Channel Growing – increasing the number of audio channels within a media file

Whilst not an application itself, channel growing is an important function that may be needed to realise specific workflows. In essence, this converts a media file to a media file with a greater number of audio channels. For example, you could start with a two channel MXF file, and end up with an eight channel MXF file. These additional channels may be required, for example if you want to upmix a stereo file, and keep the new 5.1 within the same MXF file.

The diagram shows just how simple it is to configure channel growing. In the UI image I have set up to accept files with two channels, and I am about to add 6 additional channels, so that my output files would be 8 channel files.

Engine lets you add channels at the first stage of configuring a workflow. Because we can do this, we can start with a two channel file, and do a stereo to 5.1 upmix, as in the following example.

Reducing the number of channels

Reducing the number of channels in a file is often a requirement after downmixing, or after Dolby E Encoding, and is also extremely simple to achieve. Engine has a great deal of flexibility. In the example below, I have an 8 channel workflow, but have chosen to to create an output MXF file that only contains audio from channels 1 to 4. I have used the other channels though, by also creating two audio only MXF files. If preferred, we could have ignored channels 5 to 8, or perhaps created an interleaved WAV containing those channels. Many other possibilities also exist.

This last diagram shows an 8 channel MOV file that contains stereo on channels 1 & 2, and 5.1 on channels 3 to 8. All we want is a stereo file containing a Dolby E encoded version of the 5.1 and this workflow will achieve this. Creating a workflow like this takes just a few seconds with Engine easy to use editor, and there is no difficulty of mapping the right audio in to the right places – our software handles everything for you.