be able to mux mp4 video and AC-3 into a new file. You would have to figure out how you are going to display the final, and them conform to that standard.

2.) Canon makes a hot shoe 5.1 microphone for the Vexia line of cameras. This would allow you to run your 2 cameras, then take the audio from one and use it on the other. You could also just use the new Vexia for your footage. The vexia records in 1080.MTS with AC3-5.1 on camera mic only.

https://www.adorama.com/CASMV1.html?utm_term=Other&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Other&utm_source=adl-umbase