KHz and bit depth in HD film and computer playback?

Question

I just made a song for a talkshow we're making. I made it in Ableton Live 48kHz in MIDI. Most of my libraries is recorded in 24bit/96kHz. When I save it out as 48kHz 24 bit it sounds dull. I changed the audio settings on the integrated sound card to produce 24 bit 196 000 Hz, and now it sounds exactly as I made it in Ableton. If I set it to 24 bit/48kHz it doesn't sound good at all, even though I saved it like that.

And which bit depth and frequency should I use for this HD video (going to burn it to blu-ray)?

Answer 1

This site has a decent table about what the standards are for different HD formats. In general, lower sample rates will have an lower frequency ceiling due to the Nyquist theory, but the average upper bound for human hearing is somewhere between 18k and 20k, so 48k should easily contain all the information necessary for human consumption. The only real choices come down to which standards you want your audio to match up to.

That said, your problem may come in poor conversion. Generally, you want to record at the same sample rate that you will be publishing in if that is at all a possibility. I'm not familiar with the popular opinion on Abelton's conversion so I can't say if that's the problem. If you plan on regularly producing these sorts of recordings, then it may be in your best interests to invest in an interface and a good set of mixing speakers, just to get away from using an integrated sound card.