Bounce to Movie audio is complete CRAP...why?

[dhelpling]

I LOVE the fact that I can bounce a session in-progress directly to a movie file to send to the client for review, but the audio in any bounced movie sounds like 80kbps mp3/AAC at best. Why is this so, and when can we expect at least 192 kbps audio on bounced movie files?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

That's strange. I do a ton of movie bouncing and the results are always good.

One thing you might try (if you haven't already done so) is render you audio separately (i.e. - add to sequence) then mute your VIs, plugs, MIDI, etc and bounce just a stereo track and the movie. I suspect if you are using a heavy dose of plugs, that could impact the CPU and cause a problem.

[Killahurts]

I LOVE the fact that I can bounce a session in-progress directly to a movie file to send to the client for review, but the audio in any bounced movie sounds like 80kbps mp3/AAC at best. Why is this so, and when can we expect at least 192 kbps audio on bounced movie files?

Hey David, it sounds compressed that way because it is. Since several versions ago, we no longer have the ability to choose the audio quality to the bounced movie. It always applies some kind of compression.. is it IMA? I can't remember, but it is like a 4:1 compression scheme. I think the lost functionality might be on the part of Apple/Quicktime changes, and not DP.

I painstakingly bounce the audio separately and use FCP or something to replace the compressed movie audio. PITA, but it's the only way to not get it to sound crummy with cheap compression. I wish we at least had an option to bounce PCM with the movie, with the project sample rate and bit depth.

We used to be able to use Quicktime Pro to replace audio simply and easily. Apple took that away from us too.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Again, I do this all the time for the most discerning clients (think Oscars...). Never a problem.

[dhelpling]

It is a function of how DP creates the movie file...not what is happening in the session, not a function of Apple or quicktime. It sounds horrible, the air is reduced to phasey noise etc. It is easy to hear and not subtle, but I have been dealing with it for years. It doesn't save on file size and is beyond silly that one of the top composer DAW systems cannot create a decent sounding movie preview. I just wonder why MOTU isn't worried about it. I'm not upset...just always been curious why this feature is so amateur when it really is an outgoing mix of the entire session. I produce music for national television full time...and I cringe at the thought of sending a MOTU bounced movie for a client review. All good - back to work.

[FMiguelez]

So is this a new bad thing with newer versions?

I never had that problem before. All of my work is for national tv broadcast as well. It used to sound identical to a normally bounced WAV file. Did MOTU mess this up?

Fortunately, I don't have to bounce to movie anymore because I changed my workflow a while back for this. I simply bounce normally to audio, and then join the movie and audio files, with all its versions, using QT Pro (thanks for this tip you gave me like a decade ago, MLC )

It's as easy as copy-pasting. And you can reduce the size of the video freely to send.

Either way, if bouncing to movies is so messed up, MOTU must definitely fix it. They tout DP as THE film scoring app, so it should excel at this.

And don't get me started with the kids light version of QuickScribe we still have... Cakewalk 6 (!) had a much better implemented notation editor more than 12 years ago! Sometimes I wonder why MOTU simply doesn't take it away. The way things are, It wouldn't make too much of a difference anyway...

[terrybritton]

Are we talking about two different methodologies for achieving the same result? It seems MLC must be using a different approach than Killahurts and dhelpling.

Terry

[Killahurts]

It always applies some kind of compression.. is it IMA? I can't remember

AAC is actually the compression it applies.

[terrybritton]

It always applies some kind of compression.. is it IMA? I can't remember

AAC is actually the compression it applies.

I thought AAC was considered the absolutely best lossy compression codec out there?
It has definitely become a standard used in video. Its biggest claim to fame is that it sounds good even at very low settings. Something else must be going on here.

Terry

[FMiguelez]

It always applies some kind of compression.. is it IMA? I can't remember

AAC is actually the compression it applies.

I thought AAC was considered the absolutely best lossy compression codec out there?
It has definitely become a standard used in video. Its biggest claim to fame is that it sounds good even at very low settings. Something else must be going on here.

Terry

Agreed.
AAC at 256 should be practically indistinguishable from a regular Wav file, everything else being equal...
None of my friends have EVER passed my blind tests in this respect, even with mp3s at 256.

Are you guys SURE the bounced QT movie's audio is AAC? There were other compression algorithms in the old QT that really sucked and sound like the OP described.

[terrybritton]

Maybe this is helpful (from Wikipedia's QuickTime entry)

"In QuickTime Pro's MPEG-4 Export dialog, an option called "Passthrough" allows a clean export to MP4 without affecting the audio or video streams. QuickTime 7 now supports multi-channel AAC-LC and HE-AAC audio (used, for example, in the high-definition trailers on Apple's site[29]), for both .MOV and .MP4 containers."

Just stabbing around in the dark here, though. (I haven't used QuickTime in years. I still own several licenses and used it a lot).

Terry

[RodneySauer]

My exported movie files sound great. Never noticed problems in the "air" regions or anywhere else, really. I can tell that they're compressed (they're smaller, for one), but the sound is quite good, and very comparable to the project file.