GUIDE: Stereo to 5-Channel Surround

[bitsnbytes]

I have A website I havnt updated in sometime
Its A gaming website for quake3 Arena. My online buddy makes quake3 trick movies and I demuxed his avi and converted it to 5.1 And muxed it back w/ fairly nice results and file size was much smaller than his .mp3 track . So I'm gonna make A page this weekend for gamers to use these fine tools as well as post my bidules w/ links to helpful info and tools.
I havnt set my comp up to work with my website as we recently moved and I bought some stereo eqiupment

Then I can just post links to my bidules here and small sample files for the Guru.

Question have you tried the BPan_m_gui if so
your thoughts? I'm using it to go to stereo havnt tried it to 5.1... How's testing going on the 3rd order tools?
And A help page http://www.dmalham.freeserve.co.uk/bpan_help.html

Thanks Again for this wonderful guide

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by bitsnbytes
I have A website I havnt updated in sometime
Its A gaming website for quake3 Arena. My online buddy makes quake3 trick movies and I demuxed his avi and converted it to 5.1 And muxed it back w/ fairly nice results and file size was much smaller than his .mp3 track . So I'm gonna make A page this weekend for gamers to use these fine tools as well as post my bidules w/ links to helpful info and tools.
I havnt set my comp up to work with my website as we recently moved and I bought some stereo eqiupment

Then I can just post links to my bidules here and small sample files for the Guru.

Question have you tried the BPan_m_gui if so
your thoughts? I'm using it to go to stereo havnt tried it to 5.1... How's testing going on the 3rd order tools?
And A help page http://www.dmalham.freeserve.co.uk/bpan_help.html

Thanks Again for this wonderful guide

THNX !

I think we need a webpage where we can post our bidules. (Daphy are you still with us ??)
And I think every bidule should have a screen picture with it !
In case there are some special settings : add them preferred with a screen dump too.......

So... for every bidule some sort of mini guide :-)

I can supply the webspace if necessary......

About BPan_M_gui and the 3th order tools.....
I didn't experiment with them yet. I think you "should" know by now, that Kempfand is the expert of the format and I think he can answer that immediately; I am only the writer of the guide to (try to) make it understandable for everyone
I do experiment a lot with all the tools however. And I like it a lot.... This Bidule system is so easy !!
And there are so many nice free plugins available !
I have been experimenting a lot with stereo spreaders just to see what kind of effect they have on the end 5.1......
And I combined the KpeX (SAD5.1) method with the Ambisonics method to see if that was an improvement.... It wasn't ! On their own they both do fine, but it's no use to combine them. Actually the theories of Kempfand were confirmed....

So, Daphy, are you still there.... ? Can we still "dump" everything to you ? Or shall I open my own space for bidules, screendumps and their explanations ?

kind regards,

EoH

[TRILIGHT]

I just wanted to thank you as well, Eye of Horus. If it were not for your guide, I would not have even considered still playing with the whole 2ch to 5ch thing. I've not had a chance to put any real time into testing but I know it's out there now.

[kempfand]

Question have you tried the BPan_m_gui if so your thoughts?

If have, but not in a systematic way, and therefore I will not comment here. Something for the upcoming winter-months

For sure, the 'Mirror type' with B_Pan_m is sth to experiment with, as is B-Plane Mirror , as well as 'improvement' of Quad-recordings.

Kempfand is the expert of the format

It was clearly a joint effort (an excellent example of team-work so-to-speak), and after all, my interest in Ambisonics got triggered by EoH's 'old' guide and what it delivers in terms of sound.

Andreas

[joshbm]

Hello all,

I have created a group for Bidule (instead of a project file). Download these files and put them in the Bidule "Group" folder.

5.1 Surround
6 Channel Gain

The first one is the 5.1 surround. After you put it in your folder called "Group". You can access it from your "palette" and under "Groups" called "5.1 Surround". Instead of a mess like this, you get a nice group like this with exactly 2 inputs and 6 outputs.

I also included something called 6ch Gain which allows you to control the gain of 6 channels at once instead of 2.

Problems:
Bidule currently does move the attributes around as you saw in the tutorial and have to manually set it to "Pentagon" under Emmigrator and move the right most notch on B-Pan to 0 degrees. To do this you can simply right click on the group (not in the palette) and hit "Grouping" and "Expand" then change your controls and then to get back go to "Grouping" again and then "Parent Group".

For me it helps because it makes it less confusing.

- joshbm

[davidv@plogue]

Nice groups!

Just a quick note, the next release of bidule saves the emigrator
settings properly and has a brand new "OFFLINE" mode in order to
render files as fast as your machine can process.

Thanx for your interrest in Bidule!
And watch out for the next version around november...

Cheers

[TRILIGHT]

Originally posted by davidv@plogue
Just a quick note, the next release of bidule saves the emigrator
settings properly and has a brand new "OFFLINE" mode in order to
render files as fast as your machine can process.

AWESOME!!!! Now I can really start playing! Thanks for the update, David!

[bitsnbytes]

I think Besweet GUI changes the layout A bit
instead of
1 > 3 = C
2 > 1 = FL
3 > 5 = SL
4 > 6 = SR
5 > 2 = FR
6 > 4 = LFE (an empty wav)
as per your guide... BesweetGUI uses
1 > 2 = C
2 > 1 = FL
3 > 4 = SL
4 > 5 = SR
5 > 3 = FR
6 > 6 = LFE

I say this for my page, as I'm sure most will opt for ac3enc.dll and besweet GUI is the quickest way.



Please correct me if i'm wrong.

PS cant wait for new bidule! Thanks

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
Thanks. I finally got it running with this command line...

BeSweet.exe -core( -input E:\TEST.wav -output E:\temp- -6chfloat ) -ota( -g peak )

I encoded using SoftEncode but I'm not overly impressed with what I'm hearing. Sure, it's clean and comes out all of the speakers (I was expecting something a bit more intelligent but vocals are in the rear also), but it is not as clear as the original. I can compare the two and the extracted WAV obviously has more clarity than what I'm hearing in the AC3 that was created. Any idea what could be causing this loss of clarity?

Sorry for the late reaction, must have overseen this....

If I understood it correct, you are comparing an original WAV with an AC3. Every WAV will sound better than any AC3 made of that WAV !
It's the compression !!! Just like a WAV always will sound better than a MP3. Of course a lot of us won't hear the difference between a WAV and a MP3 in 320 kbs, but...... make a WAV again from that mp3 and compare with the original WAV.....
Try encoding it in 44.1 Khz to DTS CD and compare that with the original WAV. Still compression but a lot less than in AC3's.

Anyway : More clarity can be reached
a. by converting the WAV to 32 bits before the processing
b. when you upsample in SF, do you really upsample or use the "save as..." function ? When you upsample, try adding a clarify filter.
"process" menu , "smooth/enhance" .
It helped me......

kind regards,

EoH

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by bitsnbytes
I think Besweet GUI changes the layout A bit
instead of
1 > 3 = C
2 > 1 = FL
3 > 5 = SL
4 > 6 = SR
5 > 2 = FR
6 > 4 = LFE (an empty wav)
as per your guide... BesweetGUI uses
1 > 2 = C
2 > 1 = FL
3 > 4 = SL
4 > 5 = SR
5 > 3 = FR
6 > 6 = LFE

I say this for my page, as I'm sure most will opt for ac3enc.dll and besweet GUI is the quickest way.



Please correct me if i'm wrong.

PS cant wait for new bidule! Thanks

I won't correct you :-)It's already confusing enough :-))
I think this question is for the Besweet thread :-)


Anyway, what you quoted from the guide is the way the channels are recorded by the File-recorder from 6 inputs to one WAV containing these 6 channels. Right ?
And these settings are correct.
So any way you use a piece of software to extract the 6 separate mono's from that one wav, gives you back the 6 original wavs...
And they should be the same !

I used the last STABLE Besweet version (1.4 !).

If anything changed, please ask again in a Besweet Thread..... That's DSPGuru's department :-) :-)

kind regards,

EoH

[TRILIGHT]

Hey EoH! Thanks for the advice. I know what I'm hearing is not compression artifacts. I'm not using any DRC either so that can't be to blame either. I'm encoding at 384kbps which I thought was high enough. I've never been able to tell much of a difference between 384 and 448 before.

I guess I'm comparing it to the MP3 encoding I do using LAME. I challenge anyone to hear the difference in the MP3's I encode and the original. If the AC3 encoding is really to blame, is Dolby really that screwed up?? I can't imagine they would come up with algorithms worse than that found in the free LAME encoding engine but maybe they did?

Thanks for the tips on processing, EoH! I will try converting to 32bit first. I do upsample correctly but I will try adding a filter to it to see if it will help in the final output.

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by joshbm
Hello all,

I have created a group for Bidule (instead of a project file). Download these files and put them in the Bidule "Group" folder.

5.1 Surround
6 Channel Gain

The first one is the 5.1 surround. After you put it in your folder called "Group". You can access it from your "palette" and under "Groups" called "5.1 Surround". Instead of a mess like this, you get a nice group like this with exactly 2 inputs and 6 outputs.

I also included something called 6ch Gain which allows you to control the gain of 6 channels at once instead of 2.

Problems:
Bidule currently does move the attributes around as you saw in the tutorial and have to manually set it to "Pentagon" under Emmigrator and move the right most notch on B-Pan to 0 degrees. To do this you can simply right click on the group (not in the palette) and hit "Grouping" and "Expand" then change your controls and then to get back go to "Grouping" again and then "Parent Group".

For me it helps because it makes it less confusing.

- joshbm

Hi Joshbm,

I was experimenting this evening and used your 5.1 surround group.
I made sure settings were okay, only I didn't look at the HNM filters, assuming they would be correct.
Anyway, to make a short story long.... I loaded the 6 files into CE (I refuse to use the name Audition ) and the LFE was completely clipped..... really terrible !

Just FYI....

Any idea ?

EoH

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by TRILIGHT
Hey EoH! Thanks for the advice. I know what I'm hearing is not compression artifacts.

You said it sounded dull.... that's what happens with processing in 16 bits AND compression.

I'm not using any DRC either so that can't be to blame either. I'm encoding at 384kbps which I thought was high enough. I've never been able to tell much of a difference between 384 and 448 before.

I guess I'm comparing it to the MP3 encoding I do using LAME. I challenge anyone to hear the difference in the MP3's I encode and the original. If the AC3 encoding is really to blame, is Dolby really that screwed up?? I can't imagine they would come up with algorithms worse than that found in the free LAME encoding engine but maybe they did?

No they didn't ! but ...it's the combination of bitrate, bitdepth and processing..... Every step on the process should be done in the highest possible quality to get an excellent result.

BTW... compare an original WAV with a WAV extracted from AC3. Not by your ears but bit-by-bit.....
What's out by compression, will not get in again !!
And (in my experience) with MP3 you're only safe with bitrates higher than 160.........
Lower onces will give a hearable difference in the comparison test, higher ones only when comparing bit-by-bit......

Thanks for the tips on processing, EoH! I will try converting to 32bit first. I do upsample correctly but I will try adding a filter to it to see if it will help in the final output.

The 32 bits is the most important ! (Just like Kempfand said : Steinberg is even suggesting 64 bits now !)
Only use the filter when it still sounds dull..... but it shouldn't !

Hope it's a bit clear.... after a whole day trying and experimenting with different settings, my head is like a strainer

kind regards,

EoH

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by Eye of Horus
Hi Joshbm,

I was experimenting this evening and used your 5.1 surround group.
I made sure settings were okay, only I didn't look at the HNM filters, assuming they would be correct.
Anyway, to make a short story long.... I loaded the 6 files into CE (I refuse to use the name Audition ) and the LFE was completely clipped..... really terrible !

Just FYI....

Any idea ?

EoH

A bit more up-to-date information. I used wav2wav6.exe to make the 6 WAV's. But..... this program has (again) another order. So I used the good old Besweet again and.... now the channels were in the right order and... the clipping is in the SR channel (instead of the LFE). Of course I will have a look at the settings in Bidule, but I thought you would like to know too .

grtz,

EoH

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by Eye of Horus
A bit more up-to-date information. I used wav2wav6.exe to make the 6 WAV's. But..... this program has (again) another order. So I used the good old Besweet again and.... now the channels were in the right order and... the clipping is in the SR channel (instead of the LFE). Of course I will have a look at the settings in Bidule, but I thought you would like to know too .

grtz,

EoH

Pppppffffffff........

I finally found out what's wrong.....

When you expand the group, you will see that the connections are not what they should be !

"The first one is the 5.1 surround. After you put it in your folder called "Group". You can access it from your "palette" and under "Groups" called "5.1 Surround". Instead of a mess like this, you get a nice group like this with exactly 2 inputs and 6 outputs." . this is from your first announcement. When you check the expanded group against the "mess like this" picture, you will see the difference..... Only 5 channels instead of 6.

My fault was that I remapped the channels from your output again, which was already taken care of in the group.....

Anyway.... can you correct it ? TIA !!!

kind regards,

EoH

[joshbm]

Yeah, I was fooling around with some of the settings, :-\. I just tested it again and it sounds terrible lol. I will upload my other group that isn't clipping.

Regards,
- joshbm

[Umma]

I'm hoping I missed something in this voluminous thread...but is there a batch method that we can batch files prior to Plogue Bidule?

[joshbm]

The updated version can be redownloaded from the first link I gave you:

5.1 Surround

You can also make your own group simply by enhancing mine or you could select all of your work area (except of course the player and recorders) and right click (once it's all highlighted) on an object that is highlighted and goto "Grouping" and "Group Selected Objects".

Than once your done you can go to "Grouping" again and "Save Selected Group".

Regards,
- joshbm

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by Umma
I'm hoping I missed something in this voluminous thread...but is there a batch method that we can batch files prior to Plogue Bidule?

Where would you use a batch for ?

EoH

[Umma]

"Where would you use a batch for ?"

Well, say if I got 10 files I want to load into Pogue Bidule. Do I just do them one at a time or can I line them up some kind of way?