Force playback to 16 bit

bitrot wrote on 1/18/2001, 10:45 AM
For those of us with 16 bit sound cards, CoolEdit pro has a
very cool feature when it comes to tackling clipping during
tracking: you can record at a 32 bit depth, save files in
24 bit format, and if the "force playback to 16 bit" is
checked, you can listen to the files. During all
transformations, you get the benefit of having more bits to
lose during rounding errors with FFT's. You may not _hear_
what's really there, but you have more information to work
with when rendering down and dithering.

Does Vegas Video have this capability? The one thing that
makes VV kick ass over CEPro is that it's more like a real
mixing environment, track-level non-destructive plugins,
etc. I have read the help files and found nothing about it,
so I conclude it does not, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Does Nuendo have this ability?

If I could force playback to 16 bit but record at higher
bit depths like CEPro, then I would be in cheapo-heaven
(cheapo because I won't have to buy a 24 bit sound card!)

any thoughts? bear in mind I do understand from a
developers perspective how CEP differs from Vegas when it
comes to processing audio: CEP does background rendering to
disk, which then feeds to memory, so it only spits out one
stereo wave file during playback, whereas vegas is mixing
in memory as playback occurs. but being able to force
playback to 16 bit, but recording at greater bit depths
would allow me to not worry about clipping, which would be
killer.

Comments

Rednroll wrote on 1/18/2001, 12:46 PM
Actually Vegas tackles this much easier than CEP. When you
start a project in Vegas there is a default properties page
where you tell it what bit depth the project is and what
the sample rate will be. You can put a 16bit 44.1khz,24bit
44.1khz, 8bit 48khz,24bit 48khz..etc., wave files all on
the same track and Vegas will playback and output 16 bit
44.1khz (if that's what you tell it to be in the default
properties), all in realtime playback.

Now that you know how to do that, my question is, If you
have a 16bit soundcard, how do you plan on recording at
24bit? So your entire reasoning is kind of confusing here?

bitrot wrote:
>>For those of us with 16 bit sound cards, CoolEdit pro has
a
>>very cool feature when it comes to tackling clipping
during
>>tracking: you can record at a 32 bit depth, save files in
>>24 bit format, and if the "force playback to 16 bit" is
>>checked, you can listen to the files. During all
>>transformations, you get the benefit of having more bits
to
>>lose during rounding errors with FFT's. You may not
_hear_
>>what's really there, but you have more information to
work
>>with when rendering down and dithering.
>>
>>Does Vegas Video have this capability? The one thing
that
>>makes VV kick ass over CEPro is that it's more like a
real
>>mixing environment, track-level non-destructive plugins,
>>etc. I have read the help files and found nothing about
it,
>>so I conclude it does not, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
>>Does Nuendo have this ability?
>>
>>If I could force playback to 16 bit but record at higher
>>bit depths like CEPro, then I would be in cheapo-heaven
>>(cheapo because I won't have to buy a 24 bit sound card!)
>>
>>any thoughts? bear in mind I do understand from a
>>developers perspective how CEP differs from Vegas when it
>>comes to processing audio: CEP does background rendering
to
>>disk, which then feeds to memory, so it only spits out
one
>>stereo wave file during playback, whereas vegas is mixing
>>in memory as playback occurs. but being able to force
>>playback to 16 bit, but recording at greater bit depths
>>would allow me to not worry about clipping, which would
be
>>killer.
>>
>>
SonyEPM wrote on 1/18/2001, 4:55 PM
Creating a gleaming beam of light over text: First, create
4 video tracks.
-----------------------

Starting with a "base" track, track 4, add some video-
the "gleaming" text will be superimposed over this.
------------------------
On the next track up, track 3, add a text event. Use a bold
font, like "impact", size 300. Make the text blue.
-----------------------
On the track above that (track 2), copy/paste the text
event from track 3. (Choose "copy" radio button after
pasting so its a new piece of media with matching
attributes.) Change the text in this event only to white.

Click the "Make compositing child" button- this links
tracks 2 and 1 into a parent-child composite stack (top
track is aplpha channel).
-----------------------
On the track above that, (track 1), insert a generated
media event, white color. Go into the pan crop dialog,
uncheck "stretch to fill frame", squeeze the marquee into a
rectangle shape, rotate it 45 degrees.

Move this rotated rectangle to the upper left corner- make
that keyframe 1. Put a second keyframe at the end of this
event, and move the rotated rectangle to the lower right
corner. Now the rotated rectangle will move from upper-left
to lower-right when the event is played.

This is the alpha channel for the track below, so track 1
is cutting the hole, and track 2 is filling the hole.

--------------------
Play it all back- you should see a white diagonal bar
wiping across the blue text. You can add a gaussian blur to
the track 1 event and change the color on the track 2 event
for even cooler effects.

Yes, it takes awhile to figure this out the first time, but
once you got the concepts down you can begin to take
advantage of Vegas' advanced compositing features.

Experiment!



barbara dulick wrote:
>>Do you have suggestion for way to get a ray of light
shooting across text (like in many commercials,
>>music videos, etc.) Do I need an external animation
program, or can you suggest a VV method?. I've
>>tried keyframing some effects but it doesn't zing across
or look as cool as I want it to.
>>
>>Hope you're not sick of my questions. I'm coming to end
of long project and trying to put some xtras in
>>it.
bitrot wrote on 1/25/2001, 10:35 AM
I know about setting the project preferences. But when you set this,
I think that not only are you setting the playback bit depth, you are also setting the default recording
bit depth. I haven't found a way to specify, per track, what the recording bit depth should be.

You may not be aware of CEP's ability to record 32 bit files using a 16 bit sound card, which is what I
have done. My card may not be sending 32 bits of information, but I can record this way in CEP with
no concerns for clipping. I have other reasons in my setup to be able to _record_ at 24/32 bits using
my midiman audiophile, but _playback_ the material through my sblive at 16 bit.

maybe that clears the confusion.

So my original question remains unanswered: how do I force recording at 24 bits for all tracks, but
force all playback for all tracks at 16 bits for my sblive bus? Is this possible?

thanks!

Brian Franz wrote:
>>Actually Vegas tackles this much easier than CEP. When you
>>start a project in Vegas there is a default properties page
>>where you tell it what bit depth the project is and what
>>the sample rate will be. You can put a 16bit 44.1khz,24bit
>>44.1khz, 8bit 48khz,24bit 48khz..etc., wave files all on
>>the same track and Vegas will playback and output 16 bit
>>44.1khz (if that's what you tell it to be in the default
>>properties), all in realtime playback.
>>
>>Now that you know how to do that, my question is, If you
>>have a 16bit soundcard, how do you plan on recording at
>>24bit? So your entire reasoning is kind of confusing here?
>>
>>bitrot wrote:
>>>>For those of us with 16 bit sound cards, CoolEdit pro has
>>a
>>>>very cool feature when it comes to tackling clipping
>>during
>>>>tracking: you can record at a 32 bit depth, save files in
>>>>24 bit format, and if the "force playback to 16 bit" is
>>>>checked, you can listen to the files. During all
>>>>transformations, you get the benefit of having more bits
>>to
>>>>lose during rounding errors with FFT's. You may not
>>_hear_
>>>>what's really there, but you have more information to
>>work
>>>>with when rendering down and dithering.
>>>>
>>>>Does Vegas Video have this capability? The one thing
>>that
>>>>makes VV kick ass over CEPro is that it's more like a
>>real
>>>>mixing environment, track-level non-destructive plugins,
>>>>etc. I have read the help files and found nothing about
>>it,
>>>>so I conclude it does not, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
>>>>Does Nuendo have this ability?
>>>>
>>>>If I could force playback to 16 bit but record at higher
>>>>bit depths like CEPro, then I would be in cheapo-heaven
>>>>(cheapo because I won't have to buy a 24 bit sound card!)
>>>>
>>>>any thoughts? bear in mind I do understand from a
>>>>developers perspective how CEP differs from Vegas when it
>>>>comes to processing audio: CEP does background rendering
>>to
>>>>disk, which then feeds to memory, so it only spits out
>>one
>>>>stereo wave file during playback, whereas vegas is mixing
>>>>in memory as playback occurs. but being able to force
>>>>playback to 16 bit, but recording at greater bit depths
>>>>would allow me to not worry about clipping, which would
>>be
>>>>killer.
>>>>
>>>>