Watchout 5 and successful surround/multichannel audio setup

[Jonas Dannert]

We do not expect this to work, MOTU:s DirectSound driver may say it should work,

but in practice, in Win7, it will not, unfortunately.

 

/jonas

[mathieu]

allright,

so, is dataton have a "official list" of audio hardware tested and approved for mutichannel under win7?

 

thanx,

Mat

[Jonas Dannert]

No, we have not.

We tested, as mentioned earlier in this thread and others, ECHO AudioFire 8/12 & ESI PCIe (works with up to 8 channels in Win7), MOTU & M-Audio (only 2 channels work)

A multichannel audio card with proper multichannel DirectSound drivers is the requirement.

 

/jonas

[mathieu]

hi,

 

did someone test with RME cards?

i mean multichannel setup under windows7/WO5?

 

Thanx,

Mathieu

[ERIC LAMBERT]

hi,

 

did someone test with RME cards?

i mean multichannel setup under windows7/WO5?

 

Thanx,

Mathieu

 

 

Hello Mathieu

 

To know if an audio interface is compatible with WO 5 , check if WIN7 WDM driver is available.

 

We use the Echo Fire12 or 8 with WO 5 & WiN7 X64 on different sites to play 8 channels and it workd fine.

http://www.echoaudio.com//Products/FireWire/AudioFire12/index.php

 

Eric Lambert

VIDEMUS PARIS

www.videmus.fr

[Landergan]

Hi all

we're looking at adding multichannel audio capability to our new WO5 displays, and the ECHO Audiofire 8 looks good. How do audio files need to be presented? can we use multiple stereo WAVs and assign these to outputs, or do the WAVs need to be encoded as multichannel? Are sample rates higher than 48Khz supported in WO5?

thanks

Paul

[jfk]

Hi all

we're looking at adding multichannel audio capability to our new WO5 displays, and the ECHO Audiofire 8 looks good. How do audio files need to be presented? can we use multiple stereo WAVs and assign these to outputs, ...

Yes, provided the channel assignment is done in the file itself - WATCHOUT can not assign output channels.

An Adobe Air utility to change channel assignments of wav files is available here: channelshifter.air

[Darren]

Hi there,

 

we have purchased the Echo AudioFire12, but cant get channels 7 and 8 to appear correctly.

 

If I play from the desktop using windows media player, then the 8 channels of audio play correctly.

If I play from Quicktime then channel7 outputs on channel 1 and 3 and channel 8 outputs on channels 2 and 3.

 

I have checked the assigment in the audio file (it was saved out from audacity) and its fine. on my windows XP WO system the file plays out fine in both QT and Watchout, but on my windows 7 display system both QT and Watchout will put channel 7 on to channels 1 and 3 and channel8 on to channels 2 and 3.

 

does anyone have any suggestions?

 

thanks

 

Darren

 

Our systems are Windows 7 and XP running WO5.2

[Jonas Dannert]

Please look in this thread:

 

http://dataton.com/forum/topic/516-how-to-set-up-51-audio-for-watchout-5/

 

/jonas

[Darren]

Hi Jonas,

 

I have read that, and encoded with Audacity, I was more wondering how you configured the Echo AudioFire12, I have my one running the latest firmware (5.7.6)

 

I just wondered if I was missing some hidden configuration somewhere, or if there was something I needed to do. I am not sure how to make the device use wdm drivers rather that asio ones

[Darren]

Ok found what i was looking for, in the quicktime preference panel, under audio is a check box for Windows Audio Session - I needed to check that, and now all is good.

[Jonas Dannert]

This was the more important link, from the second post in that thread.

http://dataton.com/forum/topic/2-is-there-a-possibility-of-multi-tracking-and-outputting-within-the-watchout/

 

This is a Windows 7 issue, in where Microsoft for some reason,

rearranged the outputs compared to how it's done in WindowsXP...

QuickTime settings is not necessary to change.

 

We have made a tool for rearrange the outputs of a file, could be found in that thread, post #8:

 

http://dataton.com/forum/topic/2-is-there-a-possibility-of-multi-tracking-and-outputting-within-the-watchout/page__view__findpost__p__750

 

or at our downloads page. AUDIO CHANNEL ASSIGNMENT:

 

http://www.dataton.com/downloads/watchout/audio_channel_assignment.zip

 

/jonas

[mathieu]

hi,

 

i just made a test with a digigram VX882e PCI card.

digigram says it has WDM drivers.

i cannot play a 8 track multiwav file (windows 7, WO 5).

WO says "direct show error"

 

any idea?

Thanx,

 

Mathieu

[jfk]

hi,

 

i just made a test with a digigram VX882e PCI card.

digigram says it has WDM drivers.

i cannot play a 8 track multiwav file (windows 7, WO 5).

WO says "direct show error"

 

any idea?

Thanx,

 

Mathieu

 

Well, if there is a direct show error,

then there is a problem with the WDM driver.

More than one audio card manufacturer who claims 

WDM support has failed on Win7.

Their ASIO drivers tend to work fine, WDM not so much.

You will need to consult with the vendor to find a solution.

[Jonas Dannert]

I think they might lack proper DirectSound support for Multi-channel audio, in their WDM driver, under Windows 7, as MOTU, M-Audio et al.

 

/jonas

[mathieu]

hi,

ok, i contact digigram.

 

how to be sure that WO uses WDM driver of an audio card and not another driver?

because in this case, there is several drivers instaled (WDM, Wave, asio......)

 

thanks,

Mathieu

[jfk]

hi,

ok, i contact digigram.

 

how to be sure that WO uses WDM driver of an audio card and not another driver?

because in this case, there is several drivers instaled (WDM, Wave, asio......)

 

thanks,

Mathieu

 

Technically, WATCHOUT does not use a driver, Windows Direct X / DirectShow does.

WDM is part of Windows DirectX. WATCHOUT makes standard calls to the Windows DirectX functions.

How do we know Windows is using the WDM driver? Because calls to DirectX can only use a WDM driver.

[mathieu]

hi,

another question about the souncard that you agreed.

if i use two ECHO AudioFire 12 (or two ECHO AudioFire 8 or two ESI 1010e) on the same production computer, will i be able to read a 16 tracks multiwav file?

 

we work on a new project with 12 sound tracks.

 

thank you,

Mathieu

[Jonas Dannert]

No, unfortunately not.

 

For that you will need either a timecode/external soundserver solution or use Ovation that syncs with WATCHOUT.

http://www.merging.com/products/show?product=9&page=101

 

/jonas

[jfk]

hi,

another question about the souncard that you agreed.

if i use two ECHO AudioFire 12 (or two ECHO AudioFire 8 or two ESI 1010e) on the same production computer, will i be able to read a 16 tracks multiwav file?

 

we work on a new project with 12 sound tracks.

 

thank you,

Mathieu

 

No.

You select the audio output device in the Windows control panel.

I have seen no option in Windows running DirectX drivers

to support multiple devices to increase the output count.

 

You could use two watchpoint computers, each driving eight channels to achieve sixteen channels.

As it is today, those two groups will not be phase accurate, but they will be very close.

(To hear the phase error, run the same file on both.)

 

I suspect this is about to change soon, as a side effect of a new feature in WATCHOUT 5.5

By optionally using a FirePro card and its s400 synch companion,

For the first time, v5.5 will allow you to select an external reference for WATCHOUT's internal clock.

 

Lock the two machines together via that option so they chase a common reference.

It is possible this may eliminate the nominal phase error we currently experience.

Will be interesting to see how that pans out when we get a chance to test that. 

 

Or alternately you could use an Ovation system to achieve

as many channels as you want in phase accurate synch.

WATCHOUT synch is a function added to the Ovation product.

i.e Ovation synchronizes sound playback via WATCHOUT's network synch broadcast.

Of course, Ovation is a studio product with numerous features and its cost reflect that.

But if you gotta have it, it can be done - for a price. 

[jfk]

Jonas and I were composing a response at the same time 

[Jonas Dannert]

:-D

And yours was a bit more thorough... ;-)

 

/jonas

[loop]

Hi everyone,

 

is there any news on 

Motu UltraLite-mk3 Hybrid 

playing 5.1 with Watchout on Win7? Has anyone found a way to make it work so far? 

[Jonas Dannert]

Without a proper driver from MOTU, this will be hard.

We have not re-visited this recently, though

 

/jonas

[Mith]

Guys, help me here please,

 

I seated my computer 5.1 surround trought the MB, using mini jacks cables. When I play a 5.1 audio on WMP it works great, all 6 channels, but when i play at watchout, or directly from quicktime only plays 2 channels, is that a configuration problem, or a missing codec, or the directX problem that u guys are talkkng about?

 

Because the surround is working for me, at windows at least.

 

Thanks

 

INTEL i7

MB: ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77

GRAPHIC CARD: ASUS HD 7970 DIRECT CU II

WINDOWS 7 64 BITS