best audio format
- Thread starter reggalado
- Start date
SMuir
Well-known member
The audio format you work with really depends on what you're doing with the files you're making.
If the video file you're creating is to be used as a video master, then I suggest you opt for either uncompressed video and audio, or lossless video compression and uncompressed audio. Different distribution formats use quite different compression techniques, and its generally wise to avoid re-compressing comressed video (the result is similar to a generational loss in analogue video). Audio is usually a tiny fraction of the bandwidth required for video, so you might as well keep that uncompressed in the format of your source material (eg. 24-bit 48 kHz). Never up-convert when you can down-convert.
If you're printing the video back onto a MiniDV tape, you're looking at uncompressed 16-bit 48kHz stereo audio with video that uses some variation on the DV/DVCpro CODEC. How you interleave it with the video data is largely a matter of taste, since uncompressed 16-bit/48 kHz/stereo audio will remain essentially unchanged as you move it from one digital format to another. For ease of use, try to render to a file format that is directly supported by the software with which you plan to print the DV stream to tape.
Some high-definition video formats employ lossy data compression (eg. MPEG-2) on their audio tracks, which makes them a bit dodgy for video mastering. After all, once you discard that audio data, its gone for good. Streaming video formats also frequently use data compression to reduce the bandwidth needed for audio.
If the video file you're creating is to be used as a video master, then I suggest you opt for either uncompressed video and audio, or lossless video compression and uncompressed audio. Different distribution formats use quite different compression techniques, and its generally wise to avoid re-compressing comressed video (the result is similar to a generational loss in analogue video). Audio is usually a tiny fraction of the bandwidth required for video, so you might as well keep that uncompressed in the format of your source material (eg. 24-bit 48 kHz). Never up-convert when you can down-convert.
If you're printing the video back onto a MiniDV tape, you're looking at uncompressed 16-bit 48kHz stereo audio with video that uses some variation on the DV/DVCpro CODEC. How you interleave it with the video data is largely a matter of taste, since uncompressed 16-bit/48 kHz/stereo audio will remain essentially unchanged as you move it from one digital format to another. For ease of use, try to render to a file format that is directly supported by the software with which you plan to print the DV stream to tape.
Some high-definition video formats employ lossy data compression (eg. MPEG-2) on their audio tracks, which makes them a bit dodgy for video mastering. After all, once you discard that audio data, its gone for good. Streaming video formats also frequently use data compression to reduce the bandwidth needed for audio.