GUIDE: Stereo to 5-Channel Surround

[DSPguru]

BeSplit can split dts, 5.1wav, ddwav, dtswav, aac, and more... ;)

[hippoth]

hi master DSPguru...you should write all the formats into the readme of Besplit...less questions! :sly:

ok...I have my first DTS Audio CD (Best of David Bowie...I just made the 10th best tracks)...it was a hard work because the whole procedure is not the shortest one and I had to cut 7-8 seconds quiet on each track (the quiet was on the beginning of the tracks depending of the video stream) and so I had to cut all the tracks by hand :mad:

my question to all the guys who made such a DTS CD: do you feel that the rears are a little to loud?...I don´t like it despite the result sound not bad :D ... does it depend on the non exists of all the correct direction-information (can I say it?..in german it´s called "Richtungsinfomationen") ;)

[pafkosta]

Guys... this link on the begining of the post doens´t work! Can anyone tell me were I can find this somewere else?!
Tks
(http://www.ramsete.com/Aurora/downl...rora32Beta7.zip)

[SallyDog]

this will get you there.

http://www.ramsete.com/

SallyDog

[hippoth]

hi SallyDog,

what do you think about wahr I said...do you feel that the rear speakers are a little to loud? :confused:

[SallyDog]

hello hippoth

Actually, I think that the rear speakers are not loud enough, but that may be because of the way I have them placed (higher than the front and center speakers)

I am not sure that we are using the same source material. All of my recordings have been made from 2 channel wave files (ripped from audio cd's or converted from mp3's). When you talk about the video streams, I wonder if you are not using DVD as source.

Anyway, you should be able to use Cool Edit to reduce the volumn of your 04 and 05 mono wave files after running bsplit and before encoding with Surcode.

Let me know if that gives you a better result.

regards
SallyDog

[hippoth]

hi SallyDog,
I took a DVD as source...the audio stream was a 16-bit LPCM 2.0 channel wave
and...yes you are right I can try it with cooledit to reduce the volume...I will tell you more about the results (but can spend some time...because I don´t have the time :rolleyes: )

can you tell me is it possible to play the dts-waves...I tried it with windvd but I got just noise...after burning I could play them with my cd player...but I want to test them on the pc!
I have some dts *.vob files...there it is no problem to play them windvd...but why not with the dts-waves??

[SallyDog]

can't help you with PC playback. I haven't figured out a way to do it either.

oh well....keep trying.

[pafkosta]

I have two questions for you and i would be in many tks if someone could answer me...
The fisrt is that i have a few DIVX conversion of some of mine DVD. I was wondering if it is possible to tranform the avi sound into Ac3 DD 5.1. using this guide. If so can i then after in the authoring add the file that was created so that i end up with a normal DVD with 5.1 sound?
The second is that i can´t seem to find out where in cool edit - i´m using cool edit pro- is the "convolve with clipboard" aurora module option. I would in many tks if someone could tell me this.

[hippoth]

Originally posted by pafkosta
i have a few DIVX conversion of some of mine DVD. I was wondering if it is possible to tranform the avi sound into Ac3 DD 5.1. using this guide. If so can i then after in the authoring add the file that was created so that i end up with a normal DVD with 5.1 sound?at the beginning I think you have a DVD with DD 5.1 and you can end with a DivX in DD 5.1 ;) ...or what do you want to know :confused:
The second is that i can´t seem to find out where in cool edit - i´m using cool edit pro- is the "convolve with clipboard" aurora module option. I would in many tks if someone could tell me this.
you should copy all the *.xfm files into the cooledit folder and then you can find all under "Effects" -> "Aurora" -> "Convolve with Clipboard" ... thats all whats written in the guide :sly:

[m4551m0]

@Eye of Horus
i'm following your guide
"A Guide from Stereo to 5 channel Surround !"
and I'm just at the end, going to use the ambic.exe,
but for some strange reason the command line you supplied:
ambidec -r Pentagon (WXYZ.WZYZ) (output.wxyz)
doesn't work to me the program keep saying
unable to find wav file WXYZ.WXYZ
the file is in the same directory of ambidec.exe, I tried also to rename to WXYZ.wav but no success.
So i was ready to try the alternative method using Visual Virtual Microphone but the link to the program you supplied its down.

So here's my questions:
Is Visual Virtual Microphone a free program?
Can you upload it and post a link to the forum??

thanx for the attention to this
looking forward to try your method
best
m.

[SallyDog]

After you run pack2x2to4, you should have a file (whatever you named it), with an extension of wxyz. This is the file you refer to (the input file) with ambidec. Don't even use a name for the output file, one will be created automatically.

You might need to carefully re-read the guide, it does seem complicated until you made a few conversions, but, it does work.

Regards,
SallyDog

[m4551m0]

SallyDog

thats what I did:
1. I had 2 files named WX.WX and YZ.YZ
2. run run pack2x2to4 and get WXYZ.WXYZ

run ambidec as soon as point it to WXYZ.WXYZ
the program says
unable to find wav file WXYZ.WXYZ

???

u know where to get
Visual Virtual Microphone???

[lucindrea]

try nameing it wxyz.wav and see if it will take it.

[SallyDog]

@M4551m0

Did you make sure that wxyz.wxyz is in the same folder as ambidec?

re VV Microphone - do a google search. VVM is out there and it's freeware.

SallyDog

[m4551m0]

It worked today!
Don't tell me how 'cause I dunno.
Yesterday was too late.
Going to encode in ac3 an dts.

thanx lads

max

[jslombar]

Eye of Horus

Where is your latest Guide to DD5.1 from Stereo? I can't seem to locate it? If it's the first posting in this post, pardon my ignorance.

Thanks,
jslombar

[Malow]

some one can give a alternate mirror for aurora?
i can´t open www.ramsete for a month!!!!

i´m in brazil, this may be the problem... heheheh

the site dont open for me....

or send-me by mail!

alpha.pro@terra.com.br

Malow

[Bert Schlichter]

Thanks to the guide from EoH we can convert stereo files into 5 channel Ambisonic DTS or DD5.1...Great EoH ;-)
For those of you who want to use Ambisonic in their music-clip DVD's. Here is a small addendum to this guide to keep the audio files 100% in sync with the video. As i was told the Aurora plug-in produces so called 'room pulses' and therefore increase's the filesize with two times 0.3715 along the whole 'EoH guide' route.
So we have to correct this to keep the video in sync.

Here are the steps:

1: Use Smartripper to rip the various chapters.
2: Use TMPG to demux the .vob to a .m2v and and a 48 Khz .wav file.
3: Use Cooledit to down-sample the 48 Khz file to a 44.1 Khz .wav file.
4: Follow the 'EoH guide' exactly until you have got 5 mono files produced by Bsplit.
5: Cooledit: Pulldown menu Timebar - Define custom frames - Custom Time Code Display - Put: 10.000 frames/sec. 6: Find for each file the exact start-pulse and delete 0:3715 towards the middle from that point.
7: Find for each file the exact end-pulse and delete 0:3715 towards the middle from that point.
8: Use Cooledit to up-sample each 44.1 Khz file to a 48 Khz .wav file.

Use SurCode (DTS) or SoftEncode (DD 5.1) and your favourite Authoring program to make a Ambisonic DVD!

Have Phun,

Bert Schlichter :-)

[specise_8472]

I have just found a program that allows you to convolve audio.
Best of all its FREE!

http://shoko.calarts.edu/~bcassidy/hog/

Hog audio. Better than russian roulette with Aurora.

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by specise_8472
I have just found a program that allows you to convolve audio.
Best of all its FREE!

http://shoko.calarts.edu/~bcassidy/hog/

Hog audio. Better than russian roulette with Aurora.

Interesting..... but how to make this into surround 5.1 ?

EoH

[specise_8472]

I really just put this link up so as to give people a freeware alternative to Aurora. Looking at it, there are a lot of options to convole in this program.
If I get time I will try the different alternatives and see what the resulting mix sounds like.

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by specise_8472
I really just put this link up so as to give people a freeware alternative to Aurora. Looking at it, there are a lot of options to convole in this program.
If I get time I will try the different alternatives and see what the resulting mix sounds like.

That would be nice !
Almost every soundprogram has the possibility to convolve nowadays.
But only that routine on it's own doesn't make 5.1 from stereo.

So it would be nice if someone could do a comparison.....

At this moment (IMHO) I have this order based on the sound :
1. Aurora/Cooledit method
2. VVmic
3. Catt

I left out all those higend, highpriced receivers with their DSP effects :-)

EoH

[chrisguy]

Ok, I'm really excited about this but I having a very hard time. I read that you need to get the Tools Ambisonics (it's the third requirement). I guess this has the 3 wav files you need in it. Problem is, I have no clue as to where to download the tools. There is no link under where they are mentioned and I think it says see below, but I don't see anything below. And also, is Aurora functional, or do you have to buy that to do this.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance,
Chris

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by chrisguy
Ok, I'm really excited about this but I having a very hard time. I read that you need to get the Tools Ambisonics (it's the third requirement). I guess this has the 3 wav files you need in it. Problem is, I have no clue as to where to download the tools. There is no link under where they are mentioned and I think it says see below, but I don't see anything below. And also, is Aurora functional, or do you have to buy that to do this.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance,
Chris

The link is removed. I don't know why !
Try :
http://home.wanadoo.nl/appyhappy/Tools-Ambisonic.zip
and
http://www.xs4all.nl/~appfan/setupa32.EXE

EoH

[snowcrash101]

cheers for sharing this method EOH and posting/email me the links :devil:

I've encoded 8 songs into this material, and it is a very interesting sound, the closest i can relate to it being as if your listening to the sound live, rather than standard DTS/5.1 audio CD remix's which just utilise the speakers in different variations (i.e. singer in left speaker, guitarist in right, drums in rear)...

And I find it really good as this is more like reality than a the "standard" surround mixing style (i.e. when do you hear a band who run around you in a circle, or has the lead singer popping up all around you...).

I'm playing about with making ambisonic audio on video atm but i think this will be good for mainly live music events (concerts) rather than films. Due to the TV giving you information - as person or object placement in relation to where you are viewing the film/video from (screen) and "standard" surround mixing is logically more correct in your mind (i.e. noise from something off screen is from a speaker behind you - not in most of the speakers...). Then again this is theory and i havent made/authored a DVD (yet) with Video footage and Ambisonic 5.1 ;) - I'll wait and see before I decide weather or not converting some already made videos is worth the hassle when I make a proper test DVD.

Cheers,

Snowcrash. :D

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by snowcrash101
cheers for sharing this method EOH and posting/email me the links :devil:

Thanks :-))


I've encoded 8 songs into this material, and it is a very interesting sound, the closest i can relate to it being as if your listening to the sound live, rather than standard DTS/5.1 audio CD remix's which just utilise the speakers in different variations (i.e. singer in left speaker, guitarist in right, drums in rear)...

And I find it really good as this is more like reality than a the "standard" surround mixing style (i.e. when do you hear a band who run around you in a circle, or has the lead singer popping up all around you...).


It does sound more natural than a lot of these fancy mixes !
I sure agree with you :-)))


I'm playing about with making ambisonic audio on video atm but i think this will be good for mainly live music events (concerts) rather than films. Due to the TV giving you information - as person or object placement in relation to where you are viewing the film/video from (screen) and "standard" surround mixing is logically more correct in your mind (i.e. noise from something off screen is from a speaker behind you - not in most of the speakers...). Then again this is theory and i havent made/authored a DVD (yet) with Video footage and Ambisonic 5.1 ;) - I'll wait and see before I decide weather or not converting some already made videos is worth the hassle when I make a proper test DVD.

Cheers,

Snowcrash. :D :D

It's possible to make an Ambi soundtrack, but you must keep in mind that the original files are made a fraction of a second longer, because the pulses are added to the original tracks. This can lead to out-of-sync problems.
Earlier in this thread you can find more on this subject........... and how to fix it.

kind regards,

EoH

[daphy]

Hi Eye of Horus

first I would like to tribut respect for your work!!!

I´ve tried your guide and it works nearly perfect, sometimes the sound gets to much peak so it sounds a little wired (sorry for my bad English :( )

I bet you for a big faviour:

Is it possible to do one 'complete' guide with all tricks and hints and publish them an the doom9 guide side :rolleyes:

My lack of knowledge of the English language leads (me) to the point, that I have to search through all the postings to find my mistake (wired sound because of to much peak I´ll guess). This seams to me nearly unpossible (184 postings - puh - I guess this means hours for me) :confused:

So I´ll bet you to write this guide for me (and I think for all those idealistic guys out there which wanted to get a real optimum of sound out of their stereo recordings). All I can do is offer you my personal help as support for this guide - please send pm!

One curious thing left:
I downloaded from this link the cooledit plugin (http://www.xs4all.nl/~appfan/setupa32.EXE) and as I start the file it explained me that there are no cooledit installtion found on my pc - 2.1 must be enough I guess :cool:

CYA Daphy

[snowcrash101]

daphy - i had to install the older version of cooledit (v1) to get the aurura pack installed..

i installed V2 over the top (but couldnt get it working)...

so just used V1 instead.

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by daphy
Hi Eye of Horus

first I would like to tribut respect for your work!!!

I´ve tried your guide and it works nearly perfect, sometimes the sound gets to much peak so it sounds a little wired (sorry for my bad English :( )

I bet you for a big faviour:

Is it possible to do one 'complete' guide with all tricks and hints and publish them an the doom9 guide side :rolleyes:


Yep, I will do that one of these days......


My lack of knowledge of the English language leads (me) to the point, that I have to search through all the postings to find my mistake (wired sound because of to much peak I´ll guess). This seams to me nearly unpossible (184 postings - puh - I guess this means hours for me) :confused:


I'm also non-english !!!!!!!!!! :-)


So I´ll bet you to write this guide for me (and I think for all those idealistic guys out there which wanted to get a real optimum of sound out of their stereo recordings). All I can do is offer you my personal help as support for this guide - please send pm!

One curious thing left:
I downloaded from this link the cooledit plugin (http://www.xs4all.nl/~appfan/setupa32.EXE) and as I start the file it explained me that there are no cooledit installtion found on my pc - 2.1 must be enough I guess :cool:

CYA Daphy

The solution is somewhere in the thread too :-)

De-install CE 2.1
Install 1.0 or 1.2
Install Aurora
Install 2.1 in the same directory as 1.0 or 1.2

There is also another solution somewhere in the thread if I remember right............

The guys who made the install routine for Aurora made it when there was no 2.1 version of Cooledit.


for now.........


best regards,

EoH

[SallyDog]

You really should not have to un-install and then re-install.

When you run the set-up for the plug-ins, it put all of the *.xfm files into a folder (probably called programs\cooledit). All you have to do is move the xfm files to the existing folder for CE 2.1
This works fine for me.


Nevermind:mad:

I screwed up. To make a long story short, just follow EoH suggestion to install Aurora.

Sorry

[Malow]

just create a reg to install the version 2.0 without v1.2

-------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Syntrillium\cepro]
"MainDir"="C:\\PROGRAM FILES\COOLEDIT"



---------------------------------------------------

CHANGE THE PATH WITH RIGHT WAY TO APP.

Malow

[Malow]

oops! use "\\" instead "\" on path, and this reg header is for Xp regs, i can´t remeber winme, 98 header.

Malow

[matrix]

Now you have two stereo signals. Change the extension of the WX file (should be WAV) to "WX". Change the extension of the YZ file (should be WAV, too) to "YZ".
Please excuse my ignorance, but how do you change the extension? CEdit won't let me do it.

[SallyDog]

Just rename them from within Windows explorer.

[matrix]

Yes I tryied that, but the extension is still wav

[Covak]

Say, I can play the 5ch wav file made by ambidec just fine (in WinDVD, PowerDVD, or Winamp using hardware-accelerated DirectSound). Only problem is that the channels don't seem to be in the right order.

Anyone have any ideas/suggestions as to how I might fix that?

[lucindrea]

then your explorer is set up wrong ...

tools/folder options
click view tab
click "show hidden files and folders"
UNCHECK "hide file extensions for knowen types"

if that doesnt work you can use the old fasitioned way ( command prompt )


start/run/cmd ( or command if you have 98 )
if your files are on a differnt drive then C: .. type (letter):
type cd /(path to the WX,YZ files)
dir
move filename1.wav filename1.WX
move filename2.wav filename2.YZ



here is a quick command prompt ver i just did to show you how it should look

C:\WINNT>f:

F:\>cd \sounds

F:\sounds>dir
Volume in drive F is dma133-1
Volume Serial Number is 9422-3758

Directory of F:\sounds

06/23/2003 07:20p <DIR> .
06/23/2003 07:20p <DIR> ..
06/23/2003 07:19p 0 soundfile.WX.wav
06/23/2003 07:19p 0 soundfile.YZ.wav
2 File(s) 0 bytes
2 Dir(s) 20,060,389,376 bytes free

F:\sounds>

F:\sounds>move soundfile.WX.wav soundfile.WX

F:\sounds>move soundfile.YZ.wav soundfile.YZ

F:\sounds>dir
Volume in drive F is dma133-1
Volume Serial Number is 9422-3758

Directory of F:\sounds

06/23/2003 07:20p <DIR> .
06/23/2003 07:20p <DIR> ..
06/23/2003 07:19p 0 soundfile.WX
06/23/2003 07:19p 0 soundfile.YZ
2 File(s) 0 bytes
2 Dir(s) 20,060,389,376 bytes free

F:\sounds>

[Covak]

A little more searching and I was able to answer my own question.

http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/~rwd/mctools.html

Great little set of command line tools for playing with multi-channel wavs.

[matrix]

@ lucindrea
You were right. I had the explorer set up wrong.
Thanks. I appreciate it.

[Covak]

One of the first parts of the guide says:

-> The goal here is to convert your stereo CD signal, which is UHJ - encoded, into a B format signal...

But my stereo CD signal sure isn't UHJ-encoded. Them's some rare CDs that were actually UHJ-encoded (for Ambisonics). This whole procedure is designed to decode UHJ-encoded material. So I'm not sure what the heck we're actually doing by applying the process to regular stereo material.

I guess it's like applying Dolby Pro-Logic (I or II) to a normal stereo signal? I just thought this process (based on that snippet from the guide) was actually designed to be used on regular stereo material.

[Eye of Horus]

Originally posted by Covak
One of the first parts of the guide says:

-> The goal here is to convert your stereo CD signal, which is UHJ - encoded, into a B format signal...

But my stereo CD signal sure isn't UHJ-encoded. Them's some rare CDs that were actually UHJ-encoded (for Ambisonics). This whole procedure is designed to decode UHJ-encoded material. So I'm not sure what the heck we're actually doing by applying the process to regular stereo material.

I guess it's like applying Dolby Pro-Logic (I or II) to a normal stereo signal? I just thought this process (based on that snippet from the guide) was actually designed to be used on regular stereo material.

It is ! I guess it's my bad English :-)
Instead of "which is" read "which will be".
In Dutch in this case you can use the word "is" to give it the same meaning.

And I strongly advice you to read the whole thread ! It answers your PL question !

regards,

EoH

[Covak]

Ah so :)

BTW, thanks for the guide. I had never heard of Ambisonics before I saw your guide yesterday (I was recently impressed with DPLII's music mode, and I wondered what methods there might be for making DTS versions of up-mixed stereo music), and I spent a good while reading all about it.

I'm still experimenting with the process, but so far the results are interesting. I'm a bit confused as to channel ordering though...

- The channel order of ambidec? Using the default rigs, I dunno, but I guess we can use custom rigs to get the channels to be in any order we want. I'm toying with this just now.

- The channel order for AC3, DTS, and multi-channel WAVs? I'd hope they're all the same, but I don't know. I guess I can check that myself too, with a little test clip.

One thing that confuses me about your process though is the conversion to 32 bits. It seems to me that, following your guide, there's no processing done at all with the 32 bit waveforms. We convert to 32 bit and then convert back to 16 bit before we've done anything with the 32 bit wave. At first I thought "Maybe the stereo->mono conversion works better in 32 bit." But CE actually seems to do stereo->mono before it does 16->32 bits, so that can't be it. It seems to me that all it accomplishes is some dithering...

[Malow]

anyone got a strange volume level on channels, on the firts time i "reorder" hehe, the chanels, but now again, i have strange levels... even from a "mono like" setero, were levels are almost same.

left front - "volume at 95%"
right front- "volume at 75%"
center - "volume at 70%"
left surr - "volume at 75%"
right surr- "volume at 95%"

and YES, i put on the correct order, i see dozen of times, an its correct. extracting to wav to convert in dts, or direct transcode the wav in softencode, same channel order.... same levels...

any help i apreciated.

[Covak]

Are you using the "Pentagon" rig? Check out the channels of the wav ambidec puts out for that:

ch1 = LF (left front)
ch2 = LS (left surround/rear)
ch3 = CS (yes, center rear!)
ch4 = RS
ch5 = RF

And I'm pretty sure that because of how the Ambisonic decoder works, you can't just rotate the channels around to get the right sound. The "Surround1" rig is what you want (and what the guide should suggest, I believe):

ch1 = LF
ch2 = CF (regular old front center this time :)
ch3 = RF
ch4 = LS
ch5 = RS

Now if you do what the guide suggests, and put the channels into a DTS or DD encoder in the order 1, 3, 2, none, 4, 5, then things will be right.

Really though, a good custom rig specification is the way to go!

[Malow]

tanks for the help, i using pentagon.
im doing exactly as the gide, step by step, an with the order of guide:

Left front : song0101
right front : song0103
center : song0102
lfe : stays blank
left surround : song0104
right surround : song0105

i do the same with a music now, and the same occours,...
the better i can do now is adjust the levels os each channl in vegas to not move the order in vegas, but keep the volume levels "leveled"..
hehe...

tnks kovak

Malow

[Covak]

Is it the exact same problem now (with the Surround1 rig)? Or are you getting different volume levels (but still incorrect ones) than before?

And how are you getting those volume level measurements?

I think messing with volume levels will screw-up the effect.

[matrix]

Can somebody give me a hand please?

I tryed this thing several times, but I get stuck at runnung ambidec.
I can run Pack2x2to4.exe right from the directory where it is(tools-ambisonic), but ambidec for some reason, when I doubleclick on it, just opens and closes quickly. So I copyed it to windows dir. and try to run it from a command prompt, but it allways tells me it cannot find the file.
I don't know what to do. I hope somebody can tell my what I can do.
I would really appreciate any help on this.

Thank you.

[Covak]

If you copy ambidec to the folder you're working in (where the .wxyz file is), and switch to that folder at the command prompt and then run ambidec, you should be alright.

[matrix]

Thanks for the sugestion, but still no go. Just like when I run it from windows, it can't find the file. I tried rename it, but it won't go.
But why can't I run it from its current location, like I can run pack2x2to4 ?
This is so frustrating. I red the whole thread a few times, and I think I did everything the way I'm supposed to, but this damn program keeps me from finishing.

Anyway, thank you for trying to help, and if there's anything else I can try, let me know.