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The future of digital recording formats


JonG

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We have luckily been able to keep 24 bit 48 kHz recording a standard, which has prolonged the lifespan of our equipment, and not rendered it obsolete like the "resolution wars" that the camera companies are having. But I am curious how long that will last. 

A friend of mine and I, both hifi enthusiasts, found common ground with vinyl records. Then, an off handed comment on my part brought us to quarter inch tape being our medium of choice. Now we are venturing into DSD, because frankly, we don't want to wear out our tapes, lol. This got me thinking: what if DSD recording became the norm for us? A recent chat with our resident Tascam representative yielded the fact that all or most AD converters start with a DSD encoder, but the data is then processed into a wav file after that point. I could have my facts wrong here, so please step in and correct me if you know more about this. 

But my thought is this: if we are to supply the highest quality raw recordings that we can, would it make sense to supply something of higher quality than what the end format would be?

Food for thought. I am interested in your opinions!

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I doubt file size will ever be a limitation for us, we will always be smaller than the associated picture.  I think if we end up changing our recording format from PCM to dsd or other, it will be driven by the delivery format, not because of any benefits in production.  If online streaming, or the next media delivery format adopted a dsd spec, then we might start seeing some demand for it, for the foreseeable future, I doubt linear PCM is going anywhere.

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I recently picked up a copy of The Absolute Sound hifi magazine so I could have a laugh at the outrageous prices and claims: you know- $3000 speaker cables, $60,000 turntables! etc. One trend caught my eye though, a new codec called MQA (you can google it, I don't have a link). Essentially it's a way to encode metadata from production to delivery which can be applied to files purportedly making significant improvements on all playback platforms. lots of gobbledygook to wade through in the explanation of the theory, but it looks to be picked up by a lot of the majors from record companies to equipment manufacturers. I guess it's a lossless compression scheme with benefits. stay tuned for this one.

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34 minutes ago, Wandering Ear said:

I doubt file size will ever be a limitation for us, we will always be smaller than the associated picture.  I think if we end up changing our recording format from PCM to dsd or other, it will be driven by the delivery format, not because of any benefits in production.  If online streaming, or the next media delivery format adopted a dsd spec, then we might start seeing some demand for it, for the foreseeable future, I doubt linear PCM is going anywhere.

I hope so. 

When I took over mixing Law & Order, the show had already switched from 1/4 tape to WAV file recording, having skipped DAT. I think between me and the previous two mixers, we used a wide variety of non-linear recorders: PD-6, DEVA, DV824, 788T. But post always had us record in 16 Bit due to how they were transferring it. 

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There's an interesting AES paper from 2004 that does double-blind tests comparing DSD vs PCM:

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=12799

Here's the abstract:
"To study perceptual discrimination between two digital audio coding formats, 'Direct Stream Digital' and high resolution (24-bit, 176.4 kHz) PCM, subjective listening comparison tests were conducted with specially recorded sound stimuli in stereo and surround. To guarantee their reliability, validity and objectivity, the double-blind ABX tests followed three main principles: The signal chain should be based on identical audio components as far as possible; these components should be able to convey very high audio frequencies; and the test population should consist of various groups of subjects with different listening expectations and perspectives. The results showed that hardly any of the subjects could make a reproducible distinction between the two encoding systems. Hence it may be concluded that no significant differences are audible."

So, personally, I don't think we will be changing to DSD any time soon. That said, I do agree with Kelsey. Delivery formats will dictate our workflow and media above anything. If in the future a new medium that somehow presents any benefits over what we currently use for video production comes out and uses DSD, it is possible for us to see a change over to DSD.

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There's an interesting AES paper from 2004 that does double-blind tests comparing DSD vs PCM:

http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=12799

Here's the abstract:

"To study perceptual discrimination between two digital audio coding formats, 'Direct Stream Digital' and high resolution (24-bit, 176.4 kHz) PCM, subjective listening comparison tests were conducted with specially recorded sound stimuli in stereo and surround. To guarantee their reliability, validity and objectivity, the double-blind ABX tests followed three main principles: The signal chain should be based on identical audio components as far as possible; these components should be able to convey very high audio frequencies; and the test population should consist of various groups of subjects with different listening expectations and perspectives. The results showed that hardly any of the subjects could make a reproducible distinction between the two encoding systems. Hence it may be concluded that no significant differences are audible."

So, personally, I don't think we will be changing to DSD any time soon. That said, I do agree with Kelsey. Delivery formats will dictate our workflow and media above anything. If in the future a new medium that somehow presents any benefits over what we currently use for video production comes out and uses DSD, it is possible for us to see a change over to DSD.

They did the same test when the mp3 format started out. Same result.

The point of DSD, I believe, is not so much that it is a higher quality file format. Rather, it is possible to convert down to most common sample rates from its 384kHz (or whatever the exact number). Following Nyquist a sample rate higher than even 44.1 doesn't make much sense, except for non-aural purposes (computer manipulation). But there is no way that we could hear the difference between a 48k and a 96k file, assiming all other factors are identical.

So there may not even be a need for other formats, unless something really different comes out, with the differences not being the sample rate/bit depth, but something else

That said, I do agree with Kelsey. Delivery formats will dictate our workflow and media above anything. If in the future a new medium that somehow presents any benefits over what we currently use for video production comes out and uses DSD, it is possible for us to see a change over to DSD.

I agree, if delivery format means: "at least as good or better". Delivery format could be a company's website or someone's Youtube channel.

There are so many delivery formats that there is no choice, than to accept the common ground that is at least equal or one better. With our current 24bit 48k standard we are stuck in the uncomressed DVD age, which is not too bad.

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