Premiere Pro 2018 - 5.1 Surround Monitoring

[ElasticPictures]

We are currently working on a project that will deliver in 5.1.  The music score, sound design and final audio mix will be delivered to us as a master file which we will then sync to our video.  I have looked everywhere for a proper solution to monitor 5.1 with Premiere Pro 2018 with no luck thus far.  The Premiere project is setup correctly as a 5.1 project, and all of the audio meters are showing signal.

Our Edit Suites have Mac Pro 2013 Trash Cans with Blackmagic Mini Monitors connected to Flanders CM 250 broadcast monitors.  Each suite also has an 55" LG OLED "Client Monitor".  My hope is (was) to use the Mini Monitors HDMI output to a home theater receiver to get the 5.1 monitoring, but from what I've read the Mini Monitor only puts out 2 channels of audio as opposed to the advertised 8 channels.  Some have mentioned using an SDI to HDMI converter since SDI carries 8 channels of audio.

I'm looking for advice on the hardware setup to be able to monitor 5.1 audio in Premiere Pro.  We're open to using different / additional hardware in order to get the 5.1 monitoring working.  Any help with this is greatly appreciated!

[Mike Dziennik]

Blackmagic Intensity for thunderbolt claims to output 8 channels over HDMI.

I thought the mini monitor was a PCIe card - how are you connecting it to Trashcan?

[ElasticPictures]

We are using the Thunderbolt version, not the 4k version.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/892451-REG/Blackmagic_Design_bdlkulsdzminmon_Ultrastudio_Mini...

[Mike Dziennik]

Ah, I see.

The additional converter would probably work and could be the cheapest solution - if not the most elegant. Have you contacted BM to double check the output channels - it could be a firmware update to get it working.

[ElasticPictures]

When you say "additional converter", do you mean the SDI to HDMI converter to get the embedded audio from the SDI feed?

[Mike Dziennik]

Yes.

[caroline_edits]

Hey there, ElasticPictures!

Did Mike's idea work for you? We want to make sure you got the help you needed.

Let us know!

Caroline

[ElasticPictures]

I actually decided order a Blackmagic DeckLink Extreme 4K 12G that will live in an Akitio Thunder2 PCIe box.  It claims to carry 8 channels of audio over HDMI that will go to the Onkyo receiver.  This will also allow us to send 4K UHD to our LG E7 55" OLED and 1080p to our Flanders CM250.  I will post back results once I get everything in place.  Thanks for checking in Caroline!

[R Neil Haugen]

There's gonna be a few of us who 'hang 'round here' who will want to know how that works when you test it.

Please do post back!

Neil

[ElasticPictures]

I have successfully gotten 5.1 working.  I hope to have a detailed post in the next few days on the exact steps taken, settings used, and hardware in place to achieve the monitoring.

[caroline_edits]

That's awesome! Please do, I'm super curious.

-Caroline

[ElasticPictures · Accepted solution]

A little late, but as promised I've included more detail on monitoring 5.1 in Adobe Premiere Pro below.

Edit Suite Details

2013 Mac Pro Trashcan

Blackmagic Decklink Extreme 4K 12G mounted in an Akitio Thunder2 Box

Flanders CM 250 Monitor

55" LG OLED 4K TV

Onkyo TX-NR646 Home Theater Receiver

Mackie Mr5 Mk3 Studio Monitors (Pair)

Polk Audio Center Speaker, Surround Speakers & Powered Sub

Getting the Blackmagic Decklink Extreme 4K 12G installed in the Akitio Thunder2 Box was super easy and took only a few minutes.  I connected the HD-SDI output to the Flanders CM 250, and the HDMI output to the Onkyo receiver, and the HDMI output from the receiver to the LG OLED TV. 

I purchased a Russound ADP-1.2 Speaker-Level to Line-Level adapter to feed the Mackie speakers from the Onkyo receiver.  The Mackie speakers serve as my left and right speakers in my 5.1 monitoring setup, as well as my main stereo speakers.

Russound ADP-1.2 Speaker-level to Line-level Adapter at Crutchfield.com

I downloaded and installed the latest version of BlackMagic Desktop Video. After launching Premiere Pro and verifying that the Decklink Extreme 4K 12G was working properly, I started the 5.1 monitoring setup test.

I knew that the audio production house would be delivering a single WAV audio file that would contain all 6 channels of the 5.1 mix as opposed to 6 separate mono audio files.  The following workflow is based on what I needed for my project.

I created a 5.1 sequence first before importing my media.  Make sure that the master is set to 5.1, and that the Track type is set to 5.1.

I then downloaded a 5.1 test file from here:

AAC Multichannel Playback Test

When I imported the 5.1 audio file into Premiere and placed it in the sequence it displayed the channels correctly for my 5.1 needs; L, R, C, LFE, LS, RS.  The audio track in the sequence also had the "5.1" label which meant everything was setup correctly so far.

When I played the file back, as others have noted on the forum, audio channels 3 & 4 were swapped during playback.  I fixed this by going to the Audio Hardware preferences and flip-flopping the center channel and LFE channel.  They are highlighted in red below.  By default the center is on channel 3 and LFE is on channel 4.  In order to monitor properly, these have to be switched.  They are in the correct monitoring position in the image below.

In addition to successfully monitoring 5.1 audio, we were also able to monitor 4K UHD on the 55" LG OLED TV, and 1080p on the Flanders CM 250 using the Decklink Extreme 4K 12G.  This was something we had also been trying to achieve at the same time we were trying to monitor 5.1 audio mixes.  BONUS!

Feel free to ask any questions about the process or setup and I will answer as quickly as possible and update this post to have all of the information in one place.