Which Dolby Surround plug-in ?
 

Hi folks -

Teaching sound at a university and it's annual budget time, and needing to extend surround knowledge a bit, help appreciated :

Studio-based HD system with stereo and 5.1 monitoring.

With surround projects up until now (mainly sound installation based), we've just bounced out in 5.1., made an ac3 in the app Compressor, then made DVDs with DVD Studio Pro. Fine for the cheap portable systems available to us.

However, with the video post students, we've had the problem at the annual screening in a local cinema where the compiled Blu-Ray disc has required Dolby encoding - so it's time for us to cough up some $$

Am I right in saying that we need Dolby Surround Tools :
http://shop.avid.com/store/product.d...88865113954768

rather than Neyrinck SoundCode for Dolby Digital
http://shop.avid.com/store/product.d...88865113798352
??

... given that we are limited to 5.1 at this stage ?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated ..

thanks

Simon Hunt

Re: Which Dolby Surround plug-in ?
 

"we've had the problem at the annual screening in a local cinema where the compiled Blu-Ray disc has required Dolby encoding"

Can you explain in more detail about this? Using Blu-ray at a local cinema is not a standard practice as far as I know. Were you using DVD at the cinema before? If you put an AC3 soundtrack on a Blu-ray it should work as well as a DVD. You will need to provide a lot more details for folks here to help.

Re: Which Dolby Surround plug-in ?
 

Simon - Are you referring to needing an LtRt (dolby matrix encoded) mix? (i.e. Dolby Stereo, Dolby Pro Logic II, both names for the same basic technology)

If so:

Paul Neyrinck's Soundcode LtRt will provide you the ability to produce a dolby-compatible LtRt from a 5.1 mix:
http://www.neyrinck.com/en/products/...de-stereo-ltrt

However you'll need a way of monitoring the mix through a dolby decoder. (Neyrinck's solution is encode-only.) Perhaps you have a Dolby 564 or a Pro Logic II decoder of some sort in your rack?

In terms of dolby matrixed surround, Minnetonka makes the only software which does both encode and decode in real time, in a Pro Tools plugin. Of their rather confusing product lineup, the one you'd want is SurCode PLII for RTAS. It's $795 and works fine.

-jeremiah

Re: Which Dolby Surround plug-in ?
 

Not to hijack but any sign of PLII decoder Paul?
To the OP - I can recommend the Neyrincks plugs if indeed that is what you will require - very easy to use..

Re: Which Dolby Surround plug-in ?
 

What's the difference to Dolby Surround Tools (from Digidesign)? It also encodes and decodes in real time, admittedly through two plug-ins. But that's OK, because you'd want to to encode to a recording track and then monitor the recording track with a decoder.

Re: Which Dolby Surround plug-in ?
 

Dolby Surround Tools encodes/decodes Pro Logic (aka "PL1", practically the same as "Dolby Surround") which is 4 channels, LCRS. This is the only matrix decoding that older Dolby theater equipment can do. Dolby Surround Tools does not support Pro Logic II, which is a more recent development.

Minnetonka Surcode for Pro Logic II encodes/decodes Pro Logic II (aka PL2), which is 5 channels LCRLsRs. It apparently does not support PL1, unless I mis-read their website.

Neyrinck's encoder supports both PL1 or PL2, but there is no companion decoder for either one.

PL1 and PL2 use different matrixing tricks for steering and rear channel treatments, but there is enough similarily that Dolby has declared PLII "backward compatible" with PL1. Neither decodes an LFE channel so neither can be called "5.1"

Simon Hunt the original poster, the two products you have linked to are very different technologies, which is why pneyrinck has asked you to clarify your actual problem symptoms so we can figure out what you mean.

Re: Which Dolby Surround plug-in ?
 

Hi folks, thanks a lot for all of the replies - I had ticked for email notification of replies but had received nothing, and just came back to check.

To clarify (though I obviously still need to still find out more information, and then come back here again before my original question can be answered) -

It's not the the Blu-Ray disc or any particular DVD itself required decoding (that was my bad wording) but rather that it needed decoding to be able to play back through the cinema equipment ... and now I need to find out more, bear with me, and thanks again for the help. ...

Re: Which Dolby Surround plug-in ?
 

We have no encoding or decoding hardware at all.

Re: Which Dolby Surround plug-in ?
 

SurCode does in fact offer PL I but I think they have a different name for it. Ill check later and reply with the specifics but it mainly focuses on PLII with a PLI decoder setting to check how it would sound in that decoder environment

I danced this dance not too long ago. If you want the cheapest in the box LtRt mixes, SurCode is your best option. I own both the Neyrinck and the Minnetonka plugs. Some say Neyrinck is a "better quality" encode. I cant tell the difference, but if you wanted to wait it out, he will be releasing a decoder side of his plug sometime in the future. I could not wait so I went with Minnetonka after mistakingly purchasing the Neyrinck encoder only plug.

Re: Which Dolby Surround plug-in ?
 

Simon,

I don't know if that email loop checkbox really works.

The hardware installed in screening theaters can be of a range of vintages, the older stuff in particular does not suport surround sound from anything other than film. The more recent can take surround analog signals from DVD and BluRay, and the most recent can handle analog and/or digital PCM streams, and can decode AC3 (Dolby Digital) and/or Pro Logic 1 or 2. Last year I gave a client a simple stereo tRt mix for his screening DVD. He prompt encoded it as left/right within a 5.1 channel AC3 stream and put that on DVD. He had no idea what he had done, and the projectionist wasn't really familiar with his equipment either. With a little trial and error we finally figured out what was on the DVD and what buttons to click on the Dolby decoder, but the playback went perfectly after that.

The point is simply that there are several technologies and possibilities with DVDs, and even more with BluRay. It is good to figure out what is what!