Finalizing SOUND to DVD Issue..

[Ibanez]

Hello Guys ,

I just finished Sound Design & Music Production project for an Animation
Demo Reel , Everything sounds great on PC setup , tried it on Stereo Monitors & a low end creative surround , its a stereo mix not a 5.1 surround mix ..

My problem is , when I burn as a Final DVD , I Play it on PC its Fine .. but on 2 different DVD players " Home Theater " setups >"Stereo Mode " .. some sounds just disappear ! " some mono centered Sound FX & the Kick Drum in Music " .. tried all options & nothing worked , also it sounds more bassy & muddy than PC where it sounds super ..

I Used T-Racks3 Mastering , Vegas 9 for editing with Video then exported everything Uncompressed , then VSO dvd Maker ... where its exported in VOBs & AC3 format .

Searched the forum before posting but couldnt find related straight to point threads ..or maybe I missed it , sorry if it's been discussed before ..

Any Helpful thoughts ?
Thanks in advance

[mikevarela]

when you authored the DVD, did you specify Dolby stereo as the format, not Dolby surround?

Sound like the DVD player is thinking it's an LtRt and messing with the phasing of the audio.

It's also common to hear things differently between environments. This is something that good audio engineers account for, and why trying mixes on different systems is always a good idea. I'm not sure if your audio system/room is calibrated, if not then this is obviously a culprit - bad speakers and lot's of reflections can hurt as well, plus using a sub without understanding bass-redirection vs. direct can add muck to your mix too.

It's hard to help in such a situation, without seeing your setup and without having calibrated your system, issues can arise from many places.

You say you have a PC, do you own a mac? I ask because you could use Toast to burn a DVD from a quicktime file with the embedded stereo mix - and check that on the dvd player to see if it's consistent with the mix from the computer. I'm sure there's a Roxio app for PC that does this too, but not sure. In any case, try doing this type of burn and if it's fine, then you know the issue is with the authoring procedure/software you used before.

[Ibanez]

Thank you Mike for a quick response ..

Format selected is Dolby Stereo 2 Channels , I even tried mpeg Stereo ,
it's all with the same result, my confusion roams around the difference between
PC playback with different kinda speakers , its sounds perfect & the same , while on a DVD player home theater it's a bit messed up , tried on 2 different brands & rooms " My Place & my Friend's place ", one Sony & one Sharp , same result :/
So playing the DVD on PC's with both stereo & surround Monitors is fine ..
Living Room Home Theaters .. its Bad .
Unfortunately I don't have a Mac ,I tried different pc softwares for DVD authoring .. same same lol its driving me nuts !
I'll keep on tweaking maybe I'll reach somewhere ,I'll post it in case it's useful ,
Thanks Again

[neilwilkes]

How is the home theatre system set up?
Sounds to me as if it is attempting to decode into faux surround via DPL or matrix decoding of some sort.
Can you please upload a section of the AC3 and the original file to have a look at, by any chance?

(BTW - always avoid MPEG audio - it is not your friend)

[eoats]

" Home Theater " setups >"Stereo Mode " .. some sounds just disappear ! " some mono centered Sound FX & the Kick Drum in Music "


hmm, yeah I'll bet with the decoder on the Home Theater system is set to decode your Left-Right out to Left, Right, Center, Lfe & Surround.

[Ibanez]

I just finally used DVD Architect pro 5 ... one of the options had AC-3 Stereo or PCM-Stereo for the Audio ..
I tried both & turned out to sound perfect as PCM .. exactly as the original ..
while AC3 was a bit muddy & lower in volume.. so PCM was perfect ..

after all it was a software issue which is a relief ..

thanks you all for the responses