Hi Guys,
I run a small theatre in the south of Western Australia.
We recently had a technical overhaul and have an SQ6 for FOH and an AHM64 for our system processor (amongst other duties). Both of these are fitted with Dante cards.
I want to run 5.1 surround sound in our venue for film screenings.
Currently we have a projection laptop running out HDMI to a HDBT transmitter and HDBT matrix. Matrix then sends video the projector, and audio out via RCA to my AHM64 (in stereo).
Is there:
A. A HDMI to Dante audio stripper that will put my 5.1 channels on my Dante network for the AHM64 to find and then distribute to my surround speakers. Better yet, is there a Dante solution that will handle both Audio AND Video distribution?
B. An easy way in the AHM64 to configure 5.1 surround levels to individual speakers to ensure that they all are at appropriate levels to each other, and for a film screening. Is there a future update that will provide 5.1 and 7.1 configurations as presets?
I think the easy solution is to use a regular “home theater” surround sound processor with multi-channel preamp outputs. Hook your media player up to that processor and allow it to do exactly what it is designed to do - process multi-channel surround sound and output them via individual speaker outputs. Then you take the preamp outputs of that processor and incorporate them into your larger PA system as individual inputs. In your case, these outputs could be sent to the AHM system as individual inputs and then sent to the appropriate outputs as needed. Outside of some corrective room EQ (if it is even needed), I would not process the outputs from the surround sound processor any further. Let the processor do its thing.