How can I make multichannel 5.1 audio tracks on my VCDs?

[Xoanon]

My friend makes great 3D movies using MicroSoft 3D Movie Maker. If you want, check out his site at http://scarystuff.50megs.com. I myself shoot short low-budget films on MiniDV which I then make into VCDs with stereo sound.

But my friend makes his 3D Movies with 5.1 audio tracks, using only VirtualDub and Cool Edit 96. He makes films in MicroSoft 3D Movie Maker, converts them to VCD compliant MPEGs and saves the audio separately to a stereo wave using VirtualDub. Then somehow, using Cool Edit 96, he makes a surround sound audio track for his movie and then merges it back with the original MPEG video.

And so, when he plays his VCDs on his DVD player with his 5.1 system on ProLogic mode (I think), his films play with surround sound 5.1 audio! Can anyone explain to me how I can do this with my films which I shoot? It would make a great difference to my action movies.

Thank you.

[Cornucopia]

I hate to break it to you, but you're not hearing 5.1 surround. The best VCD can do is Dolby Surround (4:2:4 matrixed) encoded in the mp2 audio stream. If your friend has a ProLogic or ProLogic2 decoder, it probably steers the single rear channel to either 1 or the other or both rear channels, depending on the type of program material.

You should check with your friend about how (s)he does this, but the straightforward way would be to extract the audio from the mpg, convert to wav, open a multitrack wav editor (e.g. CoolEdit Pro), add additional tracks for rear channel, put ambience/fx into this track, make duplicate track-then phase invert that track, pan the 1st rear track to the Left, pan the 2nd rear track to the right, mix down again to a new stereo track. Then just re-encode to mp2 audio and mux with your video. DONE.

BTW, surround is MUCH more convincing, if it is created that way instead of being converted from stereo.

HTH,
Scott

[Cornucopia]

*Added note:

If your friend is making an SVCD, you could make a disc with 5.1 or 7.1 surround, since SVCD supports this.

[rtherr3184]

I've used sonic foundry's soft encode to matrix 5.1 surround mixes that I then burn to CD with nero as an audio CD. If your DVD player is hooked up digitally ( spdif or lightpipe ) you get a wonderful 5.1 playback of your audio. I don't know much about integrating that into video but maybe someone else has another piece of the puzzle.

[Xoanon]

I hate to break it to you, but you're not hearing 5.1 surround.

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's not true 5.1.

You should check with your friend about how (s)he does this, but the straightforward way would be to extract the audio from the mpg, convert to wav, open a multitrack wav editor (e.g. CoolEdit Pro), add additional tracks for rear channel, put ambience/fx into this track, make duplicate track-then phase invert that track, pan the 1st rear track to the Left, pan the 2nd rear track to the right, mix down again to a new stereo track. Then just re-encode to mp2 audio and mux with your video. DONE.

Can you explain this in slightly more detail please? Can you email me or send me a PM?

Thanks everyone.