Hello!
Up until this point I've only created Stereo mixes with my DCPs, but now I'm getting into wanting to create 5.1 Surround sound mixes.
I'm curious...does DCP-o-Matic recognize a WAV file that contains all 6 channels within it? or do I need to bring in 6 separate discreet tracks (one for each speaker channel) and then DCP-o-Matic will recognize those?
I'm also assuming that best practice is to upload or import the video track without original audio and then bring in the audio as a separate file for DCP-o-Matic to pair together? I'm just wondering if the original video file which contains a stereo mix of the audio would confuse the program if I didn't want to use that audio but instead use the 5.1 audio tracks.
Does any of this make sense?
Thank you very much for any insight given!
Best,
Ian
DCP-o-matic will recognise all common formats - multitrack, multistream, or singlestream/singletrack files. I recommend using multitrack files, it makes adjustments easier. You just need to make sure you know the channel order/5.1 layout of your file. Standard is L/R/C/LFE/LS/RS.
If you have the master under control, it's usually best to import a combined/interleaved video+audio file.
If you need a stereo track in it as well for reference purposes, you can put it in input channels 7 and 8 and mute them in the audio matrix.
Some people suggest that for proper DCP mastering, you need to follow workflows mimicking those of professional post houses - separate video files or even image series, reels, single track audio files, etc. But that's BS. A proper interleaved combined AV file is best. Professional editing software usually has no problem to output files that cause no issues in DCP-o-matic.
The more complex your input file layout is, the more problems you get in DCP-o-matic.
Make yourself familiar with the audio matrix in DCP-o-matic. It is very easy to route or disable individual tracks.
