rbruce25_hotmail
5th March 2007, 09:21
Okay I have waited 5 days; during that time I have had a crash course in Dolby Digital encoding. I have acquired ACID 4.0e with the Surround Sound Plug-in, HyperCube Transcoder 3.05, Besweet 1.5, Besweet GUI 0.75, AC3Filter 1.11, and then I figured out how to get some awesome 5.1 audio recordings. Now my questions are the matrix in HyperCube and distortion in the output. I hope this is correct, by reading all the threads I could find. I have found an inconsistency in how to setup the matrix for encoding 2 channel stereo into 3/2 +SW 5.1 surround. I have tried all the various ways that were posted, but they always gave me distortion in the output. I did some testing, removed my sound card and got 3 separate sound cards, (Creative Labs PCI 128) “I know it is and older card” but anyway, I configured ACID 4.0e with Front output to Card-1, Rear output to Card-2 and Center and LFE output to Card-3, that worked awesome better than my Creative Live. Then I used the AC3filter with (Auto-matrix) turned on and watch as I played a 2 channels to 6 channels. I then use the matrix it had as a base.
{Part/Whole = Percent}
L C R SL SR LFE
0.7071 0 0 0 0 0 L
0.5 0 0.5 0 0 0 C
0 0 0.7071 0 0 0 R
0.3536 0 -0.3536 0 0 0 SL
-0.3536 0 0.3536 0 0 0 SR
0.5 0 0.5 0 0 0 LFE
These are the settings that (Auto-matrix) gave me when encoding 2 channels to 6 channels. My problem is the distortion, I have Normalized all channels to 0.0dB as far as I can tell, is there away in ACID 4.0e to do this, I have read the manual cover to cover and can’t find it or just don’t understand it. The level meters are not in the red at any time. The source file and 6 mono files from HyperCube don’t have the distortion even when played loud through each sound card separately. Can anyone help or am I being overzealous about this. I have also notice that in HyperCube the (LFE) and (Rear Left) channels are always inverted or swapped. What I mean is in HyperCube I have to switch channels,
Channel Processing * *
Front Left Front Right Center LFE Rear Left Rear Right
Front Left From Right Center Rear Left LFE Rear Right
I know this is funny but when I use ACID 4.0e and load the tracks I can tell that these channels are inverted (swapped). Could this be where the distortion is coming from?
Is my mapping matrix in the AC3Filter wrong? I have everything on Main Tab (All set to 0), Output (3/2+SW 5.1 channel PCM 16bit), (Use DRC unchecked), (Use SPDIF unchecked), Mixer Tab (Gains set to 0), Output (3/2+SW 5.1 channel PCM 16bit), Options (Auto-gain Control check, everything else uncheck), Gains (All set to 0 and All unchecked).
I am also getting pitch drift when encoding MP3 to AC3 in Besweet, and that has never happen before when converting. I have been forced to convert to WAV using Audio Cleaning Lab then use Besweet to convert to AC3. Could this also be why my output has distortion? The MP3 files are coming from an archive database that just stores my MP3 files. I am testing with MP3 because I am going to step up and start encoding Movie Soundtracks, which are on VHS tape (backup of my collection). Yes I have and EQ between the inputs from my VCR to my sound card. I need to fix or understand the distortion so that I can take the next step.
{Part/Whole = Percent}
L C R SL SR LFE
0.7071 0 0 0 0 0 L
0.5 0 0.5 0 0 0 C
0 0 0.7071 0 0 0 R
0.3536 0 -0.3536 0 0 0 SL
-0.3536 0 0.3536 0 0 0 SR
0.5 0 0.5 0 0 0 LFE
These are the settings that (Auto-matrix) gave me when encoding 2 channels to 6 channels. My problem is the distortion, I have Normalized all channels to 0.0dB as far as I can tell, is there away in ACID 4.0e to do this, I have read the manual cover to cover and can’t find it or just don’t understand it. The level meters are not in the red at any time. The source file and 6 mono files from HyperCube don’t have the distortion even when played loud through each sound card separately. Can anyone help or am I being overzealous about this. I have also notice that in HyperCube the (LFE) and (Rear Left) channels are always inverted or swapped. What I mean is in HyperCube I have to switch channels,
Channel Processing * *
Front Left Front Right Center LFE Rear Left Rear Right
Front Left From Right Center Rear Left LFE Rear Right
I know this is funny but when I use ACID 4.0e and load the tracks I can tell that these channels are inverted (swapped). Could this be where the distortion is coming from?
Is my mapping matrix in the AC3Filter wrong? I have everything on Main Tab (All set to 0), Output (3/2+SW 5.1 channel PCM 16bit), (Use DRC unchecked), (Use SPDIF unchecked), Mixer Tab (Gains set to 0), Output (3/2+SW 5.1 channel PCM 16bit), Options (Auto-gain Control check, everything else uncheck), Gains (All set to 0 and All unchecked).
I am also getting pitch drift when encoding MP3 to AC3 in Besweet, and that has never happen before when converting. I have been forced to convert to WAV using Audio Cleaning Lab then use Besweet to convert to AC3. Could this also be why my output has distortion? The MP3 files are coming from an archive database that just stores my MP3 files. I am testing with MP3 because I am going to step up and start encoding Movie Soundtracks, which are on VHS tape (backup of my collection). Yes I have and EQ between the inputs from my VCR to my sound card. I need to fix or understand the distortion so that I can take the next step.