Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Trifield or Stereo Digital Output from 5.1 Analogue into G68AVX

Hello fellow HH's,

I have a very good mate residing in LA that runs his own Production Company.

I introduced him to the world of Meridian many years ago and he has his G68AXV and a pair of 24/96 DSP6000's at his work which provide the sound to his clients when he demo's edits of what he has cut for his clients.

He mentioned the other day that the sound doesn't seem as good as it normally when he plays his demo's as opposed to the finished product which is digitally fed into his G68.

He said his cut goes from the edit suite via SDI into a Blackmagic SDI box that splits the video for feeding to the projector and has the 6 analogue outputs providing 5.1 surround sound. I said that I thought he was providing his 6000's with only the left and right channel feeds and his centre, rears, and subwoofer feed were missing from the mix without any speakers connected hence why the sound didn't sound right. I said his fronts were probably Typed as 6 for surround sound rather than 2 for stereo so he should retype them to 2 for stereo only.

He said that the G68 doesn't allow him to select Direct, Stereo or Trifield modes while he is feeding it via the 5.1 analogue inputs.

He has an important client coming in Thursday LA time for a screening and another of Saturday, so short of bringing in a Meridian expert to deal with it, I said give me 24 hours on Unplugged to see if we could get a solution from the Forum.

Appreciate any suggestions.

On another note, my friend is releasing a movie called Lawless Range at the start of 2016 that he produced and our good friend Sean McGinly directed. Keep an eye out for it. It has guest parts from Beau Bridges and Kris Kristofferson. It was made with the original name San Patricios but the movie promoter has renamed it.

Sean also wrote the screenplay for The Great Buck Howard and then directed the movie starring John Malkovich, Tom Hank's son Colin, Emily Blunt and Steve Zahn. The screenplay written was actually based on Sean's real life experience of quitting a Law Degree course without telling his father and becoming a personal assistant to a fading Mentalist called The Amazing Kreskin who had been on the Johnny Carson Show 60 odd times. Good watch if you haven't seen it.

Okay probably off topic now so look forward to any positive suggestions to turning a 5.1 analogue feed into a direct, stereo or Trifield DSP digital output.

Cheers,
Steve M

Your correct, you will only get Trifield from a Stereo Mix. That's the point of Trifield, to enhance Stereo. It won't be available with a 5.1 source as the processor senses the input and configures appropriate options for decoding.

Get him to down mix a stereo mix for Trifield.

As I understand this, Chris 😀

Hi Steve

It's not so much the speakers which need retyped, it's the processor. Assuming that he normally only listens to stereo sources, the problem wouldn't show. Now that he has a 5.1 input, the G68 may be sending 5.1 to it's outputs expecting 5 speakers and a sub to be present. If he bought the unit second hand and it was configured for a multi channel system by the previous owner, this would explain the lack of centre rears and sub which you mention.

He would need to use Mconfig (or can you do this from the G68 front panel wizard? Others can chime in) to tell the G68 that there are only two speakers, L/R present and it will then downmix the 5.1 to stereo.

The speakers don't need to be typed as 6, although I don't think it will matter... as long as they are properly set up as front left and right, with one master and one slave, it should be fine.

Cheers

George

Hi George,

Been a long, long time now since I collected that pair of 24/96 DSP5000's from your house in Perth !

Unfortunately I never saw this reply in time.

My mate bought another Blackmagic Design Converter which was SDI input converted to HDMI out plus analogue stereo so he managed to get that installed and worked fine. HDMI to the projector and the stereo analogue fed into a ADC for direct input to the 6000's.

I was sure I had set up his G68 with MConfig with just two speakers when he moved the speakers and G68 into his work premises so I was at a loss as to why he was only hearing the L & R channels from the 5.1 analogue mix.

Glad to hear that he can sort this with the software. Maybe he can still return the new purchase for a store credit if he can sort out things himself on MConfig.

I had suggested that he buy the Blackmagic Design converter with the optical out for digital into the G68 but he said the specs stated the optical output was 16 channels and he feared that the G68 would not be able to handle that as an input signal.

Anyone know if this would be the case ?

You can see all the different converters and their specs on their website.

Blackmagic Design Mini Converters


Cheers,


Steve M

Hello,

these converters seem interesting.
Anyone know if, using an Mini converter HDMI to SDI then a mini converter SDI to Audio (which can output 8 digital audio channels), it is possible to get digital audio from the HDMI output of a Bluray player (or, let's say, the audio HDMI output of an iscan duo) to the mmhr input of a G68?
Blackmagic mini converters
It would be a cheaper option than the HD621.

Regards
Olivier

Blackmagic kit is OK, but it's budget professional.

If you were building a commercial studio or OB truck for 24/7 use, you would not kit it out with Blackmagic kit, but it's ok (and cheap enough) to have as a spare and for situations where a bit of compact light weight kit was benefit and if it failed, you just bought a replacement unit.

I've used it in a luggable HD-SDI setup where mixer and preview was built into a flight case, but we made sure it was not a permanent integral part of the broadcast chain. We only used it for converting it to quad preview via HDMI.

Also runs rather hot for some peoples liking. Not sure I would want it on 24/7.

Plus, being professional kit, not sure how well it would work with non commercial standards. It's normally used before any copy protection is applied. Professional kit doesn't always work so well for domestic use so suggest you approach the dealer/manufacturer to discuss usage.