View Single Post
  #3  
Old October 14th, 2001, 11:24 AM
geezer geezer is offline
Frequent Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Martinsburg, WV
Posts: 181
More tales of 24bit

While the CD I burned in the thread above was strictly for personal audition and experimentation (No copies distributed, Charles!), I've been doing a lot of DVD work in the last year and a half, with CDs recently as spinoff product.

DVDs are native 24bit, and all of my surround and stereo mixes for these have been 24bit since day one. They have also been almosty exclusively at 48k sampling rate, which is the native rate for digital video.....This has raised some interesting questions when it comes time to produce a CD at 16bit/44.1.

Since I can't stay all-digital at 48k and use the internal MTU math to dither down, I've chosen to do an external analog conversion/mastering and dithering pass all at once. This has worked well, but probably only because I'm doing all of my editing at 24bit in MTU first.....This is incredibly important, and was really noticable sonically in the final product. (Most recent: "Kenny Rankin- Haven't We Met?" Image Entertainment) MTU's editing quality is noticably better than anything I have used or see available on the market, and, without buying some esoteric custom-built 72bit mastering system, I am unlikely to find anything else that sounds as good.

So, I guess my point is this: It is important to stay digital for as much of the process as you can, and it is important to try to do all of your 24bit work in MTU if you can....It really makes a difference.

---------

THE 24BIT SURROUND FUTURE AND MTU:

----All of the DVD work I am doing is ultimately in 5.1 surround and 24bit.....Because MTU does not have a 6channel digital I/O mechanism, this has created some highly problematic situations for me.

I have been toying with Nuendo, and should have a functional Nuendo setup with RME I/O shortly. I can tell, however, that I am NEVER going to be satisfied with any other program to do the bulk of the work I can do with MicroEditor. On the other hand, Nuendo does talk to the MX2424 and Avid and ProTools, which, of course MTU will never do.....Is there a solution? I think I'm starting to see one, based on Charles' discovery that MTU files are standard 32bit IEE, and can be imported and exported with Cool Edit:

File sharing is the key. As long as the various programs can read the files, then using whichever program you need as a "way station" (weigh? station) while working on them should work as long as you keep them in the 32bit format....This involves no digital, real-time transfers and the subsequent potential clocking and syncing errors between tracks, and should work as long as the time code lock can be maintained in the program that will ultimately spit the product out to tape.

The questions:
--While it is clear that Cool Edit (and probably Nuendo) can read MTU files, will MTU be able to read the files from the other program if they are in the 32bit IEE format? Is there any kind of file header or naming trick needed to do this?

---The Broadcast.wav format has become the defacto PC format for MX2424, Nuendo and, I believe, the PC version of ProTools. It is my understanding that this is nothing more than a .wav file with a time-stamping mechanism built in. Does anyone understand how this works? What is the possibility of of MTU reading the time stamp? Will opening a Broadcast.wav file in MTU alter the time stamp? Is there any impediment to opening a 24bit Broadcast.wav file in MTU?

---Barring use of a Broadcast.wav time stamp, are there any other ideas for maintianing sample-accurate lock to time code locations when file sharing?

Knowing the file conversion capabilities of Nuendo and Cool Edit, it seems highly likely that file sharing will work once I know the answers to the above questions and can figure out the "to-from directional protocols" with the different systems. I'm still 2 to 3 weeks away from being able to devote any serious time to testing, and would love feedback from anyone out there who can answer some of these questions.

It also seems to me that this path (i.e.- understanding file sharing and interactivity) is the only route available for "saving" MicroEditor as a competitive, modern product in the marketplace. I would think this would merit some serious attention on the part of the MTU staff, and would seem, in my opinion, to be an elegant and relatively inexpensive solution to the whole multitrack, native and plugin problem that has been plaguing marketing for MicroEditor for the last few years.....I don't see any other programs that are developing into the incredible, high powered editor that MTU has, but I also don't see any other way for MTU to avail itself of the multitrack and plug-in features that are out there.

What does everyone else think?
Reply With Quote