Seeking Sound Card and Video Card Advice

I just snagged a full version of Creative Suite 6 Production Premium with Premiere Pro CS6, After Effects, Photoshop Extd., Audition CS6, Flash Pro, Illustrator, Encore CS6, SpeedGrade, Prelude, Bridge. and Media Encoder -- all for $150 on TechSoup. So now I am looking at getting a beefier computer.

If I get a set of speakers like the Blue Sky Exo2, 2.1, 3" monitors -- then what sound card would I want?

Let's say my sound card choices were:

Avid Audiophile 2496 Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D Sound Board
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Sound Card
Creative X-Fi Titanium HD 70SB127000002 Sound Board
Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Sound Card Retail
X-Fi PCI Express Sound Blaster Xtreme Audio Sound Card

Which one would I want if the rest of the system looked like:

Socket 2011 : Intel DX79TO LGA2011 Desktop Motherboard - Intel X79 Chipset
Intel LGA 2011 CPU : Intel Core i7 i7-3820 3.60 GHz Processor - Socket LGA-2011
DDR3 Memory : Kinston Hyper X KHX1600C9D3K8/32GX Quad Channel RAM Kit - - DDR3 32 GB (8 x 4 GB)
Case: Zalman Z11 System Cabinet - Mid-tower
Power Supply: Thermaltake TR-800P ATX12V & EPS12V Power Supply - 86% Efficiency - 800 W
Cooler: Intel BXRTS2011LC High Performance Liquid Cooler LGA2011, LGA1155,
PCI Express Video Card: PNY VCQ4000-PB Quadro 4000 Graphics Card - 2 GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Second Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX 1 TB Internal Hard Drive
SATA Hard Disk: Intel Cherryville 240 GB Internal Solid State Drive
Optical Drive: LG WH12LS39 Blu-ray Writer - Black - Bulk - Internal
Reader: iMicro INTCTM04MB All-in-1 Internal Card Reader
OS: Windows 7 PRO 64 Bit
Monitor: Acer V243HAJbd 24" LCD Monito

Also, anyone got any suggestions on the video card to be more future-looking? Today I don't have a camera that can utilize SDI connectivity. I am tentatively liking the Quadro 4000, but the other video card choices were:

PNY VCQ2000-PB Quadro 2000 Graphics Card - PCI Express 2.0 x16 - 1 GB GDDR5

ASUS ENGTX560 TI DCII/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 560 Ti Graphics Card - 830 MHz Core

ASUS ENGTX580 DCII/2DIS/1536MD GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card - PCI Express 2.0 - 1.50 GB GDDR5

Galaxy GeForce GTX 560 1 GPUs - 830 MHz Core - 1 GB GDDR5 PCIE 2.0 x16

MSI N580GTX TWIN FROZR II/OC GTX 580 - 800 MHz Core - 1.50 GB GDDR5 PCIE 2.0 x16

MSI R7870 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC Radeon HD 7870 - 1050 MHz Core - 2 GB GDDR5 PCI-E 3.0 x16

PNY GeForce GTX 580 Graphic Card - 1.50 GB GDDR5 SDRAM - PCI Express 2.0 x16

PNY VCGGTX560XPB GeForce GTX560 Graphic Card - 1620MHz Core - 1 GB GDDR5 PCIE 2.0 x16

PNY VCQ4000-PB Quadro 4000 Graphics Card - 2 GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16

Visiontek Radeon HD 7870 Graphic Card - 1000 MHz Core - 2 GB GDDR5 SDRAM - PCI-Express 3.0 x16

XFX AMD Radeon HD 7770 1GB PCIE 3.0

XFX AMD Radeon HD 7850 CORE Edition 2GB PCIE 3.0

XFX AMD Radeon HD 7850 Double Dissipation Edition 2GB PCIE 3.0

XFX AMD Radeon HD 7950 Double Dissipation Edition 3GB PCIE 3.0

XFX Radeon HD 7970 Graphic Card - 925 MHz Core - 3 GB GDDR5 SDRAM - PCI-Express 3.0 x16


Also, I know nothing about video monitors. The other video monitor choices were:


Acer S200HLAbd 20" LED LCD Monitor - 16:9 - 5 ms $124.99
Acer V223WEJbd 22" LCD Monitor - 5 ms $149.99
Acer V233HAJBD 23" LCD Monitor $154.99
Acer V243HAJbd 24" LCD Monito $187.99
ASUS VS228H-P 21.5" LED Monitor LED Monitor $161.99
ASUS VB195T 19" LCD Monitor 5 ms 1280 x 1024 50000:1 - Speakers - DVI - VGA $154.99
Asus VE258Q 25" LED LCD Monitor $264.99
Asus VE276Q 27" LCD Monitor - 16:9 - 2 ms $289.99
ASUS VE278Q 27" LED LCD Monitor $333.99
ASUS VH236H LCD 23" - 1920 x 1080 - 16:9 - 2ms 20000:1 $179.99
Asus VS197D-P 19" LED LCD Monitor - 16:9 - 5 ms $99.99
Asus VS208N-P 20" LED LCD Monitor - 16:9 - 5 ms $125.99
Asus VS229H-P 22" LED LCD Monitor - 16:9 $169.99
Asus VS248H-P 24" LED LCD Monitor - 16:9 - 2 ms $209.99
Compaq L2105tm Touchscreen LCD Monitor- Smart Buy $269.99
NEC Display EA192M 19" LED LCD Monitor $254.99
Planar PL1911MW - LCD 19" 1440 x 900 1000:1 DVI-D, VGA - speakers $199.99
Samsung SyncMaster S24A650D 24" LED LCD Monitor - 16:9 - 8 ms $309.99
Toshiba 24L4200U 24" 1080p LED-LCD TV - 16:9 - HDTV 1080p $253.99
 
Oh my, you're right. I was looking at the Exo2 when I was planning to use the 8x15ft area as my editing room.

If I don't have to buy a home theater system plus an editing system, I could invest in a more powerful audio monitoring system and a better video monitor.

Any recommendations of particular products if I go with the larger room?
 
Any recommendations of particular products if I go with the larger room?

That's a tough question. I think it would be better to work it out the other way around. Set a budget and then see what you can afford in your budget range. To give you some idea, my room is just over 5,000 cubic feet, so very similar to the volume of your proposed room and my speaker system cost a little under $25k but that's for a 5.1 surround monitoring system. For a decent professional stereo system, you probably need a budget of around $8k - $14k (without a sub) for that size of room. You might be able to get away with consumer grade equipment though (providing you're only editing and not mixing) in which case maybe $2k - $5k would be enough.

Your next issue is going to be the actual dimensions (not just the volume) of your room, that relatively low ceiling is going to be a problem. You need to go and look up "Room modes". There are online room mode calculators available, where you feed in the dimensions of your room and it will estimate the likely problem frequencies.

G
 
I'll work with my wife on the budget.

Meanwhile, I have a LOT to learn about modes. Some say that a volume of at least 2500 cubic feet is best, but, since I am so limited by that ceiling, I could get one of those "golden ratios" (the 1.0 x 1.6 x 2.33) if I split the large are in two and did an editing room that was 8.4 high x 13.44 wide x 19.57 long-- but that only gives me a total cubic volume of 2210.
 
In a relatively small room with an 8'4" ceiling, even if it uses the golden ratio, you are going to have problems with standing waves and phase cancellations, so you are still going to need quite a bit of acoustic treatment. There are always problems when you have parallel reflective surfaces, so there's only a small advantage in following the golden ratio religiously. However, on this tack, it might well be worth your while looking into putting your partition wall at an angle, to avoid it being a parallel surface. It means you get odd shaped rooms but definitely helps with acoustics, if you want to go that far.

One other thing to watch out for, the more you learn about acoustics and acoustic treatment the more you can get bogged down in detail and over think everything. My advice is to pick a rough room size you want and can afford, baring in mind the bigger the room the more expensive the sound system required and the more you'll probably need to budget for acoustic treatment. Then feed these dimensions into a room mode calculator and try changing the figures to get the fewest mode problems you can without compromising too much your choice of room size.

G
 
I have to say, I find the Bob Gold one quite confusing. If you have a windows computer, try downloading this one, it's much easier to understand: http://www.realtraps.com/modecalc.zip

$5k is a good budget for monitors in a 2,200 cubic foot room and for that you'd be able to afford a pair of Genelec 8260A. With some decent acoustic treatment and these monitors you'll have a room up to professional standards for mixing stereo TV and an excellent stereo film editing and sound design room. Still nowhere near professional film mixing standards, which you're not going to achieve without demolishing your house and starting again (!) but a fine room nonetheless. An added advantage of this Genelec model is the really good built in dsp room calibration. For those who aren't really experienced with acoustics this is really useful because the speakers run a program which analyses your room acoustics and then adjusts the timing and EQ to compensate for acoustic problems. I've heard these speakers several times and I was really impressed, which isn't an easy thing to accomplish! BTW, this dsp calibration system cannot compensate for reverb or echoes, so you'll still need to treat the room acoustically as you would for any speakers but it will improve the EQ of the room by up to about 10%.

An angled wall will definitely help. Standing waves (the most serious of acoustical problems) can only occur between parallel walls. Putting a wall in at an angle means one less parallel surface and you lose a bunch of room modes in one go! It needs to have some serious mass, concrete is best, brick second best. If you don't want something quite so permanent, try the following: Two layers of sheetrock (with staggered joins), then 4" of dense mineral wool (much better absorption than standard household fibreglass insulation), then another two layers of sheetrock. Ideally you would then leave an air gap (say 4"-6") and repeat the whole thing again. If you buy some rigid mineral wool (in the US, owens corning 703 is a favourite for studio designers) you can use this not only as the filler between the sheetrock (instead of mineral wool or fibreglass) but also to make very effective DIY bass traps and broadband absorbers.

G
 
Seeking Video Card Advice for CS6

I'd always looked at consumer-end things at the level of the Polk Rti speakers... I didn't even know things like the Genelec 8260A existed. I'll look into them further.

But I have been trying to figure out more about video card options.

I THINK Nvidia QUADRO 4000 is pretty much industry standard on pro grade grphics workstations. $750 .. If your running CS6 then nvidia chipset is the way to go. Be sure to check for supported cards from adobe.

Any of the AJA IO range wll give you calibration, and AFAIK, both the BMD Intesnity, and the UltraStudio will give you that as well - that's if you're looking for breakout boxes; some of the internal computer cards will give you calibration:

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/decklink/
http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mojito_max/
http://www.aja.com/en/products/kona/

Hmmm... When I look at all of the performance charts of the video cards, things like the Matrox M9148 LP PCIe x16 are all classified as mid-to-low end types of cards. Then I look at something like the $4,000 Quadro 6000 and, based on the charts, the $500 GTX 680 SMOKES the $4000 card. (And the newer $1000 gtx690 blows the older GTXes out of the water as well, but uses dual cores, and the Adobe website says that CS6 only supports duals with a Maximus/Tesla pair-- but I digress.)

SO... if all someone has to do to get Premiere to "approve" of a newer video card for use of GPU acceleration is to change one file (every time you download an update) {see http://forums.adobe.com/thread/629557 for instructions on how to do this} why would someone spend $700-$800 on a (Quadro 4000) -- or worse yet, spend $4000 on a Quadro 6000 -- when a far faster card could be had for $500? Do people just not want to be bothered with taking the time to edit a simple "cuda_supported_cards.txt" file?

Does the Quad 4000 come with other things that are useful to filmmakers that the GTX680 does not?

EDIT: I found the answer to my own question at http://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/PremiereCS5.htm

It appears as though the Quads are slower, but they will support a 10 bit monitor and they provide SDI output.
 
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I'd always looked at consumer-end things at the level of the Polk Rti speakers... I didn't even know things like the Genelec 8260A existed. I'll look into them further.

Some background info: It's well worth understanding the difference between consumer speakers and professional monitors (speakers): Consumer speakers are designed to make the playback of professionally mixed and mastered material sound as good as possible, whereas monitors for professionals are designed to playback as accurately as possible. The way you design/mix your sound will depend on what you hear from your speakers and so your mix will be coloured (EQ'ed) according to the colouration of your speakers, which is likely to be quite different to the colouration that other manufacturers' use for their consumer speakers. As the reference for consumer speaker design is always accurate, well mastered material, well mastered material should, in theory, sound good on all consumer speakers. So professionals ALWAYS mix using the most accurate monitors and acoustics they can afford and the top mastering engineers go to extreme lengths, spending $60k+ on stereo monitors and fortunes on acoustic design. Have a look at this Example. BTW, the precise length and pattern of each one of those rectangles of wood has be mathematically calculated to provide near perfect diffusion and EQ response.

Genelecs are one of the most commonly used monitors by professional music studios and TV mix rooms. Cinemas and the big film mix rooms tend to use JBL or other horn based speakers, to provide the coverage and directivity needed for very large rooms. These sound different to cone based speakers and is one of the reasons why you can't mix films in small rooms.

Sorry, can't really help with the video side of things. I use a BMD Studio 2 and been very happy with it but I don't do any work on the video side of things, I just needed decent quality, reliable playback from a gen-lockable card.

G
 
Ah, I can totally understand that. Just like a video monitor has to be able to be calibrated to a norm in order to maintain some semblance of the intended color grading on various systems, using a good quality audio monitor can help prevent too much deviation from the intended sound when played through other speakers of similar field listening type. In other words, if I wouldn't want to do color correction on a consumer TV with all of its extra picture-sweetening features, why wouldn't I also try to avoid such features in an audio system as well.
 
I just read another post by someone who said "My room, where I edit, colorcorrect and mix tv and the occasional cinema release is about in the middle of your two possible rooms. I use a Dynaudio Air 15 5.1 setup, which is hooked up digital and is extremely flexible. I have calibrated the whole setup and switch from stereo tv calibration to 5.1 tv (with and without bassmanagement), to theatrical calibration ( x-curve, modified x-curve) with press of a button. I use the analog inputs of the system when I'm editing video ( feeding them the audio from à 52" plasma which gets it's signal from à Blackmagic HD Extreme). This way I avoid the audio and video being out of sync when editing in FCP And Avid MC."

So... first, how do you "switch from stereo tv calibration to 5.1 tv to theatrical calibration" with press of a button? Maybe those speakers come with software and remotes or something?

Second... how do you calibrate near field speakers to emulate a cinema in a small room?

Third... I'm not sure I understand why audio and video would be out of sync if the analogue inputs aren't used.
 
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So... first, how do you "switch from stereo tv calibration to 5.1 tv to theatrical calibration" with press of a button? Maybe those speakers come with software and remotes or something?

More of a question for A.P.E. or Georgia, but...

Theatrical calibration is based upon the "Academy Curve" or "X-Curve."

http://www.dolby.com/uploadedFiles/...essional/Dolby_The X-Curve__SMPTE Journal.pdf

Ioan_curvesmallest.gif


Things have changed and altered considerably since first Dolby, then THX, and then various forms of surround came into being.

Theaters are supposed to calibrate each film when it is brought into the theater for the first time, although most never do. This is to insure that each speaker is working properly and responding to the correct frequencies. (BTW, they are supposed to calibrate the visuals too.)

No matter which format - TV or Cinema - folding a surround mix down to stereo creates audio problems; these are usually phasing issues when surround effects are pushed into the stereo field.


Second... how do you calibrate near field speakers to emulate a cinema in a small room?

You can't. That's why seriously budgeted films mix on a proper mix stage that is set up like a real movie theater. The best you can do listen to LOTS of films in your listening environment and try to approximate those mixes. Then take your mix to an actual theater, make notes about the deficiencies, then go back and try again.

Third... I'm not sure I understand why audio and video would be out of sync if the analogue inputs aren't used.

Different TVs have different reaction times, and most softwares tend to have latency issues of one type or another.
 
I just read another post by someone who said "My room, where I edit, colorcorrect and mix tv and the occasional cinema release is about in the middle of your two possible rooms. I use a Dynaudio Air 15 5.1 setup, which is hooked up digital and is extremely flexible. I have calibrated the whole setup and switch from stereo tv calibration to 5.1 tv (with and without bassmanagement), to theatrical calibration ( x-curve, modified x-curve) with press of a button. I use the analog inputs of the system when I'm editing video ( feeding them the audio from à 52" plasma which gets it's signal from à Blackmagic HD Extreme). This way I avoid the audio and video being out of sync when editing in FCP And Avid MC."

So... first, how do you "switch from stereo tv calibration to 5.1 tv to theatrical calibration" with press of a button? Maybe those speakers come with software and remotes or something?

Second... how do you calibrate near field speakers to emulate a cinema in a small room?

Third... I'm not sure I understand why audio and video would be out of sync if the analogue inputs aren't used.

With one exception noted below, all of what Alcove states is correct but there are a few points I'll add:

1. The Dynaudio Air 15s are good monitors, well suited to music production, TV broadcast applications and editing but inappropriate for mixing theatrical release material, as Dynaudio states "the AIR15 is equally suitable for broadcast or edit suite purposes".

2. It is possible, depending on the specific speaker management system to switch between different settings but again, the theatrical settings are designed for basic editing, not mixing. And of course, these settings are only really applicable in a well acoustically treated room.

3. Although the situation is starting to change, virtually all commercially released theatrical features I know of are distributed with Dolby Digital (DD) sound. The completed DD mix can only be created by a Dolby certified dubbing theatre and there is no way Dolby would certify a room for mixing theatrical features which used the Dynaudio Air15s. Which is why Dynaudio don't state or even suggest the Air15s are suitable for theatrical mixing even though I sure they'd love to!

4. Beyond the x-curve, there are additional differences between theatrical and broadcast audio calibrations. For example, not only are the SPL levels calibrated differently overall but there are also different surround and LFE settings required.

5. Getting accurate sync between the audio and video is not a trivial problem to solve. Both the audio and video outputs induce various different delays and matching these delays requires specialist equipment and a fair amount of knowledge. The solution is certainly nowhere near as simple as just using the analogue outputs from a TV! In fact, the output delay of the HD Extreme even varies according to what video codec you are using. Providing the poster of the message you are quoting has set his/her system up correctly, the most accurate sync he/she can hope for is probably a frame or two. However, for higher end professional applications (and it doesn't get more higher end than theatrical release), sync accuracy of at least a quarter of a frame is standard practice. Having said all this, it's not entirely clear how the original poster has his/her system set up.

Theaters are supposed to calibrate each film when it is brought into the theater for the first time, although most never do.

This is not my understanding or experience. When beginning a Dolby Digital mix (for theatrical release) Dolby absolutely requires the presence of one of it's own technicians (in addition of course to the facility's own re-recording mixer/s), to check both the room calibration and then the technical aspects of the print-mastering process. Avoiding this requirement goes against the terms of agreement between the dubbing theatre and Dolby and no Dolby certified facility in my experience would even contemplate the notion. Besides, the way Dolby charges it's licensing fee makes it pretty much impossible anyway. This is only for theatrical release though, Dolby Digital for HDTV broadcast or DVD/BluRay release has no such requirement.

G
 
Because our basement is completely unfinished, we have the option of "doing it right" to start with, but the more I learn, it looks like it will cost about 4x what a "normal" basement would cost (in materials alone) to do a halfway decent job with the audio treatment and ADR booth isolation. I am even seriously considering getting someone like John H. Brandt to design the rooms, because acoustic design is so complex and baffling to me.

I still haven't settled on the exact monitors to get because the final size of the space has not yet been determined. I still don't know what video monitors I am going to get, either. I live just 2 hours away from ADK so I think I will go with them for the computer. I am looking at an Intel - 6 Core i7 overclocked to 4.5GHz with HT 12meg cache, liquid cooler, 32gig DDR3, GeForce GTX 670, 1 240GB SSD, two Western Digital - 2TB Raid 0 drives, an external N3200PRO 3 Bay NAS RAID 5, with BMD Intensity Shuttle, and Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Interface.

If so, this will eliminate the need to save up for a 10bit video monitor because I wouldn't even have a video card that would support it. (Not to mention that the camera I own doesn't export full 10bit color, either.) Well, maybe it might if I HDMI out directly to a hard drive... I haven't tried to store uncompressed that way (because I don't have fast enough portable raids).

But because


The best you can do listen to LOTS of films in your listening environment and try to approximate those mixes. Then take your mix to an actual theater, make notes about the deficiencies, then go back and try again.

I would probably be better off calibrating my own monitors to "TV calibration" and not worrying about x-curve, modified x-curve, or academy because neither the speakers nor the room are in the right ballpark anyway.

No matter which format - TV or Cinema - folding a surround mix down to stereo creates audio problems; these are usually phasing issues when surround effects are pushed into the stereo field.

So, even if I had the budget, maybe I shouldn't even worry about trying to get a 5.1 monitoring system. (That would allow me to spend my money on fewer, better monitors.)
 
You have to decide exactly what your "mission" is. Are you going to be a visual editor? Are you going to be an audio editor? Are you going to be a rerecording mixer? Each of these has a different set of requirements. You will find even as a a visual editor that at least some sound isolation and treatment will be very welcomed. Fairly thorough sound isolation and treatment is almost a requirement for sound editing, but 5.1 monitoring is not a necessity. A true mix room has to meet very specific specifications to achieve certification.



When beginning a Dolby Digital mix (for theatrical release) Dolby absolutely requires the presence of one of it's own technicians (in addition of course to the facility's own re-recording mixer/s), to check both the room calibration and then the technical aspects of the print-mastering process. Avoiding this requirement goes against the terms of agreement between the dubbing theatre and Dolby and no Dolby certified facility in my experience would even contemplate the notion.

That may be true in Europe, but not here in the US. I have been to quite a few opening nights of new "Hollywood" films where the sound was terrible and the film out of focus. I make my complaints and get my money back and do not return to those theaters. I'm sure you've seen the discussions on the GS Post Production forum and on the Sound Design and Sound Article List forums where well known rerecording mixers go to see their own film at a regular theater here in the US and wonder what the f*** happened to their mix.
 
There's no way I will ever have my own mixing studio.

In my "day job" I work for a local charity. In the past, we have hired video crews to come out and do interviews, etc. They will usually send one guy out with a camera, a few lights, a few mics, and very little else. They will spend a few hours and then take everything they record to their place and do everything in house. Then we get the finished product on a DVD.

Basically, I took a look at what they were doing and I siad to myself, "want to be able to do that."

That would involve mixing, editing, the whole nine yards-- audio and video.

These guys only have a couple of people on their payroll and they do lots of local commercials, lots of non-profit promos, video podcasts, wedding videography, some short documentaries, and they even do a local TV show-- oh, and they made their own feature-length fictional movie. They do this full time, but I would be doing it part time.

I'd like to have a good enough setup that I could put together a small 48 film project team, and do other for-fun projects without having to send everything to a real audio house. An extemely expensive hobby? Yes, for sure. But if I can make some money with the gear as a part-time job-- all the better.

Maybe I just haven't met the right up-and-coming local sound guru who has all of her or his own gear, and that's why I keep thinking I want to edit my own video and audio. Maybe I'm just too inexperienced to recognize the bang-for-buck value of hiring the pros to do the audio post on my little hobby films. (I don't even know how much it would cost to just give everything to an audio post person and have them handle that much of the sound design in post.)


Oh--- and regarding the dolby certification issue... are you two talking about two different things? Sounds like APE is referring to the certification of a mixing theater whereas AA might be referring to where I go to the movies?
 
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a pair of Genelec 8260A

$5k is a good budget for monitors in a 2,200 cubic foot room and for that you'd be able to afford a pair of Genelec 8260A. With some decent acoustic treatment and these monitors you'll have a room up to professional standards for mixing stereo TV and an excellent stereo film editing and sound design room.

G,

Are you sure you meant the 390W Genelec 8260As? For 62.2971 cubic meters?

The prices I am finding for these monitors is much more like $5,000.00 US dollars EACH.
 
There's no way I will ever have my own mixing studio.

Well, there are professional mixing studios and there are professional mixing studios. To get to low budget stereo TV broadcast standards I would say is just about doable for say $10k. The other end of the professional mixing studio spectrum is going to cost many millions and you can find examples of mix studios pretty much everywhere between these two extremes. There's no reason why you can't have a professional standard mixing studio, albeit at the low budget TV broadcast end of the professional scale.

To be honest, if I were you, I would stick to stereo. 5.1 not only multiplies the cost of your speaker system but also multiples the computer and ancillary resources required, multiplies the acoustic problems of your room (and therefore the cost of dealing with them) and multiplies the knowledge required to create a competent mix.

...These guys only have a couple of people on their payroll and they do lots of local commercials, lots of non-profit promos, video podcasts, wedding videography, some short documentaries, and they even do a local TV show-- oh, and they made their own feature-length fictional movie. They do this full time, but I would be doing it part time.

We are in danger of getting into the philosophical argument of "what is professional?". I've seen people working for low budget regional TV stations justifiably calling themselves "professional" but producing/broadcasting mixes which would not have got them a pass mark at university and would have most experienced pros shaking their heads in disbelief. It's worthy of a whole thread or two on it's own to discuss the concept of "up-and-coming" sound gurus and what an experienced professional sound designer is and can bring to a project. As with professional mix studios, there are sound designers/re-recording mixers and there are sound designers/re-recording mixers and they range in price/ability from zero to well into four figures per day.

If the feature they made was for theatrical distribution, they would most likely have had to go elsewhere for their audio post. For DVDs though there are no required audio standards, so you get commercial DVDs which run the gamut from the sound being produced by cheap little budget studios all the way up to multi-million dollar facilities.

Oh--- and regarding the dolby certification issue... are you two talking about two different things?

I'm coming to the conclusion that we are, yes. I'm talking about the requirement for a Dolby technician to be present at the start of every mix in a Dolby dubbing (re-recording) theatre, for material which is to be released theatrically in Dolby Digital. AFAIK, actual cinemas are supposed to be calibrated a minimum of once a year, or once every 6 months in the case of THX certification. I believe the discussions Alcove is referring to on GearSlutz and other audio post forums relate mainly to cinemas with their sound systems way out of whack, which unfortunately seems to be increasingly common, the reasons for this are interesting but a bit too far off topic.

G
 
Are you sure you meant the 390W Genelec 8260As? The prices I am finding for these monitors is much more like $5,000.00 US dollars EACH.

Whoops, sorry about that. I heard them at a friend's studio and was seriously impressed, a quick lookup of the price and I missed the fact that was the individual price rather than for a pair.

You could try the 8250a if you are really hooked on the idea of DSP controlled monitors. The problem you have with these and other comparable monitors is that with your size room and budget you are firmly in the territory of near-field speakers, which are designed to be listened to from roughly 2 or 3 feet away, rather than sat further back as you are planning and near-fields do not have good bass response to start with, let alone sitting further away than designed. An alternative would be the 1032A, no DSP but still a very good speaker and slightly more of a mid-field monitor with a better bass response than most near-fields. The 1032As are not ideal and certainly not as good as the 8260As but still well up to the standards expected of a lower budget professional TV mix room.

G
 
We are in danger of getting into the philosophical argument of "what is professional?". I've seen people working for low budget regional TV stations justifiably calling themselves "professional" but producing/broadcasting mixes which would not have got them a pass mark at university and would have most experienced pros shaking their heads in disbelief.

Alas, I, too, want to wade not into the debate too far-- but I have always used the term "professional" to apply to someone who is paid to do what they do. We certainly paid money for the PMG guys to make the promo video at http://youtu.be/9fUb3c08svg

If the feature they made was for theatrical distribution, they would most likely have had to go elsewhere for their audio post.

Actually I was mistaken in my assumptions. I looked it up and it wasn't a fictional feature, it was a documentary-- and as it turns out, it only aired on our states educational tv channel. But I digress...

You could try the 8250a if you are really hooked on the idea of DSP controlled monitors. The problem you have with these and other comparable monitors is that with your size room and budget you are firmly in the territory of near-field speakers, which are designed to be listened to from roughly 2 or 3 feet away, rather than sat further back as you are planning and near-fields do not have good bass response to start with, let alone sitting further away than designed. An alternative would be the 1032A, no DSP but still a very good speaker and slightly more of a mid-field monitor with a better bass response than most near-fields. The 1032As are not ideal and certainly not as good as the 8260As but still well up to the standards expected of a lower budget professional TV mix room.

Well, the autocal sounds very appealing, indeed. But the 1032As would be more suited to my 2200cubic foot room than the 8250As? The chart at http://www.genelec.com/learning-center/speaker-selection-guide/dsp-system-selection/ seems to indicate that the 8250As are okay listening between 4 and 7 feet away in a room up to 3400ft3.
 
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