AC3 support!!!

[_Blackbill_]

I work mostly with video and I enjoy using AA for the audio portion. It's a bit of a pain though with no direct AC3 support.

Can we have this?

[MusicConductor]

Amidst all this Sina blather I see the usual complete lack of morals and integrity concerning copyrights and patents. As is typical, hacks and cracks abound with no consideration (or royalties) given to the inventors.

Back to Blackbill's original question and post #2 above -- great question.

There are two levels of Dolby licensing: a free or nearly free one that allows
i stereo-only
encoding and/or decoding; and a full-featured 5.1/6.1 encoder allowing full control of the channel configuration, metadata, and downmix parameters. This level of licensing is also required if you need Dolby Logo licensing for product manufacture.
b The Ulead Movie Factory 6 offers the former stereo-only level of encoding.
So does Adobe's Encore DVD. While this is certainly very helpful, most people who come asking for AC-3 support for Audition are wanting surround capabilities, but are experimenting, and are
i not
producers/authoring houses, and therefore the "incompatibility" arises.

Adobe offers a fully licensed AC-3 encoder as an add-on plugin ($299), made by Minnetonka Audio, for
b Premiere Pro.

[SuiteSpot]

Excellent & informative reply

[_Blackbill_]

Thanks for the answer MusicConductor.

Ulead offers the FULL 5.1 surround encoder and not just the stereo encoder.... as does Sony Vegas Pro. In fact Sony's Pro encoder (which I use a fair bit) is a pretty in-depth encoder that includes some pretty detailed adjustments. One of the restrictions with Vegas however is that you can't import AC3 unless it's directly off of a disk. There doesn't seem to be this restriction in Ulead however. You can import/export pretty much at will.

I suppose though that AC3 (5.1) is more a necessity in video editors than it is in audio editors..... (one of the reasons I don't use Premiere is that it lacks an included AC3 surround encoder)

[_Blackbill_]

Sorry... I should add that Ulead's restriction is that you can't produce a separate AC3 file. You can only produce a video disk with AC3. It's also a fairly crude and basic encoder.

Sony Vegas does not have this restriction though. You are free to produce and export a fully qualified, separate 5.1 surround AC3 file.

Vegas Pro's little brother (Vegas Platinum for $120) can encode 5.1 as well, but its encoder allows only to switch AGC on or off.

Avid Liquid, another video editor, although lacking AC3 import, does have full 5.1 encoding abilities. We actually called Dolby inquiring the legalities of the issue, and Dolby stated that small businesses are allowed to encode AC3 without a license. They simply will not allow you to use the Dolby logo without a license

At any rate, as can be seen Dolby licensing does not have to be expensive. Other programs do in fact come with it and you're not paying an arm/leg for it either..... which is why I don't understand it's exclusion from Adobe Audition

[SteveG_AudioMasters_]

>We actually called Dolby inquiring the legalities of the issue, and Dolby stated that small businesses are allowed to encode AC3 without a license...

>At any rate, as can be seen Dolby licensing does not have to be expensive. Other programs do in fact come with it and you're not paying an arm/leg for it either..... which is why I don't understand it's exclusion from Adobe Audition.

It's true that if you enquire as a small business, the answers from Dolby are different - I've had that experience over hardware issues with them. But if, as Adobe, you ask about general licence terms where the end use simply cannot be controlled, I'd guess that the answer would be somewhat different. It's also possible that in recent times, Dolby has changed their licensing policy somewhat - which to me would make some sense; I always thought that if you wanted something to become any sort of a 'standard' format, the way to do it was not to make it prohibitively expensive for people to generate it.

But I'd still rather that the expensive surround version was an addition to Audition, and therefore not a part of the up-front cost - simply because I, and I strongly suspect the vast majority of users, have no use for it whatsoever at present. It would be nice to think that it was available should I need it someday, but that's as far as I'd want to go.

[MusicConductor]

A nice bit of work there, Blackbill, which goes far beyond what I know about those programs. One technical note: no Adobe programs allow for 5.1
i decoding,
although with the right trickery you can get decoding to a stereo wave to happen irrespective of the original channel configuration of the stream. I've always thought that Dolby didn't allow for 5.1 decodes; but from an engineering point of view, the more compelling reason is that it is lossy. Very lossy, actually, so decoding, editing, and re-saving is akin to the degradations you can encounter when working with mp3s. Best left as "destination formats." Of course, if it's the only way the audio exists, that's a different story.

I suspect that we'll never know the financial viability of Adobe adding AC-3 to Audition without actually doing it, because the people who need it professionally don't usually have a problem paying the costs of the Premiere plug, or for Vegas, or whatever, and tend to already have it. Conversely, it's usually the new and amateur users who request that the format be supported here for whom the price of the plugin isn't cost-effective. The problem is that Adobe's "hands" must certainly be tied by the long-standing relationship with Minnetonka's "SurCode." I wonder what percentage of Premiere users have paid for Dolby SurCode; what it would take to re-code it as an add-on for Audition's surround encoder; and if the price could be dropped for
i both
programs such that Minnetonka could make up for the loss by sheer volume. But I wonder if some people would still consider $150 (HALF price) too high for an Audition plug. Whatever the case may be, Adobe can't sell a Dolby encoder at different prices for different programs.

I've always agreed with Steve that it should be an add-on. I also concur that Dolby's priority is to control their image and trademark, while turning loose with the simple forms of the format when certification is not important.

[_gagarine_]

THE solution John T Smith, "Importing vob file into Premiere has no sound?" #1, 2 Aug 2008 4:19 pm

[_____13]

Does it work for you?:

Open Adobe Audition

Select View, then Multitrack View (if you overlook this step, you will not be able to import the AC3 file)

Next, select File, Import, and find the AC3 file on your hard drive

Select Open (the audio will then be extracted)

Now in the file window in Adobe Audition, double click on the imported AC3 file

Your audio file wave form will appear on the screen

Select File, Save As, and in the box that appears, choose MP3 in the "Save as type" box