Audio balance greatly different in Encore CS3 after encoding 5.1 master track in Premiere Pro CS3

Question

Hello! I'm wondering if anyone can offer some advice for my DVD audio problem.
I have a Premiere Pro CS3 project with a 5.1 master track that appears to behave correctly judging by the meters when I play it in PP. It also sounds reasonable (in a mixed-down fashion, I guess) on my PC system's speakers (L,R,LFE), and all rebalancing and panning seems to work well. However, once I export the master track to Encore using PP's SurCode Dolby Digital codec, the resulting audio mix is totally off. Here's what I get: both front channels play mainly out of the right front and center speakers, and the rear channels play mainly out of the left front speaker. I've tried all different settings, but I can't seem to change this. Well I've read that Encore just sends the audio mix straight through (the DVD trancode status is "Don't transcode"), but when I build the DVD and play it on both of my 5.1 surround systems, the results are just as bad as what my desktop PC speakers were hinting at. [Actually all DVDs that Encore builds are UNSUPPORTED on one of my set-top DVD players and they're both Panasonic! So first, I first have to copy the DVD using Nero and then the copy is accepted by all. That seems to have no bearing on my audio dilemma but I thought I'd mention it. I would love to know what Nero is doing right that Encore is doing wrong!)
Anyway, here's some background: I began to notice this problem with the audio balancing whenever a .wav music source is imported into PP as a stereo source. [A side issue here - I don't seem to be able to explain - or control - how one .wav file gets imported as stereo while another is imported as 5.1!] Anyway, as one would expect, since my master track is 5.1, the stereo track is automatically set up with a rebalancing tray with the puck set in the middle. The meters show that the source is stereo and the sound has been rebalanced across the master track. If I drag the puck around, the master meters behave accordingly. Then I import my video (.avi video clip) and that sound is imported as a stereo track. For that track, I drag the puck to the rear. Again, the master meters respond correctly. So far so good. But when I export to Encore, the resulting audio mix so completely wrong it can't even be explained as a 5.1-to-stereo downmix situation. The sounds that were supposed to come out of the rear channels are in front left and center (and deafening), overpowering the music that is only coming out of front right. And the rear speakers are silent unless I turn on Pro-Logic on my amplifier, which just confuses the issue. I didn't bother to check LFE as things were bad enough.
Where I DO NOT have the problem is when the audio file is imported as a 5.1 source (although it is just a stereo CD track ripped using Sony CD Architect). In that case, there is no rebalancing tray and the track meter shows only the L and R channels active, as expected. Ditto for the master track. Now if I go ahead and send the music to a stereo submix track and let that rebalance to the master, I see all channels active. But that results in the problem above after exporting to Adobe Media Encoder using SurCode and then importing the audio into Encore. If I don't remix to 5.1, the audio on the DVD is OK. But I would like to have the music come out of all speakers when there isn't a video soundtrack as there are many still pictures in the presentation.
So the question is, if I can rebalance and pan channels in PP CS3, why are the results coming out all wrong in Encore using SurCode? And how can I hear my project on DVD the same way I mixed in PP?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Doug Herbst
Holmdel NJ

Answer 1

Problem solved everyone!!!
Rebecca of Adobe support helped me identify the root cause: project was originally set up as standard (2-channel) and although it had evolved to a 5.1 project over time, it could never grow up to be anything other than a standard audio project. After you set up the new project, the setting that controls your audio is buried in the project somewhere. Changing your project settings to set up new 5.1 audio tracks for new timelines does NOT make the project 5.1! The real audio identity attribute set at birth is not alterable OR EVEN VISIBLE (even as a grayed-out project setting) although PP will allow you to set up and mix 5.1 audio tracks at will. So you may think you're working on a 5.1 project now, but you're only fooling yourself and PP goes right along with it. Even the .ac3 files you create via export are 5.1! But dare to build your DVD in Encore and all of your timelines are transcoded back to 2.0 instantly. Resistance is futile.
A new feature in PP CS4 will allow you to view, and even CHANGE, your project's audio identify from standard to 5.1. How sweet!
Well, I've devised a way to dig out myself out of this deep hole in CS3 and it worked, but I can't promise that it will work for everyone. (This assumes you own the Dolby Digital 5.1 codec from Minnetonka.)
1. Create a new Premiere Pro project as 5.1 audio from the get-go.
2. Import your suspected 2.0 project into this new 5.1 project and click each sequence to flesh out the timeline.
3. Re-export all audio as elemental streams using Adobe Media Encoder. Make sure you export the audio component of each timeline as Dolby Digital 5.1 and exactly - and I mean EXACTLY - the same way. To deviate the audio settings for each timeline is to ask for trouble, so I recommend setting up an audio pre-set that you can just click when you need it.
4. Create a new Encore project and import all original video assets and your new replaced and, hopefully, 5.1 audio assets into it.
5. In Encore, create a separate timeline for each pair of assets (.m2v and .ac3 for example). DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PLACE MULTIPLE PAIRS OF ASSETS ON THE SAME TIMELINE! For some unexplained reason, the build process will transcode the audio back to 2.0, and if you continue pack new 5.1 audio assets on the same timeline, you will get an error message "an input contract violation has occurred" because you now have 2.0 and 5.1 assets on the same timeline, even though you really don't know that and didn't ask for that to happen anyway. (Thanks to Bill Hunt who mentioned his habit of keeping the asset pairs on separate timelines in another thread - that suggestion was absolutely essential to the solution here.)
6. In Encore, check to make sure that all of your original video sychs up correctly with the new, true 5.1 audio. Link the end actions of each timeline with the next timeline to play in the correct sequence. Check your project for orphan timelines and other errors. Then, before you start building menus and start getting fancy, build a DVD and make sure it plays as 5.1 on your system.
Tip #1: while you're re-exporting and replacing the audio files, don't have Encore running. I've seen it gracefully and automatically re-import the replaced file once the export is done, but I have also seen it choke with the terribly descriptive "Encore has encountered a problem" message upon discovered the asset is not available while it is being replaced. Encore then continues to mark the asset as offline.
Tip #2: when re-exporting and replacing files, always select audio and video separately. For some reason, Encore will allow you to replace an .ac3 file when you perform an elemental audio export, but when you try to combine video and audio and both files exist, Encore will prompt you to replace the video, but immediately abort with an error that it cannot replace the .ac3 file, thus forcing you to delete the .ac3 component manually before trying again.
Doug