Yes, channel order is fine on mp4 export. But that’s 7.1.4/Atmos anyway.
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Okay, so we’re talking about the external Atmos renderer. (Re-render was the hint. I missed that in the original post. Sorry.)
I am currently on the road and working with the laptop. So I can’t test it with the external renderer.
what settings do you have in “menu: > windows: > re-render” (apple-R) ?
These are the renderer settings:
This implies that the 7.1 export should be the same as the 7.1.4 export. ie.:
L R C Lfe Lss Rss Lrs Rrs
However, I have spoken to my contact at Dolby, who has in effect pointed me to page 273 of the Renderer manual:
In other words… . the results I am getting are correct. If confusing. The surrounds order flips for 7.1 and 7.1.2 as compared with 7.1.4. Even though the displayed export settings in the Renderer appear explicit that they do not.
I apologise for the false alarm. However, replies suggest that few of us really understood this. So I hope we are all now better informed!
Mark
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thanks for the update - it’s all as clear as mud 
Absolutely. Very confusing. Especially when Nuendo also flips channels. The possibility - and indeed likelihood - of getting this wrong is immense. (I’ve even had to edit the above as I was still getting it wrong!!)
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I’m starting to get the impression that there’s a lot of dicing going on in this topic to determine the channel order. Presumably the manufacturers want to educate us to pay more attention. 
Such things are very annoying. Precisely because they are so easy to overlook.
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Note that some applications deal with this automatically as they assign the channel with the correct metadata to the correct output, so as long as the metadata is correct it may not matter, but for those applications that don’t do that it is a real big issue. And how do you know if it does it correctly? Trial and error as they rarely mention these things in manuals.
The surrounds order flips for 7.1 and 7.1.2 as compared with 7.1.4. Even though the displayed export settings in the Renderer appear explicit that they do not.
So this is apparently an issue that some plugins annoyingly have as a solution(?) to different DAWs and channel ordering. They use the ProTools order for 7.1.2 and less. But since PT doesn’t do 7.1.4, they then go to the Nuendo order since they figure that’s what you’d be using.
According to Dear Reality, dearVR Monitor works like this. I only tested 7.1 on plugins in my little test since I have even less plugins that will go over 8 channels (the Melda stuff won’t) and since my UCX 2 really isn’t suited for that (like it could do it, but I’d have to mess with how I have it mapped). I found that dearVR Monitor has swapped channels. They confirm that, but say that higher order things like 7.1.4 and 9.1.6 that Nuendo supports but PT doesn’t are then in the Nuendo order.
Personally, I feel that’s worse. If something is going to be wrong, Id’ rather it always be wrong. This is just confusing. It means when testing a plugin you need to test it for the channel count you are going to use because it could differ.
I wish I was a coder because I think a “VST Flipper” plugin would be extremely useful.
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It was tying me in knots. I have now made 7.1 and 7.1.4 files with idented, named channels that I can drop onto tracks in Nuendo to hear which outputs the channels are mapped to. Only way to be sure.
like mixerdelay that comes with nuendo ?
Nah, something more simplistic that just flips the sides and rears, with a simple “on/off” switch. So you can just load it up and quickly flip plugins as needed. Not something with more complex routing/delay control.
It should actually be pretty simple to adapt from Juce’s surround plugin example code, if someone had Juce and MSVC installed, and a bit of c++ knowledge.
Other option: save a couple of MixerDelay or Plogue Bidule presets.
I have now saved two basic Mixer Delay presets. Flipped and not flipped. You can instantiate with the flipped preset then flip and unflip using the enable switch. Though a very simple flipper plug would be lovely.
I used this opportunity to create my first vst3 plugin out of RNBO/Max.
It is doing nothing else than swapping channels 5/6 and 7/8. To bypass it you bypass the complete plugin in your host.
Download it here:
I have no idea if the Mac versions work as I’m on Windows (there it works perfectly). I appreciate feedback about the Mac side.
Bests,
Mathis
[post edited after I was allowed to post links]
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VST3 Windows:
SwapSides2Rears-VST3_Windows.zip (3.5 MB)
Unfortunately I can’t upload the Mac versions as the zips are larger than 4MB. What to do?
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fiedler audio Spacelab Interstellar and Spacelab Ignition does it right on both Win and Mac
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Sure. But as written in the post above, I’m not allowed to include links in my posts.