audio - dat vs. mini dv

[focusgroup]

Hello fellow s8 posters:

This is my first post to the forum. I'm shooting S8 and need to sound sync my project. My camera is a crystal sync Beauliex 4008 ZMII (Loud I know!!). All film will be digitally transferred via a Moviestuff Workprinter.

The question:

What are your opinions re: quality of audio using a timecode dat vs using my DSR 150P sony to record sync sound. Ill be using a sennheiser ME66 on either audio option. I suspect the audio quality of the DAT to be far superior but havent heard conclusive discussion re: this.

Thanks for any input.

George

[crimsonson]

Both are uncompressed audio. It now depends on the circuitry of each equipment. The DAT SHOULD produce better sound since its a dedicated audio equipment. Since it supports TC - I assume its a pro gear- thus still above than normal circuitry.
Its probably also easier to control gain and move the DAT than the camera.

Do a test and see (or hear)
I would definetly go with the DAT.

The mic is a very good mic and excels at about 2-3 feet directly away from the source. Dont use the low cut filter (unless forced to). You can always do that in post.

Good luck

[S8 Booster]

MD definately has a big advantage as the sound takes can be stored as files by name/number references, quickly transferred into a computer by filenames via SCSi interface etc. Simplifies editing much. You won´t hear any real difference between DAT & MD with a HQ mike attached.

MD offers instant access to any soundrack at playback as well.

R

[crimsonson]

I agree with you S8 but

"You won´t hear any real difference between DAT & MD with a HQ mike attached."

I think this is slightly off. For MD to equal DAT the components must be at least be better. A pro field recorder MD is very expensive, might as well go DAT. Second even MD fan site must concede that for high end application DAT is yet unequalled

http://www.minidisc.org/fan_letter.html

MD might be ahead in the prive performance, but DAT is ahead of just plain performance.


third MD field recorder is vulnerable to skipping, another reason pros dont use it.

[jessh]

if it is a decent DAT then it will provide much better results than the camcorder. Most prosumer cameras have really low quality audio circuitry (in comparison to pro audio gear), for most uses it wont make much of a difference but if you want the best quality possible then the DAT will most likely give far better results, of course this is a general assumption and it really depends on the model of the DAT and camera. I would definatly use the DAT.

in reference to crimsonsons post: while MD's do provide really good quality, DAT will provide better quality, MD uses lossy compression, while the quality is still really good, it is not as good as uncompressed audio. also DATs often support higher sample rates and other things that allow them to capture even beter quality audio, not to mention the better audio circuitry and most likely better featrues and interface.

~Jess

[S8 Booster]

Marantz PMD-650

Professional Portable MiniDisc Recorder
Key features

* Frequency Response: 20-20kHz
* Signal to Noise Ratio: >90dB
* XLR mic/line inputs, Digital XLR output
* 48V Phantom power
* SP and LP mode (74 minutes Stereo or 148 Mono)
* One touch recording
* Level Sync Recording (LSR)
* Dual Level Mono recording (Left =0dB, Right=-15dB)
* MiniDisc editing system: Divide, Combine, Move and Erase
* Pre-Rec memory cache
* 20 seconds (40sec mono) audio buffer for shock resistance
* Preset function for customizing settings
* Time & Date stamp
* Pre-UTOC writing at recording start to secure recordings
* 3-way power supply: 8xAA Batteries, Ni-Cad battery or AC adaptor
* Dimensions: 2.2" x 10.4" x 7.3"
* Weight: 2.8 lbs


This is a Microphone Preamp / AD converter designed to reject noise for high quality sound recording and it fits MD/DAT/PC recorders with optical or coaxial digital inputs.

Unit/converter is designed for XLR microphone inputs but there are several items that interconnects between standard JACK unbalanced and XLR balanced systems.




More info: http://www.posthorn.com/Denecke_5.html
http://www.denecke.com/prod04.htm#AD20
http://www.denecke.com/products.htm (lot of film related products)


DENECKE
AD-20 MICROPHONE PREAMPLIFIER AND A/D CONVERTER

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
The AD-20 is a high quality battery operated microphone preamp coupled with a low noise 20 bit ADC. The SPDIF outputs are optical and coaxial and can drive standard consumer DAT machines or computers that accept digital audio I/O cards, such as the Zefiro ZA-2. The main use for the AD-20 is location recording. Most low cost DAT machines have noisy front ends and a good preamp with a higher bit converter can improve the signal to noise by up to 15 dB.

AD-20 Microphone Preampand A/D Converter

FEATURES:

* Long battery life of 8 to 10 hours from one 9 volt battery
* Low noise 125 dB EIN unweighted at max gain (+45 dB)
* Dynamic range at minimum gain (+17 dB) is 97 dB unweighted
* Individual gain pots for left and right
* Low battery indicator LED
* External 9 volt input for studio work
* Optional line input cables with 22 dB pads (10 k input Z)
* 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz, specify when ordering


SPECIFICATIONS:
Size 3" x 5.75" x 1.25"
Weight Approximately 1lb
Input Balanced 3 pin XLR at 10 k
Output SPDIF optical and coaxial
Power 5.5v to 25V at 50 ma


Price: $325

------------------------------------------------------------------------

R

[focusgroup]

Thank you all for responding. Please note that I intend on using a Sony PCM 7010 timecode dat I am purchasing from ebay. It sounds like this may be a good choice although rack mounting and size will make it more of a pain in the field.

thanks for all your responses.

[Big Al]

Both are uncompressed audio. It now depends on the circuitry of each equipment.

Mini disc uses a compression scheme. Here's a quote from an audiophile website:

"The Mini Disc is a Sony invention from the early 90's that was meant to replace the Cassette with a modern digital format. The MD is an small enclosed magneto-optical disk that is used to store a heavily compressed 16 bit audio signal. The use of a lossy compression (1:5 compression of a 44.1KHz 16 bit signal compares unfavorably against the 1:4 compression of an 18 bit 48KHz signal that the outdated Digital Compact Cassette used) means that it's not suitable for professional sound recording but will do just fine as a recreational, A/V support or speech recording device. "

Now, I have used a sharp Mini disc with a lapel mic with excelent results. Even after recording the dialog onto my computer via a mini plug in the line-in on my computer, editing, then recompressing it back to Mini DV, the sound was great, with absolutely no hiss. I turned the volume on my tv all the way up, and I still couldn't hear any hiss. It actually blew me away. I think if your end result will be video, the Mini Disc will outperform your needs.

Regards,

Al

[crimsonson]

"Mini disc uses a compression scheme. Here's a quote from an audiophile website: "

Not to be rude, but the subject line and his first content talks about miniDV cam and DAT - both are uncompressed audio.

MD was not in the discussion until S8 Booster recommended it.

Yes MD is compressed - its called ATRAC. they are now in version 3.5. Might be higher now. The compression is compareable to MP3 in quality.

"I turned the volume on my tv all the way up, and I still couldn't hear any hiss."

Testing audio quality - one should use a loud speaker instead of desktop PC speakers. Even bookshelf speakers perform closer to pro loud speakers.

"I think if your end result will be video, the Mini Disc will outperform your needs."

For home video I would say YES!. But if you are planning to exhibit your work - I would take as much resources possible to better the other half of filmmaking - sound.

[S8 Booster]

There should be noted a few details:

The sound quality difference DAT/MD for recording speech is hardly noticeable in the range of 500Hz to 4kHz (the most senitve range of the human ear - check SQUARE ONE: Quantifying Noise
http://www.squ1.com/index.php?http://ww ... ntify.html for reference),
at least no more than the "accent" added by each type/make/model of each gear tested cosidering the MD and DAT are on equal design quality.

For professional music recording, that is recording off a high quality source, CDs or studio mixer taps etc there might be a difference but not very much.

The difference in sound quality as such should be no issue to dump the MD as it has several other advantages over the DAT like instant track access, fast file copying etc.

Reqarding the kHz sampling issue I did some tests on that a few years ago while connecting my MAC 840 AV to my reasonably xEND Hi-Fi system. The MAC has a built in Sony CD player for which the sampling rate can be changed software vise.


My impressions were:

31 kHz sampling:
Noticeable sound quality reduction from 44 kHz but not so much at the difference in sampling frequency should indicate. Sounded good all over on both classical and rock music.

44 kHz sampling over the 31 kHz.
"Smooth" sound, better top end, better bass resolution.

48 kHz sampling over 44 kHz:
Slightly "smoother"
Classic music: More details, slightly noticeable difference (but better?)
Rock music; Less "punch" and "drive".

This was just a simple one time test, not a very thorough one but I found the results interesting.


My impression is that for ordinary film making less than full feature/Dolby/etc MDs compares favourably with the DAT.

Imported sound files from MDs can get time code burnt-in in post production in editing programs like Adobe Premiere.


About DV audio: (Always uncompressed?)
http://www.cilect.org/DV_Report.htm

DV Audio
DV audio is digitally recorded using either 16 bit or 12 bits per sample. The 16 bit audio is uncompressed, always. The 12 bit mode uses perceptual coding in that larger values are compressed, while smaller values are linearly stored. Thus the 12 bit audio keeps more dynamic range than you might expect, and the distortions added by the compression are largely masked by the volume of the compressed audio.

Sampling rates and bit depths
DV allows the following audio formats:
1. 48 KHz, 16 bits, 2 channels (1 stereo pair), locked or unlocked
2. 32 KHz, 16 bits, 2 channels (1 stereo pair), locked or unlocked
3. 32 KHz, 12 bits, 4 channels (2 stereo pairs), locked or unlocked
4. 44.1 KHz, 16 bits, 2 channels (1 stereo pair), unlocked
Formats 1 and 3 are commonly implemented in DV camcorders, and format 4 is often generated by PC based NLEs. I don’t know of any equipment that generates format 2.

16-bit sound
The term "16-bit" refers to the amount of data recorded and the range of that data (16-bit converted to decimal numbers means that there are 65,536 different numbers that can represent any sample). In DVC, 16-bit sound is the highest quality sound, with the most data for the truest and fullest range of sound.
The sampling rate can be 48 KHz (48 thousand per second), 44.1 KHz or 32 KHz. The choice is up to the manufacturer of the DVC camcorder or VCR. DAT uses 48 KHz sampling and CDs use 44.1 KHZ sampling.
The DV format standard allocates a fixed amount of space on the tape for the sound data, and 16-bit sound fills the entire space - it has more data and needs all the space.

12-bit sound
With 12-bit, the sound quality is just slightly lower, because the amount of data gathered through the sampling and quantization procedures is lower than with 16-bit (4,096 variations for 12-bit compared to 65,536 for 16-bit). The 12 bit sound is sampled at 32 KHz.
Because there is less data, it does not take up all the space available to audio on the tape. Because of this there are two two-channel channels.
The benefits of having 12-bit recording are obvious to those who demand more of their equipment: This will let you use the microphone mounted on the camcorder plus up to two remote mikes, all recording on separate channels, at the same time. At the editing stage, selections can be made for the desired mix for the finished video. Or, if only two channels are
used, the original audio can be left on the tape while new audio (music and narration, for example) can be added without erasing the original sound during the editing process.

About Sound recording on Sony VX2000 / PD-150:
http://www.dirckhalstead.org/issue0007/videosmith.htm

Sadly, both cameras share an identical audio problem. In manual audio there is a discernible, bothersome hiss, even with the input pots turned down. The hiss disappears in AGC. I’m afraid that manual is practically useless.

Sony has this to say about that: "The Sony DCR-VX2000/E camcorder features a newly developed AGC audio level control circuit, optimized to handle the large Dynamic Range of Digital Audio. Design emphasis was given to the task of achieving a significant improvement in Signal to Noise ratio, and to greatly enhance camera audio recording quality. 

Manual Audio level adjustment does not utilize the new AGC circuit. Manual Audio control is primarily provided for extremely loud and limiting sound environments. The conventional Manual Audio Level is comparable to Signal to Noise ratio values commonly found in Sony's comparable consumer digital camcorders. A difference in Signal to Noise Ratio levels between Manual and AGC modes of operation is normal and expected in DCR-VX2000/E. 

Having used a Sony ES-800V for sound recording for commercial releases og theatrical performances using 31 kHz sampling/PCM recording I found this unit superior to most semi to PRO cam sound rcording of the same performance when evaluated.


Why is that?

Because sound quality on dedicated sound recodring gear is usually better due to the fact that the quality of the components and their designs are better and more costly.

You can not simply alway take this for that on specs alone Crimson. Totally wrong that is.


R

[crimsonson]

S8 Booster -

"Because sound quality on dedicated sound recodring gear is usually better due to the fact that the quality of the components and their designs are better and more costly. "


From my first post

"It now depends on the circuitry of each equipment. The DAT SHOULD produce better sound since its a dedicated audio equipment. "


Again - I do not see anyhting I said that contradicts your statments.


Also, you would be hard pressed to find any pro musician, sound engineer, soundperson, etc to pick MD over DAT when cost is about the same. Many musician I know use MD but would switch to DAT in a heartbeat.


"Imported sound files from MDs can get time code burnt-in in post production in editing programs like Adobe Premiere. "

Ahhh - you cant burn in TC in to audio. Burn in TC is term used for video not audio. You can accompany TC with any audio file either by the format (like an OMF) or translating the TC in to audio and add it in one of the channels.

MD does not produce TC, unless I am mistaken.

I have used DAT, MD, BetaSP, etc

DAT has the best audio qualitu
BetaSP is next (an analogue format)
then MD.

[Big Al]

My bad.

[crimsonson]

"My bad."

No harm



BTW- i just did some research -seems like some pro MD gear is using ATRAC 4.5

However, even the latest Sony consumer MD is still using ATRAC version 3.5.