Poor Quicktime playback of Multi-Channel 5.1 surround + 2.0 stereo export

[MultiChannel3717]

Hi everyone!

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional audio engineer or editor, just a humble producer, so this might be a stupid question!

I am trying to export a show I made onto 5.1 surround + 2.0 stereo, as per the specifications requested by a streaming service. I have the 5.1 and stereo audio mixes already made, and I just tried to set up a multi-channel sequence with 5.1 output across channels 1-6 and the stereo track across 7-8. The test clip I exported sounds fine on VLC or on a Vimeo upload, but it sounds odd on Quicktime (it sounds echoey, glitchy / tinny) which concerns me since I exported in ProRes 422 so I thought it'd be pretty comfy with that.

Am I doing anything wrong? Or is QT just buggy with multi-channel playback?

It also sounds a little muddy in general (on all players) but that might just be the way 8-channel sounds on my devices (2018 MacBook Air and 2020 iMac)...? 

I assume the streamer's Quality Control folks would catch anything egregious enough for broadcast. But just wanted to make sure I'm not missing anything!

Attached are screenshots of my export settings (24 bit audio), sequence, and the streamer's requireents.

 

[R Neil Haugen]

This is something that say @Jarle Leirpoll or @Michael Grenadier tend to have better knowledge of.

Neil

[Michael Grenadier]

not sure if I'm an expert at this, but I have had to do a few feature film outputs for digital streaming.  When I've done it, they requested the 6 tracks of 5.1 to each be on their own audio track but regardless, unless you're playing it back on a system where you can turn off the stereo mix and monitor the 5.1 mix properly, it will not sound clean...  Don't mean to be snarky, but this is pretty basic stuff for audio...  and you might want to find some resources that explain the issue that arises when you're playing tracks back that are probably out of phase to some degree.    And when you're monitoring all of the tracks at the same time, the total levels may be exceding 0db which will cause distortion in the digital domain...  

[Jarle Leirpoll]

I agree with @Michael Grenadier - they probably want 6 tracks of 5.1 to be each on their own track. So you should export 8 tracks in total, two for stereo and six for 5.1.

[Michael Grenadier]

and if I remember correctly, configuring the timeline and export is a little tricky.  If you confirm that you'll need to output with 8 tracks, and you have any problems figuring it out, post back and I'll see if I can remember exactly how to do it.