Editing 5.1 Audio

[triad3204]

What I want to do is edit 5.1 tracks of audio. Right now the audio is in AC3 format, and it would be great to edit it in that format, but that's not strictly necessary (as long as I can get it back to Dolby 5.1 AC3 eventually).

What I want to be able to do is see all six tracks separately and manipulate them either individually or collectively. I have Sound Forge 8.0, and I thought that would surely handle this type of work. But, unless I'm missing something, it doesn't. Then I heard about all the great AC3 and Dolby Digital tools in Sony Vegas, and I've got a friend who has a copy of Vegas+DVD 4.0. So I popped over to his house and opened it up, but -- unless I'm missing something here, too -- I'm still only seeing a stereo control.

I've tried searching the forums here and on Afterdawn, and I've done wide Google searches, too. But I'm turning up a lot of spurious hits and nothing in the way of useful information.

Any suggestions on what program I can use for the type of control I'm looking for? I'm open to suggestions involve commercial software, too. I've got several friends who can give me access to those programs, and I'm not against shelling out some cash myself if it will get me the solution I'm looking for.

Thanks,

Justin Bacon

[killingspree]

hmmm... seems to be a bit quiet... honestly i haven't heard about a tool you can directly edit ac3 files in (apart from cutting or triming)

anyway, perhaps you'll get some more useful answers in the audio encoding forum...

kr
steVe

PS: i would do any editing task by demuxing to wav first...

[triad3204]

Originally posted by killingspree
PS: i would do any editing task by demuxing to wav first...

That sounds fine to me. The most important thing for me is to (a) keep the Dolby tracks separate; (b) have the ability to edit each track separately; and (c) get those tracks re-encoded as an AC3 with Dolby 5.1 as the soundtrack for an MPEG. If I need to demux the AC3 to WAV before editing, that's fine -- as long as I maintain the surround sound and can edit each track of the surround sound separately.

There simply must be software out there that let's me have that kind of control.

Justin Bacon

[Tec]

Originally posted by triad3204
There simply must be software out there that let's me have that kind of control.

Justin Bacon

There is.
Use Be Sweet to convert AC3 to 6 WAVs. Edit WAVs with Sound Forge (or similar). Use Sony Vegas (or similar) to render AC3.

[MacAddict]

Any idea how Sony Vegas compares to SoftEncode in quality and speed?

Converting to WAV files will allow you to edit but I wonder at what expense to quality...if any.