HDLink: AVCHD AC3 problem
 

Well, on the chance that I’m doing something really dumb, I figured that I’d post here first. I’m feeding AVC files with a 5.1 audio track into HDLink, with the intent of generating CFHD AVI’s. My understanding was that I needed to first download and install the ac3filter codec (per another post in the Cineform forums), so I did that, and then fed the files to HDLink. It did generate AVI output, but when I dropped those into PPro, the original 5.1 track is now (in the new AVI’s) a stereo track. Certainly, if I just drop the native AVC files into PPro, I see the 5.1 track in the timeline, and it plays just fine.

This is on a WinXPSP3 system with the 212 build, and CS4 with the most recent Adobe updates. I’m processing a file produced on a Sony HDR-XR520V.

I see no options in HDLink to diddle with the audio, and had ass-u-me-d that it would simply be carried to the output file, intact.

Am I doing something wrong? Or maybe HDLink is not supposed to handle (and retain) the AC3 content? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for any and all guidance.

We only handle stereo mix downs from AC3, simply there is not enough true 5.1 separation from these consumer cameras to warrant the additional effort at this point. I'm not sure 5.1 camera acquisition will every we truly useful, but I'm sure as the market grows we will likely add 5.1 support.

Marvin
It's kind of a grim work-around (& I've never done it), but if the 5.1 was important to you, you could look at copying the 5.1 audio tracks from an AVCHD timeline, pasting them onto the CF sequence, relinking them to the CF video clips, & delete the stereo tracks. Then just edit in the usual manner.