OT: DV camcorder audio bit rate

way2slo wrote on 5/14/2003, 4:02 PM

hi all
i have a sony dv PC-3 for almost 5yrs. i recently found out there is a setting changing the audio capture bit rate, it is set at 12 bit by default, i also have another option 16bit. should i set it at 16bit for better audio capture(i guess) , any disadvantage?
another question, when i capture from my dv via firewire, the level is really hot and sometimes clipping, is there anything i can do? or just my camcorder setting?
thanks in advance.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 5/14/2003, 4:09 PM

(ps. this is bit

16 bits will give better quality sound with fuller dynamics, but the difference might not be noticeable to your ears unless you listen very closely. The disadvantage is that you'll only have a single stereo audio track instead of having dual (channel 3 & 4) audio as well. Since you're just noticing the feature now, i doubt you've made use of it in the past so this probably isn't an issue for you.

There is no processing of the audio done when capturing DV. If the signal you capture is clipped, then the recording on the tape was clipped exactly the same. This could be because of the 12 bit recording mode which doesn't offer as large a dynamic range as 16 bits, but the camcorder should have been correcting for that. Try the 16 bits and see if it helps anyway. If you're feeding your camcorder from an external sound source, try turning down the level of that source.

way2slo wrote on 5/14/2003, 4:15 PM

thanks for the quick reply
can you tell me what is channel 3 and 4? as far as i know, i think i have 2 audio channels on my camcorder.
correct me if i m wrong.
thanks

jetdv wrote on 5/14/2003, 4:19 PM

MiniDV allows up to 4 audio channels to be recorded. For example, I can set my XL-1 to 16 bit mode and record 2 channels or set it to 12 bit mode and record up to 4 individual channels (commonly called stereo 1 and stereo 2 OR channels 1 & 2 and channels 3 & 4).

Vegas cannot capture channels 3 & 4. To do that, I use Scenalyzer Live which can capture video + stereo 1 into an AVI file while simultaneously capturing stereo 2 into a separate WAV file.

Not all cameras will support the 4 channel feature.

way2slo wrote on 5/14/2003, 4:33 PM

thanks a lot guys
cheers