16 bit into 24 bit question! ????

S

saxman72

New member
What happens when you plug a 16 bit digital output into a 24 bit digital input?
Does this work at all? Or does it get all messed up?
Does it work ok as long as the sample rate is the same?

What I want to do is take some stuff I have on DAT and transfer it to my computer without going into the analog realm. And for a variety of reasons, I would like to be able to process the resulting files as 24 bits.

Please let me know if this'll work!

Thanks!

:>saxman72<:
 
A digital signal from one source to another will stay at the original resolution and word size unless you specifically run it into a sample rate converter (which changes the word size and sample rate from one format to another). So in your case, the transfer will probably not work unless your computer has some sort of converter built-into the software.

There is a potential downside to using the converter in that it is likely that some level of detail may be lost in the conversion (since there is some imprecision in the math required to transpose the signal samples.) It is arguable about whether the effect is audible or not -- depends on how accurate the converter is.

Bruce Valeriani
Blue Bear Sound

[Edited by bvaleria on 11-05-2000 at 05:40]
 
Bit Rates

I've been told that going from 16 bit to 24 bit the extra bits are just left blank. When going back to 16 bit from 24, the 16 bit recorder cant see the extra information so the last 8 bits are ignored. Please do not take this as gosple. What I do know is that I can record into protools at 24 bit and mix to dat (digital in) at 16 bit with no problem at all.
 
thanks both of you,

jamiecer, have you gone from your DAT digital out to ProTools digital in (at 24 bits)? And if you do, does ProTools just leave the extra 8 bits blank?

thanks,

saxman72
 
You are okay...

If your soundcard is 24 bit, there is no problem feeding a 16 bit word to it. Whatever software you are using to record will let you specify what resolution you are recording at. This is all assuming that you are going into your soundcard via a digital input.

If you are going to go from 24 bit to 16, you will need to dither the 24 bit file to 16 before doing so. If you don't, the last 8 bits will get whacked off, which will cause the 16 bit audio to sound, well, sort of weird. Just make sure you dither to 16 bit.

Good luck.

Ed
 
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