Best Format for Audio in VS

[babyleon]

I recently purchased a Zoom H2 digital stereo recorder in an attempt to improve the audio quality to go along with my video. It records in the following formats:

.WAV 16/24bit at 44.1kHz, 48kHz, and 96kHz

as well as

.MP3 Bit rate 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, and 320kbps and BR?with a Sampling frequency of 44.1kHz

I am not proud to say this all means almost nothing to me at this point and I would appreciate learning anything about it or which might be the best audio format(s) to use in conjunction with VS 11.5+ editing.

(It also records 4 channels if I want it to.)

[Clevo]

Wav files are uncompressed.... 16bit at 44.1 is pretty good. 24 bit at 96Khz is studio quality rates.

For Voice only 16bit at 44.1 is enough and for more complicated sounds go higher

Stick to somewhere in between but wav files are superior to MP3 and will cause less trouble than MP3 sound files

[DVDDoug]

It's generally best to work with uncompressed WAV files. 48kHz, 16-bit is standard for DVDs. So, if you are making a DVD, you can stick with those settings and the file won't need to be re-sampled.

If you're recording live, 24 bits can give you more "headroom".

Whenever possible, you should work with uncompressed files, and if you need a compressed final-format, compress as the last step after editing. When you edit an MP3, it has the be decoded first. This takes extra time, and there is a potential loss of quality (with the 2nd encode).

And, if you're working with separate audio files a separate audio editor can often come in handy:
Audacity is FREE!!! (open source).
I use GoldWave ($45 USD). But, it's stereo-only.
Adobe Audition ($350 USD) is also very popular.

.MP3 Bit rate 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256...

I am not proud to say this all means almost nothing to me at this point ...

Higher bitrate = better quality = bigger files. (The same is true for video compression.) The bitrate is given in kbps (kilobits-per-second). This can be converted to megabytes-per-second to find the file size.

MP3 is lossy compression. (Dolby AC3 is also lossy.) Data is thrown-away during the compression process. But it's "smart", and it tries to throw-away data/details that you can't hear.

Opinions vary about how much compression you can use and still get "CD quality". I'd say 224kbps is good enough, and you can usually go lower. (For reference, 48kHz, 16-bit, stereo, uncompressed, is 1536kbps.)

[babyleon]

Thank you both for this very helpful information. I will stick with .wav files when I am recording in the field, at least 48kHz/16bit since I am almost always using it for DVDs. I have recently instyalled Audacity but it looks like there will be a learning curve for me there as well. I think I understand that I can record in higher quality formats and still "edit down" as needed or desired. But I can't "edit up".
And with an 8GB SD card in the recorder, I can record almost 4 hours at 96kHz/24 bits and for my purposes that is plenty.

The recorder can also be used as a USB microphone which I am experimenting with for narrations directly to the mic track in VS11.5+. I am still learning on that as well but it looks like the max for that purpose is 48kHz and the format only .wav So far it seems to be working okay once I made some adjustments for Sound Devices in my computer Control Panel.

I don't know yet if there is a way to connect the recorder as an external mic to my Canon HV30. It has a "Line Out" output as well as the USB mic function but I have yet to experiment with either of them. When I do I will post it on this Forum.

Thanks again for all the information and assistance.

Wayne

[seremetcc]

So can 24-bit 96kHz uncompressed wav files be used as is in VideoStudio Pro X2? I was able to create a project using these files. However, the sound quality was fine when playing each clip individually but there was white noise when playing as a project. I haven't yet burned this to a DVD to see what happens.