Missing 4 channel / ambisonic audio export setting

[Simon James Gray]

I edited and uploaded a couple of videos to YouTube which had an ambisonic AmbiX audio track, which I'd prepared in the normal way by selecting adaptive multichannel audio in the sequence settings, but when I viewed the video back on my headset it wasn't ambisonic, it wasn't even stereo, it was mono.

Because it's been a while since I last put together an ambisonic VR video I did a quick search to check if I'd done everything correctly, and indeed I did set everything up properly in the first place, but I seem to have a missing option on the Audio channels tab of the export settings - I'm not getting the 4 channel option, I'm just getting options for Mono, Stereo, and 5.1, even though I am getting the Audio is ambisonics tickbox at the bottom, but because it's not exporting 4 channel B format audio there's nothing for YouTube to latch on to.

(I see somebody else has had the same problem but the only response from a community manager is to say they're moving it to this forum)

[Sumeet Kumar Choubey]

Hi Simon James Gray,

We're sorry about the poor experience. In the latest release only mono, stereo & 5.1 channels are available for Ambisonics audio. We're currently investigating this issue. For the time being, you may use Premiere Pro 2020 for 4 channel Ambisonic audio support.

Thanks,

Sumeet

[Simon James Gray]

Hi Sumeet - presumably 2021 wasn't properly tested before release, do you have any kind of feel for how close you might be to finding the cause of the problem and resolving it?

Whilst indeed I can grab 2020 to start the next project I'm about to start, I can't really use 2020 to complete the project I was already in progress on, because of project files not being backwards compatible.

[Simon James Gray]

So I see Premiere 2022 is now out and the issue appears still to not be fixed.

This is unacceptable - we're paying £40/£50 a month for the *latest* version of the software, not the version from two years ago.

For many of us, if we wanted to use software from two years ago there are other routes we could be taking which are considerably cheaper.

[RelaxingReality]

Are there plans to fix this issue with CC2022 release? 

[JapanaCana]

Seriously?  Just did suite updates yesterday and haven't even tried yet! 
Very disappointing.. if anything EVERYTHING related to VR should be drastically improved and simplified (with full auto detect)

why? why? why????????  it makes no sense.. Is it just to assure that people get both premiere and after effects instead just being able to use the one?

[tillg63639479]

Hi Sumwwt, One year since your post and it don't still work...!

I have 20 Movies to encode with ambisonic and I have no Renderqueue...!

I would be very happy, if you could fix that, thanks

Till

[tillg63639479]

Please Sumeet, its time to fix that issue!

I waste a lot of time because I can't start a queue at night....!

Thanks!!

[kentbye1]

I wanted to also report & confirm that the option to select a 4-channel output from Adobe Premiere / Media Encoder means that any Ambisonic Tracks are being output as mono tracks. I was disappointed to see that the update yesterday did not fix this. And reverting back to the previous version of Adobe Premiere 2020 / Adobe Premiere 14.9 not only also didn't work, but it also mean that I had to recreate the sequence I wanted to export because you can't save an Adobe Premiere 2021 project and open it up in Adobe Premiere 2020. I tried Final Cut Pro XML export, but even that didn't fully work as it's buggy and not well supported.

I did however find a workaround in combining the externally-produced ambisonic file back into my exported 360 video via ffmpeg. This took a lot of trial and error since it's hard to monitor ambisonic audio locally, and YouTube takes a long time to process these file. Here are the commands that worked for me. I'm sure there's ways to consolidate these commands, but I've found that it was easier to break it up into component parts when you're doing a 3-4 step process that isn't working and takes a long time to debug and isolate what part of your command isn't working. I find the channel mappings to be the most confusing part.

Remove the audio track from exported video to make channel mappings a bit more intuitive:
$ ffmpeg -i Exported-360-Video.mp4 -c copy -an Exported-Video-with-no-audio.mp4

Convert the Ambisonic *.wav file into a *.aac file:
$ ffmpeg -i Ambisonic-Input-File.wav -acodec aac Ambisonic-Input-File.aac

Add all of the 4-channels of Ambisonic Audio back onto the video.
$ ffmpeg -i Exported-Video-with-no-audio.mp4 -i Ambisonic-Input-File.aac -c copy -map 0:v:0 -map 1:a:0 Exported-360-Video-with-Ambisonic-Audio.mp4

Be sure to use Google's Spatial Media Injector to enter in the right metadata if you're uploading an ambisonic-enabled video file to YouTube. Hopefully Adobe will fix this bug so that folks won't have to mess with ffmpeg on the command line just to be able to upload an ambisonic-enabled video.

[JapanaCana]

WOW! Ive seriously been going insane trying to figure out what I was doing wrong when before it was pretty straightforward and Premiere even did a pretty good job auto detecting various clips with ambisonic/binaural audio.... I even tried exporting raw audio data back through ambisonic player in every possible export setting...
Still... no worky... 
I'm relieved to know there is a glitch but pretty frustrated almost angered I wasted so much time trying to get my hear straight.  
What do we gotta do? Instal old version??  This is a REALLY BIG deal!

[Simon James Gray]

So do Adobe actually have any plans to fix this any time soon? I raised it here a month ago, I assume other people found it earlier, it would be nice to know when it'll actually be fixed.

[dsche23s]

Hey everyone,

any news on this? I'm having the same issue and it's kind of frustrating. I use Premiere Pro ONLY for 360 video with ambisonics projects.... without the 4.0 channel option I'm kind of lost... 😞

Shouldn't be too complicated to bring back a small option which was already there and working?!

Thanks,

Dominik

[RelaxingReality]

There needs to be a solution here and it's simply unacceptable that it hasn't been fixed already. Please Adobe fix this. If you can't export ambisonic audio, then what is the point of being able to edit it in the first place.  

[dsob]

Yes. I agree with the many commenters above, this feature needs fixing. 4 channel output audio is essential for 360 projects. I'm about to start a new project so I guess I'll need a much older version of Adobe, which will no doubt create other issues. Sort it out Mr Adobe 😄

[ryanc86629904]

Hello, has there been any updates from Adobe on this?

Right now we are still forced to use premiere 2020 for any and all VR work. Any ETA on the fix?

[Simon James Gray]

Followers of this thread may be interested to know I raised it again in a new thread at https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/still-no-ambisonic-export-in-pp2022/m-p/1250... and the problem is notionally fixed in an upcoming version of 2022 - you can access the work in progress fix from the Beta tab on the left hand sidebar in the CC application. I've not yet done an extensive editing test but the early indications from opening a file I'd already been working on in the 2020 version in the Beta 2022 version seems to work..

[RelaxingReality]

Thank you! I will have to try that out. Good to know they are at least acknowledging the issue.

[Morten-O]

Thanks, it finaly works again!
I get a lot of issues with exports failing and only showing the .xmp meta-file and a 0 byte output file, both using the built in exporter and media encoder (beta). If you have the same issues, have you found a solution? Tried to disable hardware encoding, but no luck.

[m.hackfort]

Still doesn't work correctly in the Beta version. When I export via the Media encoder in H.265 I can not choose 4 channels. In Premiere I can see the option for 4 channels but when I click on the option it doesn't accept it. When I choose H.264 and 4 channels in Premiere and then choose to export via Media Encoder the option is gone. I can only export directly in Premiere with 4 channels activated but the maximum resolution output is restricted... 

Does anyone know a workaround for this?

[J_tacticalspace]

Agreed and adding voice to this being shockingly poor performance from Adobe.  For anyone looking for a workaround, Premiere Pro 2022 Beta fixes it. 

[승용양64676416]

I'm having a hard time with the same issue. Why doesn't Adobe try to solve this problem?
The last comment says that it was resolved in the beta version. Is there anyone who was resolved in the beta version?

[RelaxingReality]

This is the reason why I'm still editing on CC 2020 instead of a later version. I have not been able to test the Beta version of 2022 but someone earlier in this thread said there were still problems with that. 

[eamonr18784156]

I just downloaded the latest version of Premiere 2022 and I have the multichannel option again! Looks like they finally got around to fixing it!

[RelaxingReality]

So I updared Adobe Premiere to the latest version V22.1.2 and the ambisonics audio is now showing up as an export function and it appears to be working.  I was able to export a 360 timeline with ambisonics audio for use on youtube and appears to be in working order now.  

[michaelt43865454]

I'm on 22.2 (Mac) and it still doesn't work. When I try to export my file, the 'Audio is Ambisonics' box is checked, but I can only select Mono/Stereo/5.1 in terms of audio channels. 

Argh.

I think it's time to switch to Resolve.