who uses 5.1 surround mixing?

[n4eem]

hey, just wondered if mixing in 5.1 surround was popular and if majority of top notch producers do it??

[bennychico11]

Originally Posted by n4eem

hey, just wondered if mixing in 5.1 surround was popular and if majority of top notch producers do it??

for music or for video.

Happens all the time for video. For music...if the budget is there for it and they want to release a DVD-A or Super Audio CD, then they can.
Again, money is the biggest factor of all.

[n4eem]

yea sorry, i meant for music, as i have 5.1 surround system,( M-AUDIO ) i fink its awsome, i love it, but just wondered who else did it!

How would a 5.1 surround sound mix sound when mixed down to a stereo file?

[TuoKaerf]

Depends, a good engineer will collapse a 5.1+ mix down to stereo to make sure it is compatable.

[bennychico11]

same way a movie can be down-mixed from 7.1 to 2 channels for broadcast TV.

[technominds]

Originally Posted by bennychico11

same way a movie can be down-mixed from 7.1 to 2 channels for broadcast TV.

And how might that be?

Surely its just a flat mix when broadcasted.. not 7.1?


This has confsued me for a while. My DVD player only has a stereo output, do some have 6 outputs/more?

[TuoKaerf]

I'm no expert on surround stuff, but I believe most DVD players will automatically fold down a surround mix into a two track if needed.

My DVD player is set for surround, it has 6 outputs.

[RAK]

Downmixing is a capability of the system/decoder. How well something can be downmixed is also a matter of how well it was mixed in the first place. If you play a discrete surround mix (like DTS/Dolby Digital/SACD/DVD-A) back on a stereo system, it's up to the player to figure out how to downmix everything. If the engineer doesn't take in to account how a surround mix will fold down into stereo, it's the same thing as only mixing on studio speakers, and never listening to it in your car.
Also, my guess would be that most music surround mixes are just 5.0, and they're not mixing a discrete LFE channel, but rather letting Bass Management feed the sub.

I think it's clear there's not a lot of surround mixing going on in music. Just take a look at the SACD/DVD-A row in your local music store. I know there are also DTS-CD decoders out there. Surcode makes a lot of surround software encoders. Of course you need a decoder on the other end.
I think it would be great if SACD or DVD-A took off, but it's pretty clear that people would rather have music on their cell phones, than high sample rates/bit depth and discrete surround. sigh.

The other place surround sound is showing up is now for HDTV. You can actually broadcast Dolby Digital over HDTV, so both shows and commercials are getting mixed for surround.

What I also find interesting is that on many DVDs even if they only have a stereo mix, it's been encoded as a Dolby Digital 2.0 channel. This seems to be the common practice even though you can put a stereo PCM stream on a DVD. Well that's video guys for ya, always hogging the bandwidth.

[RAK]

Originally Posted by technominds

And how might that be?

Surely its just a flat mix when broadcasted.. not 7.1?


This has confsued me for a while. My DVD player only has a stereo output, do some have 6 outputs/more?

If your DVD player has an onboard Dolby Digital and/or DTS decoder (which it most likely does), then it should have Digital Audio Outputs in the form of a Coaxial (RCA connection) or Optical connection. These digital connections will transmit the Dolby Digital or DTS stream.

On the other end you need a reciever that will accept that feed and decode DD or DTS and has 5 speakers and a sub.

If you have something like Dolby Pro Logic (now called Dolby Surround I believe) that is a matrixed surround system that takes a regular stereo feed and turns it into a surround mix for your speakers.