Support for 96K sample rates?

[JeffG]

Hello,

Was just curious about what it would take or if there are any plans to allow support for 96K sample rates. We've got 24bit and up to 48K, are there any plans for this? I can always get a converter, but I was just curious. Curious to anyone's thoughts!

Thanks,

Jeff

[admin]

We have studied this. The cost to modify the underlying code, and get it off of the Krystal DSP card would exceed $250,000 and take several years.

Thus, it is not economically feasible, and MTU has no plans to do this. I wish it were different, but the market is just not there to pay for the development.

[geezer]

In my opinion, 96k will eventually become a necessity for some projects. This will take awhile yet, however, and is going to initially be limited to certain high end projects, mostly for SACD (whcih will still have to be converted again to DSD) and DVD-A.

I've been doing mostly DVD work for the last 3 years or so, and have not had it requested of me yet. I will probably choose to record a couple of projects on my own at 96k this year, however, including transferring some archival material to this format from analogue....my new digital mixer is fully 96k compliant, so I'm going to see if I hear the difference.

I will be doing this with either Nuendo or MX2424 (most likely MX).

The real brick walls for MicroEditor are 96k and multichannel output , but I think I still see its usefulness ( even if via converters) for some time yet.....It is still the best at fast turnaround, quality stereo editing at up to 24/48....It really shines at radio production, sfx and CD editing.

[JeffG]

Geezer,

Thanks for the post. I have yet to have it requested of me as well, just trying to be prepared a little. My situation in some cases presently, for mastering, is that I'll get a 24bit 96K CD24 Masterlink disc. It would be nice to keep it in that 96K realm to the computer and then downsample and dither to create redbook cd's. I master into the computer through outboard gear. I was thinking of picking up a z-sys realtime 96K sr converter, do you have any insight on that piece of gear or any other sr converters?

I still wish they would implement Power R dithering... any news on that front?

What software do you use for your dvd authoring? Curious to what sample rates and bit lengths your using, or being requested of by clients?

Take care Geezer,

Jeff

[geezer]

.....Prior to the project I have just finished, all of the authoring was being done at the label....I was, and still am, sending them timecoded DTRS tapes (8tracks: 2 stereo, 6 for the 5.1) of 24 bit , 48k, no encoding. The label uses the Spruce authoring system.

The latest project , a promotional DVD for my brother's guitar company (PRS), we did entirely "in house" using Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro on a colleague's Mac. The audio was simple stereo at 16/48 and AC3 encoded.
Albeit fairly high quality, you would still consider this an "industrial" quality product, unlike the the concert DVDs I have been doing for Image Entertainment.

I expect that I will start seeing the need to pre-encode DTS and Dolby Digital files over the next year or so on the in-house stuff.

SRC is, in my opinion, only just starting to work in the digital domain. I still don't trust it, and have been using D-A, A-D to get there until now (TC6000)....My new Yamaha console has extensive SRC, however, and I plan to test it soon.....SRC does seem to work better when simply halving or doubling.

Z-Sys certainly has a good rep, but I have not heard their SRC.

I think I would tend to process 96k stuff that will wind up on CD externally from the MTU rig.