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Will there be quality loss rendering 24 bit to 16 bit?
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 8:41 pm
by samdam1
Please don't delete this thread.
I'm wondering if you were to run off a mix at 24 bit/48k hz and then after mastering, render it to 16 bit/44.1k hz wav, will there be a quality loss? or is it completely fine to change the bit rate?
Cheers, can't find a clear answer anywhere.. :\
Re: Will there be quality loss rendering 24 bit to 16 bit?
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 9:19 pm
by jrisreal
Obviously because the bitrate is lower the quality is lowed as well.
Re: Will there be quality loss rendering 24 bit to 16 bit?
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 12:30 am
by Ricky_Spanish
as long as you use a good dithering algorithm, it's fine.
Re: Will there be quality loss rendering 24 bit to 16 bit?
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 5:15 am
by Sharmaji
yes, there's quality loss. it may or may not be audible. dithering may or may not solve it....
anything commercially released has been rendered down to 16/44.1.
Re: Will there be quality loss rendering 24 bit to 16 bit?
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 8:13 am
by Gurnumsbug
Yes! But why would you want to knock your bitrate down after working in 24?
Re: Will there be quality loss rendering 24 bit to 16 bit?
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 6:35 pm
by Artie_Fufkin
jrisreal wrote:Obviously because the bitrate is lower the quality is lowed as well.
I believe he's talking about bit depth, not bitrate.
Re: Will there be quality loss rendering 24 bit to 16 bit?
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 6:46 pm
by oWLinDaylight
Artie Fufkin wrote:jrisreal wrote:Obviously because the bitrate is lower the quality is lowed as well.
I believe he's talking about bit depth, not bitrate.
Bitrate will be lower if bit depth is lower and the samplerate is the same.
Re: Will there be quality loss rendering 24 bit to 16 bit?
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 8:57 pm
by DRybes
samdam1 wrote:Cheers, can't find a clear answer anywhere.. :\
changing the sample rate changes the highest expressible frequency in the sound. the highest frequency possible is double the sample rate. As long as sample rate is 40khz or above this is essentially a transparent conversion, you can't hear things that high pitched.
changing the bits changes the amount of different possible amplitudes in the sound wave. going from 24-bit to 16-bit you will lose audio data below -96db. The process also introduces harmonic distortion by making the waveform represented more jagged, dithering is used to prevent that from happening, at the cost of adding very quiet background noise to the sound. I don't know how to describe the sound difference; it's a subtraction of the finest details, which is why we do it at the very end of the process.
Re: Will there be quality loss rendering 24 bit to 16 bit?
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 9:02 pm
by Sharmaji
Gurnumsbug wrote:Yes! But why would you want to knock your bitrate down after working in 24?
because cd's are encoded at 16/44.1 .
Re: Will there be quality loss rendering 24 bit to 16 bit?
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 9:59 pm
by jrisreal
Artie Fufkin wrote:jrisreal wrote:Obviously because the bitrate is lower the quality is lowed as well.
I believe he's talking about bit depth, not bitrate.
Yes that's what I meant. Mixed up the name though