converting 24bit to 16 bit

HerzogisGod

HerzogisGod

Well-known member
how?

my editor only recognizes 16 bit...unfortunately the site I download FX from sometimes only has 24 bit available for a specific effect

how do i down convert?
 
HerzogisGod said:
how?

my editor only recognizes 16 bit...unfortunately the site I download FX from sometimes only has 24 bit available for a specific effect

how do i down convert?
Click to expand...

Most modern NLE's use 32 bit float internally. If your's won't read 24bit files (and that's really unusual - time to upgrade perhaps?) do a quick Google on the freeware editor Audacity and download a copy. It'll load 24 bit files and let you save them as 16 bit wavs.
 
When you convert 24 to 16 bits use dithering, which saves part of the dynamic range (if there was any) which otherwise would be lost by just trucating the last 8 bits.

propably does not make any difference in typical video audio, but...
 
Petrus said:
When you convert 24 to 16 bits use dithering, which saves part of the dynamic range (if there was any) which otherwise would be lost by just trucating the last 8 bits.

propably does not make any difference in typical video audio, but...
Click to expand...

I never realized this, thanks...I most often record to my camera, but I sometimes do it externally, and in those moments always go for 24bit, but eventually have to convert to 16...I'll have to be sure I'm dithering from now on.

Nick "Not Really A Sound Guy, But Occasionally Tries To Act Like One" Walters
 
I hate to suggest this, but the fact is you can often get away just fine with truncation (opening and/or saving a 24 bit file as 16 bit). Using dither is better, but after all, what happens in either case is truncation. Dither just gives the D/A converters something sensible at the bottom of the range to cope with (white noise), as opposed to bits that cut on and off as the information ducks below and then back above -96 db. In most cases, for work that isn't highly critical, you won't hear any quantization distortion anyway. Try it and see if you hear anything wrong. Most of the time you probably won't.

Some of my pro audio colleagues will want to have me burned at the stake for saying this, I'm sure : )
 
Ted Spencer said:
I hate to suggest this, but the fact is you can often get away just fine with truncation (opening and/or saving a 24 bit file as 16 bit).
Click to expand...

:furious3:
A pox on you and your family! You are a bad person and puppies hate you and you make babies cry!
:kali::violent5:


:laugh::laugh::laugh:

(Kidding of course. You don't make babies cry :laugh: )
 
Ted Spencer said:
I hate to suggest this, but the fact is you can often get away just fine with truncation (opening and/or saving a 24 bit file as 16 bit). Using dither is better, but after all, what happens in either case is truncation. Dither just gives the D/A converters something sensible at the bottom of the range to cope with (white noise), as opposed to bits that cut on and off as the information ducks below and then back above -96 db. In most cases, for work that isn't highly critical, you won't hear any quantization distortion anyway. Try it and see if you hear anything wrong. Most of the time you probably won't.

Some of my pro audio colleagues will want to have me burned at the stake for saying this, I'm sure : )
Click to expand...

Though I like a good campfire as much as the next guy... There is actually a fairly good reason to not dither all the time. The general "pro" thought on this is that you only want to dither once. The reason is your adding random noise, very low but still noise, and you don't want to add noise every-time you change the file. And if your working in post your changing the file all the time. Most plugins are working at higher bit depths internally and then "converting" back to whatever your session is etc. Any way the point is that most "pros" don't dither everything when converting. There was such a demand for it that Digidesign released a non dithered mixer for ProTools (back in the MIX days) because people wanted to make sure that the ONLY dithering that was done was done by a plugin of their choice on the output buss.
 
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