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Comment by nwhitehead

14 years ago

The article doesn't suggest only using 48kHz for recording and mixing. I don't think the author would disagree that recording triangles is difficult. He would argue that once you've decided what final audible frequencies you want to present to the listener, the best way to distribute them is at 16-bit 44.1/48kHz. It's a compelling case.

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nwhitehead

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newman314  14 years ago

What if you want to sample the song later?

That's one thing I find concerning with the move to digital. With analog media, you can go back, re-record and get an improved result (provided the source is good) but District 9 (which was shot on Red One) will never have improved quality other than resampling because the source is set to a particular digital format with associated data quality.

  • shabble  14 years ago

    There seems to be some strange idea that analogue means 'infinite detail'. In this particular case, there's no significant difference between being limited by the original digital recording resolution and the grain size of a film recording.

    "[...] provided the source is good" is begging the question; it's no different from saying "District 9 could be better if they hadn't recorded in 4k (or whatever the Red One was using) and downsampled it for my DVD" The nature of the source is irrelevant, barring the fact that film might provide a higher resolution, if film scanning technology increases, and you can afford to both capture on film, process and store your film properly (archiving film is rather difficult, I believe), and get the best quality digitisation possible.

    • newman314  14 years ago

      Obviously, I am not claiming infinite detail. There is going to be a limit based on the grain and the size of the film (35mm, Super, IMAX). 65mm film shot is going to be of higher quality than what digital is capable of today.

      While I have no doubt that digital will eventually catch up and surpass film, there inevitably is going to be a transition period where quality films were recorded (let's just say at 2k) where the input is constrained and extrapolation be the only available option.

      4k is the current state of the art. It will not be so forever and because it's recorded at 4k, we can't go back and extract more dynamic range due to the limitation of the sensor. Whereas you can go back, redigitize an IMAX film (say Chronos shot in 1985) that is in good condition and get way more info than something shot on 4k yesterday.

      TL;DR IMO input still absolutely matters. 35mm is not the upper limit. We went through this with photography and am now doing the same with video/film.

      EDIT: After thinking more about it, here's a more extreme example. I purchased a Kodak DC20 back in the 90s (early adopter yay!), even if the camera had decent glass, there's no way I can go back to an image captured by that camera and magically get the equivalent of 22mp 5D camera by resampling. If I had used a film camera, I can get a much improved scan.

      EDIT2: Here's a good example. Slumdog Millionaire was mostly shot on a SI-2K which recorded at 2k. You can't go back and get 4k output on the digital portions. So generations later, we will be stuck enjoying an Academy Award winning film at that level of quality.

      http://www.siliconimaging.com/DigitalCinema/News/PR_01_31_09...

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cmer  14 years ago

I completely disagree with the article having heard the difference many times myself. You can't record at 192kHz and hope to keep the same quality by distributing the final mix in 44.1kHz. It just doesn't work that way.