Nuendo 5.5 and Dolby E VST Plugin

We are in the process of replacing our Dolby E hardware encoder and decoder for the software version either supplied by Minnetonka or Neyrinck.

Has anyone here used SurCode for Dolby E or SoundCode for Dolby E on N 5.5.1 yet?

I’ve not used that particular toolset yet - the Surcode one, I mean.
Never used a Neyrinck plugin at all as they were (when I was a given a license for their DTS-HD StreamPlayer as part of the original DTS-HD MAS encoder suite) for Mac/PT only so of no use at all.

SurCode & Minnetonka Audio I know of old, and have never had any trouble with them.
Sure there were bugs in the DVDA tool, but their support was always superb.
I do use their DPL II VST plugins and they are rock solid stable here, and I still use their Standalone MLP Lossless encoder and again with no problems at all so I can personally recommend them highly.

It seems that the Encoder, Decoder & StreamPlayer are all separate purchases though - surely not?

Oops

can’t tell, though he sure won a wonderful women indeed :slight_smile:

+1

The Dolby Digital Encoder still works in N5 - just download the Unicode version.

Ooops

Should be.
I am not sure if it installs into the 32-bit version only, or both 32 and 64-bit versions.
However, as long as he installed both 32 & 64 bit versions on W7 all will still work.
We have it running here on a W7 version of Nuendo 5 in 32-bit for certain, cannot remember if it shows in 64 bits though. As long as he still has the license on the stick, it will be fine.

Oooops

Just an update on my findings so far.

I have now been testing the MInitonka SurCode for Dolby E VST plugins for a day. The encoder works fine a little cumbersome in the Export of a Dolby E stream. You export a Audio Mixdown that needs to be deleted after the export and then it writes a Dolby E WAV File that seems to take a very long time to update until you finally have a full encoded file. The SurCode Decoder keeps crashing the VSTBridge in N5.5.1 so I have not been able to test its functionality at all on my system.

The Neyrinck SoundCode for Dolby E seems to work well as a stand alone Application with really impressive Encoding times and ease of use is better in my opinion to SurCode. I have also not been able to get the VST plugin to work within N 5.5.1 yet as N 5 is not picking them up under the VSTPlugin Directory under the Nuendo 5.5 Program Files directory.

If anyone has any thoughts on how to get the Neyrinck VST plugins to work please let me know.

Ok so it seems as if it is only the VSTBridge in N5.5.1 64bit that crashes and has issues with the SurCode Decoder.
Everything seems to be working better in the 32bit version of N5.5.1. Faster and encoding times too.

Not having these plugins, this is just a guess…however, does the “missing” plugin actually show up as a plugin, or does it appear like the MP3 & Nuendo DDE & DTS ones do, as an export audio mixdown codec?

No, according to the Neyrick manual the decoder plugin for SoundCode is suppose to be inserted on a channel containing a Dolby E encoded Wav file and works as a normal vst plug. But N5 doesn’t seem to be seeing it.

What shows up in N5 plugin information window?
If unchecked, try checking it then rescanning.
Might also be a good idea to look and see if it is on the blacklist - if it is, delete this & restart.

Thanks for the suggestions.

No they also do not show up under the Plugin-Information window. Really strange, even if I do a manual search on the system for the file as it is labelled in the manual SoundCodeForDolbyE.vst it does not show up anywhere. Maybe a buggy demo installer at source as I’ve downloaded it three times now and have done several clean install of the plugin.

How odd.
It’s not been installed into the same place as the DD/DTS/SD2 codecs etc and listed under “Audio Codec Plugins”?
What do Minnetonka Audio say about this?

The Minnitonka SurCode plugins are working fine in N5 32bit but keeps on crashing the VSTBridge in 64bit.
It is the Neyrinck Soundcode for Dolby E DEcoder plugin that is still nowhere to be found. I have mailed their support, but no word from them yet.

I have received some great feedback from Minnetonka today although still no word from Neyrinck on their missing vst decoder plug for Win7, tested the Mac installer for the demo and the plugin is there!

Seems like I’ll most likely go with SurCode for Dolby E from Minnetonka, especially if the the 2.0 version of the plugs work well in 64bit.

Here is the feedback from Minnetonka:

"Hi Martin,

Thank you for your feedback.

I think I saw your forum post up on the Nuendo site, but for some reason the forum wouldn’t let me answer your questions there.

Either way, why SurCode is crashing the 64-bit VST bridge on the 64-bit version of Nuendo is the simple fact that the version you have is a 32-bit plugin, so that’s why it works great in the 32-bit version of Nuendo.

Tomorrow we will be releasing our Version 2.0 of our SurCode for Dolby E Encoder and Decoder. The update includes a 64-bit Dolby E Decoder VST plugin. The encoder unfortunately is still just 32-bit, but it takes advantage of distributed processing. This means that if you have a multi-core processor, the encoding is able to be done and distributed across your cores, making it much faster than the current encoder. I’ve seen speeds up to 10x faster than real time for encoding.

I’ll send you the installers for v.2.0 right now. They’ll be coming from yousendit.com.

As for the Decoder issue needing activation, it’s actually an issue we’re getting from the PACE side of things. You can do 1 of 2 things, you can either unplug your iLok and plug it back in, or remove the encoder from the session and insert the decoder then you can insert the encoder. I know both of these ways seem screwy, but it’s something we’ve been trying to get resolved with PACE. I hope to have this figured out with my developers soon. Possibly on a 2.1 fix…

I hope this helps. Let me know if I may be of any further assistance in your demo.

Thanks again!

Best Regards,


Andrew Neumiller"

[url]Telos Alliance

I’m not surprised - Minnetonka’s support always was very good.
It’s all useful info too.