Thanks Doug.
The compressor settings got me closer… I did what you suggest and assigned the channels of the source file. When I create a setting for my encode the only choice one gets for an output format that has four channels is “4.0 (L R C CS)” and when I use that channels one and two are correct ( full mix 1 and 2 ) channel 3 is blank and channel 4 has the correct M&E (at least i think it is correct but I suppose it might be ch 3 and 4 mixed??).. funny that they don’t allow you more control over the output format for audio.
I don’t have quicktime 7 pro.. will try to dig up a copy of that somewhere…
thanks for your help it’s appreciated.
jason