Source for 5.1 surround concerts?

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I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding concert videos in a 5.1 mix (or better) online. I'm trying to test a 5.1 system with good concert videos but can't find any on Netflix or Amazon video - which is surprising. I'm in the USA. What I've found so far on YouTube is mostly junk, bad audio often in mono.

Any ideas where to look? Are they hiding on Netflix and Amazon and I just can't find them, or is there another source?

Thanks for any help or pointers.
 
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Hmmmmmm...... The only really good source I know for high quality 5.1 recorded material, is Studio Lindberg. But I do not know who sells the 5.1 recordings online.
Test bench for free here, just look under the 5.1 24bit/96khz links:
2L High Resolution Music .:. free TEST BENCH


Shoot me a PM if you want a more direct email address to 2L studios, they do have many 5.1 recordings, but it's not many stores that sell in this very high quality level for surround. I bought 30 albums from them in one go some years back, paid a fair price for direct access to their server.
But this is music only, maybe you can ask if they know of any videos for purchase, they should have some good info at least.

The biggest problem with streaming quality is that they often severely limit the audio bandwidth. Most of the bandwidth goes to video (often 85-96%), and the audio (often 4-15%) is some compressed format.

Edit:
I've watched some of the streams on Netflix and other sources, it's not uncommon to have 96 to 128kbit/s bandwidth for stereo audio (good algorithms though) even if it's full HD. I think about max is ca 256kbit/s for stereo audio in 4k video, but then it's VBR, not fixed bitrate.
 
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It's an interesting idea, for sure.

I've started moving more towards on-location recording as part of my business, which has already given me an interesting opportunity to record a 45-strong brass band.

Here's the blog post on my website going into some more detail, with the finished product at the bottom: Recording the University of Sheffield Brass Band | Grimshaw Audio - Sheffield Sound Engineering

I could probably assemble some kind of surround-sound recording from the multi-track files, and future recordings can certainly include some kind of surround-sound pickup.

The question is, though, where do you want to sit?

With the musicians?
In the audience?
Where the conductor is?
Elsewhere?

Chris
 
Quick bump on this.
I've got a gig (with recording) on Sunday - 100-strong choir in a hall. The option is there to do something in surround-sound, and I'd like a bit of discussion about what should be in each surround channel. Audience across the rears and musicians up front? Something else?

Chris
 
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Thanks for the follow-ups. So far I haven't found much. I have been able to get Netflix in 5.1 surround, but I had to install the app for desktop. In a browser window it won't do more than stereo. But there isn't much music content. Have not been able to get anything more than 2 channels on other common steaming platforms. Kinda of surpsing and disappointing.
 
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The question is, though, where do you want to sit?

With the musicians?
In the audience?
Where the conductor is?
Elsewhere?
If you had asked me that when I was still playing, I'd have chosen "With the musicians". But these days I'd choose somewhere between the conductor and the audience. In other words; close but with good balance and some ambience.
 
If you had asked me that when I was still playing, I'd have chosen "With the musicians". But these days I'd choose somewhere between the conductor and the audience. In other words; close but with good balance and some ambience.

Okay, I'll see what I can do.

It looks like I can export as 6-channel audio through Audacity. Will that then replay correctly through something like VLC or Foobar2000?

I don't have a PC-based surround system working at the moment, but it'd be cool to try this out.

Chris
 
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Thanks Chris. Yes, it should replay just fine in those. I generally use JRiver for playback, and it works too. There are some standards for track.channel order, but I'd have to look them up again to see what they are.

Will listen to the Bass Band tracks here in a bit. Still wee bit early for that here. :)
 
I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding concert videos in a 5.1 mix (or better) online. I'm trying to test a 5.1 system with good concert videos but can't find any on Netflix or Amazon video - which is surprising. I'm in the USA. What I've found so far on YouTube is mostly junk, bad audio often in mono.

Any ideas where to look? Are they hiding on Netflix and Amazon and I just can't find them, or is there another source?

Thanks for any help or pointers.

In netflix do a search for "concerts". They are hard to find in the browser.

"Hans Zimmer in Prague" may suite your needs, its 5.1
 
Thanks Chris. Yes, it should replay just fine in those. I generally use JRiver for playback, and it works too. There are some standards for track.channel order, but I'd have to look them up again to see what they are.

Will listen to the Bass Band tracks here in a bit. Still wee bit early for that here. :)

Copied and pasted from here:
Vorbis I specification
Which I found via an Audacity multi-channel tutorial.


Vorbis I specifies only a channel mapping type 0. In mapping type 0, channel mapping is implicitly defined as follows for standard audio applications. As of revision 16781 (20100113), the specification adds defined channel locations for 6.1 and 7.1 surround. Ordering/location for greater-than-eight channels remains ’left to the implementation’.

These channel orderings refer to order within the encoded stream. It is naturally possible for a decoder to produce output with channels in any order. Any such decoder should explicitly document channel reordering behavior.

one channel
the stream is monophonic
two channels
the stream is stereo. channel order: left, right
three channels
the stream is a 1d-surround encoding. channel order: left, center, right
four channels
the stream is quadraphonic surround. channel order: front left, front right, rear left, rear right
five channels
the stream is five-channel surround. channel order: front left, center, front right, rear left, rear right
six channels
the stream is 5.1 surround. channel order: front left, center, front right, rear left, rear right, LFE
seven channels
the stream is 6.1 surround. channel order: front left, center, front right, side left, side right, rear center, LFE
eight channels
the stream is 7.1 surround. channel order: front left, center, front right, side left, side right, rear left, rear right, LFE
greater than eight channels
channel use and order is defined by the application


I'll be following that unless anyone says otherwise.

Hope you enjoy the brass band recordings. I feel like there ought to be a certain "audiophile" appeal - no processing, just a blend of mics to get the sound as close to the original as I can.

Cheers,

Chris
 
I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding concert videos in a 5.1 mix (or better) online. I'm trying to test a 5.1 system with good concert videos but can't find any on Netflix or Amazon video - which is surprising. I'm in the USA. What I've found so far on YouTube is mostly junk, bad audio often in mono.

Any ideas where to look? Are they hiding on Netflix and Amazon and I just can't find them, or is there another source?

Thanks for any help or pointers.
I don't know of any streaming sources but I do download or buy discs of concerts.
 
Great initiative Chris!
Looking forward to this!

Thanks!

I went for a mid-side mic array behind the conductor of the choir, facing back and upwards to get the room ambience. Seems to have worked quite well.

There's also the main stereo pair in front of the conductor, plus 6x vocal mics as section mics for the choir.

Lots of options for mix-down. Hoping to pick this up in a few days time - lots of traveling to see the various branches of the family over the next few days.

Seasons greetings,
Chris
 
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