Surround and 5.1

Surround and 5.1

Surround sound has been around for a number of years, for example with the Quadraphonic standard. But it is really with the advent of DVD-Video that surround sound reached wide recognition. Most movies are now encoded in 5.1 compressed surround sound.

DVD-Audio allows to play uncompressed high-resolution multi-channel tracks up to 5.1 (that is 6 channels). These are Front Left, Front Right, Center, LFE, Surround Left, Surround Right. DVD-Audio Solo can import tracks having from 1 to 6 channels.

Most audiophiles may not want to feel in the middle of the band or orchestra but surround sound allows to go beyond stereo sound in several ways :

by rendering the music as the artists truly intended. For example, only DVD-Audio can deliver the original quad recording of the Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon.
by allowing original and immersive musical experience not possible with stereo.
by recreating a discrete but effective ambiance that better conveys the sound stage and give a sense of being "there".

The steps to create a DVD-Audio disc from multi-channel tracks

This can be done from single files that are already multi-channel (e.g. a 6 channels .wav or .aif file), or from a set of mono files that each encode a channel.

Step 1 (multi): Import the multi-channel files.

Step 1 (mono) : or import the mono files. DVD-Audio Solo support the naming conventions of Samplitude (e.g. *C24.wav, *FL24.wav, *FR24.wav, *LFE24.wav, *SL24.wav, *SR24.wav) or Vegas (

*Left.wav, *Right.av, *Center.wav, *LFE.wav, *Left Surround.wav, *Right Surround.wav), in addition to its own format (*_FL.wav, *_FR.wav, *_C.wav, *_LFE.wav, *_SL.wav, *_SR.wav).

Step 2 (mono) : Define the number of channels for the tracks that are made of several mono files, from 2 to 6.

Step 3 : Write to disc

Step 1 (multi): Import the multi-channel files. The Import panel will display multi-channel tracks as on the left picture.

Step 1 (mono) : or import the mono files, only one from each mono set (e.g. the front left). The Import panel will display the mono channel track as on the right picture.

Step 2 (mono) : Define the number of channels for the tracks that are made of several mono files, from 2 to 6, by using the Up / Down arrows at the right of the Output Channels field, as follows :