DA-38 TDIF Data Transfer

[cusebassman]

Farview was kind enough to pass along a Sek'd Prodif T 2496 PCI card which has two TDIF inputs and DTRS sync connections. I've got a Tascam DA-38 connected to the TDIF-1 connection and the sync cable hooked up.

Everything is going good - Cubase sees the individual TDIF inputs, I've got the clock set correctly, and audio is coming in correctly when I play a tape and record to 8 tracks in Cubase.

My question is, since the DA-38 tapes contain 16-bit 44kHz audio, should I set the Cubase project to record at 16-bit, or will recording to 24-bit suffice / for some reason be better?

 

[Farview]

The answer depends on if you are going to be doing any destructive (offline) processing or not. If you are, record at 24 bit. If you aren't, it simply doesn't matter.

Cubase does all it's calculations at 32 bit float no matter what the audio file is. The only time it makes a difference is if you actually change the file by processing and saving it.

You might as well just use 24 bit, it won't hurt anything, it doesn't take that much more hard drive space and it could come in handy later.

 

[cusebassman]

Ditto, I'll stick with 24-bit. Thanks for all your help on this - these tapes would've likely sat until they were unusable otherwise