Sound Devices 788T - Manual (Page 55)

tial measure (exponent of 2), so as bit depth increases, the amount of data it represents increases
exponentially. The majority of fi eld recording is done with 16-bit audio, therefore, each sample is rep-
resented by a digital word of 2^16 (65,536) possible values. 24-bit audio has a word length of 2^24
(16.7 million) possible values per sample.
The 788T has 24-bit analog-to-digital converters. To obtain 16-bit recording the 788T can be set to
dither 24-bit digital signals to 16-bit. The 788T uses a proprietary pseudo-random dither routine
for accurate bit rate reduction. Dither can be defeated in the Bit Depth Setup Menu option. Without
dither, 24-bit audio is truncated to 16-bit, meaning the least signifi cant 8 bits are discarded.
Once a fi le is recorded its sampling rate and bit depth can not be changed in the recorder. File conversion
must be done in another environment, such as an audio workstation.
Audio File Formats
The 788T records audio to the industry-standard Broadcast Wave fi le format, either monophonic or
polyphonic. Additionally, the 788T will also playback fi les in the WAV, MP2, or MP3 formats. The
788T will also read fi les with the .BWF extension.
.WAV
The 788T writes AES-31 Broadcast Wave formatted fi les. The audio fi les created by the 788T include
additional information (Metadata) in the fi le’s header, BEXT (Broadcast Audio Extension) and iXML
data chunks.
See Appendix 2 – Metadata Implementation. Software that does not recognize these ad-
ditional broadcast wave data chunks will simply ignore them.
File Type
The 788T has two fi le type options for recording, WAV mono and WAV poly. Select the fi le type in
the Setup Menu option REC: FILE TYPE.
Monophonic
When WAV Mono is selected, the 788T will generate a separate audio fi le for each recorded track.
The mono fi les generated by the 788T have fi le names similar to T01_1.WAV and T01_2.WAV. The fi le
name suffi xes, _1 and _2, identify the track number of the fi le. If a take contains 10+ mono tracks the
tracks will be suffi xed with _A (10), _B (11), _C (12).
Polyphonic
When WAV Poly is selected, the 788T will generate one audio fi le for each take. All recorded tracks
are interleaved into this single fi le.
Wave Agent Beta allows for the splitting (de-interleaving) of polyphonic fi les and combining (merging or
interleaving) of monophonic sibling fi les into a single polyphonic fi le.
See Wave Agent Beta.
Take Management
A Take is a single recording which is composed of one or more audio fi les.
R
ecording and Playbac
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788T/788T-SSD User Guide and Technical Information
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