3 stereo audio files across three machines?

[audiothings]

Greetings.

 

I am a sound engineer, and I occasionally work with the leading AV contractor here. I know absolutely nothing about 'Watchout' other than that those guys are sitting in the adjacent table to me and generating the largest visuals I have worked with. There has never been any talk of sync between audio and video, they give me a stereo output for the promos and stuff they are playing, and when the event starts (musicals, in my case), they are manually triggering off cues under the guidance of an assistant director...

 

Now a situation has come up where the client wants multichannel audio for an event, and it has to be synced with the visuals. I have already read on this forum about compatibility issues with multichannel audio, and the complication of a compatible sound card et al. Right now the contractor's Watchout guy is away for a few days... We are to meet for a discussion as soon as he comes back, but in the mean while, I want to ask this:

 

I can generate discrete 6 channel files (L, C, R, Ls, Rs, Sub). Can I make them three stereo files, and have them played back over the three Watchout machines, in perfect sync with the visuals? I am very wall acquainted with the audio aspect of what I have described, I wish to use no encoding/decoding. Once again... will the three stereo files play in perfect sync with the video from the three computers?

 

I am unaware of the version of Watchout they are using... but I suppose that if what I'm thinking is possible, it'd probably be so across the last few versions?

 

Thanks,

Jai Shankar,

Chennai, India.

 

 

[jfk]

Greetings.

 

I am a sound engineer, and I occasionally work with the leading AV contractor here. I know absolutely nothing about 'Watchout' other than that those guys are sitting in the adjacent table to me and generating the largest visuals I have worked with. There has never been any talk of sync between audio and video, they give me a stereo output for the promos and stuff they are playing, and when the event starts (musicals, in my case), they are manually triggering off cues under the guidance of an assistant director...

 

Now a situation has come up where the client wants multichannel audio for an event, and it has to be synced with the visuals. I have already read on this forum about compatibility issues with multichannel audio, and the complication of a compatible sound card et al. Right now the contractor's Watchout guy is away for a few days... We are to meet for a discussion as soon as he comes back, but in the mean while, I want to ask this:

 

I can generate discrete 6 channel files (L, C, R, Ls, Rs, Sub). Can I make them three stereo files, and have them played back over the three Watchout machines, in perfect sync with the visuals? ...

I hesitate to use the word "perfect" as that leaves no wiggle room ;-)

 

With the visuals yes, three independent stereo audio files will play with very good visual lip-synch.

 

"Perfect" synch to each other - no. i.e.

While WATCHOUT is frame accurate, when playing multiple audio files, it is not phase accurate

when spread across multiple displays.

In very critical applications, you may observe small amounts of sub-frame drift over a long time.

When this occurs, the display will vari-speed back to synch.

The drift is not enough to affect lip-synch, but it will disrupt audio multi-channel phase.

 

I am very wall acquainted with the audio aspect of what I have described, I wish to use no encoding/decoding. ...

And that is preferred, uncompressed .wav is the audio playback format of choice for WATCHOUT.

 

Once again... will the three stereo files play in perfect sync with the video from the three computers?

I am unaware of the version of Watchout they are using... but I suppose that if what I'm thinking is possible, it'd probably be so across the last few versions?

yes