Channel Mapping/Muting Solutions for Engine

Playout centres normally need a common channel layout but content can be supplied in different formats and sometimes it is a challenge to manipulate the layout to suit your needs. Our channel mapping option is the perfect solution, providing a flexible and extremely easy to configure method of remapping channels. Audio can be treated as groups of channels, in mono, stereo or 5.1 format. Any chosen group can be duplicated on to other channels, or swapped with other channels. It is also possible to set some channels to silence, for example to mute a mix and effect track.

Our easy to use editor lets you quickly configure your required channel mapping, which can then be applied as a single change to files, or used as part of a more complex sequence of operations.

Download Case Study of French Broadcaster using Channel Mapping

A common mapping is to swap over the position of stereo and 5.1 tracks within an 8 channel file, as shown below.

However, with Engine supporting up to 64 audio channels in a single file, we can do much more complex remapping .

This example workflow for files with 24 audio channels shows two 5.1 groupings that are swapping locations, followed by a stereo track that is duplicated on to the next pair of channels. After this, a 5.1 track is converted from SMPTE channel ordering to the film layout. Finally, the remaining two channels in the file are muted.

Tracks containing Dolby E

If you have tracks containing Dolby, these are detected by Engine, and the software will prevent you breaking up the channel pair that is used for the Dolby. However each Dolby E stereo grouping can be manipulated in exactly the same way as PCM groups.

Channel Mapping in conjunction with other modules

Engine lets you adopt a mix-and-match approach to workflow creation using our expanding library of functions. You might want to use channel mapping as part of a complex workflow that perhaps includes Dolby encode/decode, or upmix/downmix.