Subject:two ways of converting bit-depth ?

Posted by: Sebastian___

Date:3/2/2005 2:47:42 AM

When I have to convert a bit-depth to 16 bit or a 16 bit to 24 bit, i go to Process / Bit-Depth Converter. But I have a friend working in a music studio and he does something different for years. He double-click at the bottom of the page where the bit-depth of the file is displayed and simply change it in other values. he says it's better that way because the change is instant. If you go to Process/Bit-Depth Converter you have to wait a little until the Sound Forge process something. But I said to him that waiting is surely mean that the quality is much higher that way. So...how is it actually ? Why there is two ways to convert a bit-depth ...and in one of them the change is instant ?

Subject:RE: two ways of converting bit-depth ?

Reply by: mpd

Date:3/2/2005 5:37:55 AM

If you are going from 24 to 16 bit, then you always want to do the Process -> Bit-Depth Converter so you can add dither.

Subject:RE: two ways of converting bit-depth ?

Reply by: Sebastian___

Date:3/2/2005 10:22:20 AM

Yes, but why there is a waiting if you convert with Process -Bit Depth Converter, even if you don't add dither ?

Subject:RE: two ways of converting bit-depth ?

Reply by: Sonic

Date:3/2/2005 11:23:46 AM

If you use the Bit-Depth Converter tool, that is when Sound Forge actually writes new samples to a file (but not *the* file). If you use the status bar or file properties, Sound Forge converts to this bit-depth on the fly as data is read from the file. The actual converted samples don't make it to a destination file until you save.

This is all marginally obfuscated by exactly which kinds of processing you are doing and whether the floating-point temp file pref is enabled, among other things. Suffice it to say, if you aren't adding dither or noise shaping, there's little reason to use the Bit-Depth Converter.

J.