It's All About Audio

(From The Avid Yahoo User's Group)

It's all about audio, folks. Archiving audio is a major issue.

Nowadays, for international distribution productions want to have at least 8 TRACKS. One place requires 10 TRACKS for delivery.

DigiBeta only has 4, so it's not really adequate anymore.

Video quality is pretty much crunched by compression in the distribution channel anyhow, so the important thing is audio.

This is the track configuration of the show I sent to a
DS online on for output to HDCAM SR:

Ch 1: Full Stereo Mix LEFT
CH 2: Full Stereo Mix RIGHT
Ch 3: Stereo Music And FX (M&E) LEFT
CH 4: Stereo Music And FX (M&E) RIGHT
Ch 5: Dialogue, Sound On Tape (SOT)
Ch 6: Narration, VO
Ch 7: Music Only, Stereo Mix LEFT
Ch 8: Music Only, Stereo Mix RIGHT
Ch 9: Music Only, Undipped
(For re-recording narration in a foreign language, since the timing of where the music dips under the VO inevitably changes.)

Ideally, you'd also like to have STEREO SOUND EFFECTS on
Ch 11 and 12. This is becoming more important as the use of SFX as a creative element has grown tremendously in recent years.

We're also getting into a world where you may also need another two tracks for a DOLBY ENCODED 5.1 SOUND MIX, but now we're over the limit even on HDCAM SR which ONLY has 12 tracks.

As you can see, DigiBeta just isn't adequate for international delivery anymore, and IMX barely works (only 8 tracks). That's why companies want HDCAM SR.

It's not about the video, it's about the AUDIO.