AC3 encoding/decoding,surround panning and DVD

[outthere]

Does anyone know if there are plans by any company to release a 5.1 panning plugin for the 001? Is there any way to encode ac3 on the mac? What software would you need to author a dvd on the mac?

Thanks

[Doug Shugarts]

Astarte (www.astarte.de) makes the 'A-Pack', which is a Dolby AC-3 encoder for the mac.
The A-Pack, I believe, is a component of the M-Pack, which I think is a complete DVD authoring software suite. For dedicated hardware check out Sonic Solutions ($$$$!!).

I've been very interested buying Astarte software, but I can't find anyone else who uses it. Promax sells it as a part of their Dv bundle, so maybe you check there.

[Arno Peeters]

I've been digging around for a few months looking for the same:
Kind of Loud is about the only company with a decent PT-surround-panner ('SmartPanPro') but unfortunately it's a TDM plugin...Dunno if they will go into RTAS....

Panhandler is currently a Premiere plugin, but Sonic Engineering replied to me asking for a PT version: "Hopefully later this year we will have something for Pro-Tools. We will keep you informed as to a release date.
(Stuart White, Sonic Engineering http://www.SonicEngineering.com)

Dolby plugins are not to be expected for RTAS: it seems Dolby will try to keep milking their codec as much as possible, the price-range for a RTAS Dolby plug would probably be far beyond the '001 budgets'....

My 2

Technote:
There's an issue which makes RTAS a not so flexible environment for doing surround: remember that you will have to use 5 sends (-> convertors), a panner-controller that will allow return of the 5 sends to 5 returns. SmartPan uses this method and there seems no other way. With VST or MAS you would have much more options for controlling surround.

Still *very* nterested in any info on this subject !

[Doug Shugarts]

There's also an MPEG encoder from Heuris (heuris.com). It's optimized for the G4, too.

[MikeC]

Another company producing Surround Sound plug0ins is Kind of Loud Technologies. Check out http://www.kindofloud.com/products/index.html. I mailed them to ask about RTAS and got the response shown below. Doesn't really help - perhaps an increased interest in RTAS platform will encourage them to port it.

//------------------------------------------

Hello Mike,

Thank you for your interest in Kind of Loud surround products.

Right now the only plug-ins we are planning to port to RTAS is RealVerb
Stereo. We have not yet announced our plans for any other RTAS format
plug-ins. We will keep your email address on file and notify you with
any announcements.

Thank you again for your interest in Kind of Loud surround products, and
you can call or email us with any more questions.

Cheers,

Dave

[outthere]

Hi Arno,

In your previous post you said,

Technote:
There's an issue which makes RTAS a not so flexible environment for doing surround: remember that you will have to use 5 sends (-> convertors), a panner-controller that will allow return of the 5 sends to 5 returns. SmartPan uses this method and there seems no other way. With VST or MAS you would have much more options for controlling surround.

Are you referring to the fact that thee 001 has a limited amount of I/O?

Thanks

[Arno Peeters]

Outthere: ehm...I'm no software-specialist, but the guy I spoke to is. He (tried ;-) to explain to me that it's not so much the lack of i/o or sends/returns: this works, as Kind of Loud's Smartpan proves.
It's more that there's no alternative way: imagine you could select a bunch of regions and pre-process 'em or you could automate a multichannel-panner plugin...
After a night of brainstorming, he concluded that within PT, the sends/returns-scheme is the best way to go. But he told me that on MAS or VST, there would be workarounds.

Sorry I can't be more specific here.