Do RED cameras compress input audio

[Linda Barzini]

A sound guy told me that frequently cameras compress audio so it is better to match time code in post. Is this true for RED cameras? For example, if audio from lavs or an F4 went through an A-box, would it be lower quality than just out of an F4?

 

[Phil Holland]

Nope. RED DSMC2 cameras record up to four stereo channels of uncompressed 24-bit, 48KHz audio.

Dedicated audio recorders can do more than that for instance, like 96KHz recording. But to answer the question, uncompressed.

 

[Sabovic Adis]

A sound guy told me that frequently cameras compress audio so it is better to match time code in post. Is this true for RED cameras? For example, if audio from lavs or an F4 went through an A-box, would it be lower quality than just out of an F4?

F4s got (switchable) limiters built in. So yes, they (can) compress. Severely.

Advanced onboard limiters provide overload protection which lets you capture audio in a wide range of dynamic sound environments. Limiting can be applied to all four channels simultaneously at full resolution, with 10 dB of headroom and controls for setting threshold, attack, and release.

 

[Noah Yuan-Vogel]

I wouldn't worry about audio formats as most semi-pro and pro cameras record uncompressed 48khz 16b audio... my understanding is that the main difference in sound quality between internal camera recording vs a dedicated sound recording device is usually pre-amp noise... I think the internal camera audio is usually noisier and more susceptible to interference partly due to the extremely high density of electronic parts that introduce electrical interference to the cameras analog audio inputs. The digital recording format specs and compression is just the very last piece of the chain, so there are plenty of other places for the signal to be degraded by your mixing and recording device even if comparing identical digital storage formats.

 

[Steve DiMaggio]

I use a dpa mic, to lectorsonic wireless directly into my Epic-W. Sounds great, put a good signal into and your fine, just like your lenses, crap in crap out

steve

 

[Stacey Spears]

I guess you should qualify what you mean by compress. Dynamic range compression or file size compression. Two entirely different forms of compression.

e.g. Phil is talking about file size compression while Šabović Adis is talking about dynamic range compression, at least it looks like it based on the limiters comment.

 

[Paul Russell]

Red's Limiters aren't very good. Better to leave a bit more headroom.

 

[Sabovic Adis]

I guess you should qualify what you mean by compress. Dynamic range compression or file size compression. Two entirely different forms of compression.

e.g. Phil is talking about file size compression while Šabović Adis is talking about dynamic range compression, at least it looks like it based on the limiters comment.

I can explain:

Linda said "sound guy", so, naturally, it's about DR. :Angel_anim:

:rofl: