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Bit Depth 16 or 24 in this day and age?


chrisbakeruk

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Hey All,

 

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, I could only find a couple posts and they seemed about 15 years old!

 

I've been recording in 48k 16bit as standard for film/tv stuff, but I'm just wondering if this is still the industry standard, or if I should be recording at 24bit?

 

I'm not asking which is technically 'better', as we all know 24bit is the winner, I'm asking what bit depth do you record in? And what is the expected bit depth these days?

 

Thank you all you lovely people!

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24bit, always – 16 bit provides you with 96dB of dynamic range between the noise floor and 0dBFS. 24 bit provides you with 144dB. So yes, you're likely fitting all you need to in the 16bit word, you get so much more room in the 24bit file AND the post production workflow is standardized at that level.

 

Yes, 32bit is more – but the post workflow isn't there yet

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22 minutes ago, Philip Perkins said:

The industry standard is still 24 bit 48k for audio.  Most cameras still record 16/48, so many lower-end projects end up being a mix of the 2, plus whatever mongrel formats (mp4) the editor throws in. 

The two cameras that I use the most, the F55 and Amira are both 24 bit/48Khz.  Even the much less expensive, but insanely popular Fs7 series cameras are 24/48.  Although the original, and also insanely popular, C300 was 16/24.

 

I’d say most modern, “real cameras” are all 24/48(some are even AES compatible) and no one should really have a problem using their audio tracks, especially at line level from the mixer and you don’t exceed the number of camera audio tracks that you can independently feed independent sources to from the mixer(i.e: you’re basically iso tracking in the camera, too, which is easy enough on things like interviews).

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