Low Cost Dolby Digital Workstation
SoundCode For Dolby Digital is a professional AC3 encoding system, but that does not mean you have to use Pro Tools HD. You can use Pro Tools LE/M-Powered to encode surround for DVD and still deliver a perfect AC3 every time.
Low-cost Surround Encoding Workstation
The SoundCode Dolby Digital Encoder is an AudioSuite plug-in and is compatible with Pro Tools LE and Pro Tools M-Powered. Even though Pro Tools LE and Pro Tools M-Powered are limited to mono/stereo tracks and busses, an AudioSuite plug-in can access multiple tracks. This allows you to encode a surround mix by importing all channels into mono tracks, highlighting them, and processing them with the SoundCode Dolby Digital Encoder. For example, if you import all six channels of a 5.1 mix into six mono tracks, you can highlight all six tracks, open the SoundCode Dolby Digital Encoder, and click the "encode" button. As long as you have ordered the tracks correctly, SoundCode will read all the tracks and encode them into a Dolby Digital surround encoded file.
Low-cost Surround Decoding Workstation
The SoundCode Dolby Digital Decoder operates as an AudioSuite plug-in and is compatible with Pro Tools LE and Pro Tools M-Powered software. Even though Pro Tools LE and Pro Tools M-Powered are limited to stereo out, surround decoding is made possible by connecting the Pro Tools SPDIF output to a home theater receiver with an integrated Dolby Digital decoder. The Decoder plug-in has an output mode called Data Stream that formats the Dolby Digital bitstream into a stereo PCM bitstream that is readable by home theater receivers. This is the same way that DVD players are able to output a Dolby Digital stream to a separate home theater receiver. Pro Tools also features integrated Quicktime video so you can have a complete audio-visual mastering-quality test system.
