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Penteo UpMaster^TM : Premium Re-Mastering Services

Many people have asked us how our re-mastering process works. John Wheeler, Penteo's founder, explains:

"Let's assume you want us to process a legacy analog recording from the 1960s, such as Simon & Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence, as we did for the film Watchmen. We first listen to your entire recording to make sure that it transferred correctly. Next we listen to it using our own internal version of Penteo so that we can correct any minor left vs. right balance errors. Penteo requires a left vs. right balance accuracy at a level that nothing heretofore has ever required.

We also carefully analyze the high frequency waveforms that are common in both the left and right channels to correct any possible time-base alignment errors.

Keep in mind that everything we've done to this point is still in stereo. Basically we're taking an analog recording and correcting it in two dimensions: left vs. right balance, and left vs. right timing (time-base correction). The resulting stereo intermaster is as rock-solid and stable as if the recording had been mastered to a digital recorder, before digital recorders even existed.

The result so far is a super-stable stereo master. In and of itself, this stereo master is ideal for audiophile-quality stereo releases that sound better and are more stable on headphones than any previous release of this material. We then perform the actual Penteo parsing or sound separation process. This process results in three sets of stereo outputs: one for the front stereo speakers, a second for the rear stereo speakers, and one pair that is made up of the center channel paired with the LFE channel (the subwoofer channel).

Then, depending on your desired output format, the output can be returned as four stereo files (fronts, rears, center/LFE, original stereo), or it can be multiplexed into a single multi-channel file. We can deliver these files to you via secure-FTP, disc, or other media."

Penteo/RT^TM : Broadcast Appliance

Penteo/RT is designed to do exactly the same thing that we do in our file based processing, but it's done in a real-time situation as the signal is broadcast from a TV or radio network. In essence, the Penteo/RT appliance 'makes two sounds into five' on the fly.

Many people may ask why would you need a 5.1 up mixer in the production of a live television show. The truth is most live television shows are produced under extreme pressure and often in mix rooms or trucks that do not have ideal monitoring conditions. The last thing that a live mixer needs to worry about is exactly where various sounds will show up in the final 5.1 panorama while at the same time worrying about down-mix compatibility.

Our Penteo/RT box provides every possible input/output method used in modern production. It provides analog, AES/EBU, and S/PDIF inputs and outputs. In addition, it can word sync to an external source or video.