What You Need to Know About Professional Audio, Our Newest Feature
Among its many new and updated features, OpenReel Capture 2.0 delivers an optional Professional Audio setting. While OpenReel’s traditional audio capture provides quality audio recordings, Pro Audio enables more flexibility during the shoot and provides a richer audio file that can be edited in post-production. We’ve put together a short FAQ to further introduce you to this technology. Have further questions? Just reach out!
How does the new Professional Audio feature work?
By turning on Professional Audio, we disable a device’s native hardware echo cancellation and noise suppression, providing up to 40% more audio data in the final recording.
Why is this called “Professional” Audio?
Professional Audio ensures that the audio captured is the same as what video and audio industry professionals are accustomed to recording. By enabling the feature and thus disabling a device’s echo cancellation, a Director is able to capture raw, unprocessed audio.
Echo cancellation prevents audio output from a device’s speaker from being picked up by the device’s microphone, while also boosting audio frequencies associated with human speech. Professional Audio, instead, provides the Director with the unfiltered, raw audio recordings. Additionally, the sample rate — the term that refers to the frequencies captured in digital audio — of Professional Audio is 48kHZ. The end result? Roughly 40% more audio data to work with in post-production.
What mics will Professional Audio work with?
Professional Audio doesn’t require external mics, but it is recommended. Smart Lavs (powered) are supported because they have an adapter built in. Analog lav mics without adapters are not supported. We’ve compiled the entire list of supported mics that we recommend here.
Does this increase the bitrate for audio?
Removing the voice processing echo cancellation means that the audio data will be raw and unfiltered. The AAC encoder is set at the highest quality setting to ensure the highest possible bitrate.
How does this affect communication between the Director and the Subject?
Directors and Subjects can talk to each other in a shoot with or without Professional Audio enabled. However, with Professional Audio turned on to capture more audio data, it is possible it will pick up the Director’s voice.
How does this affect Multicam shoots?
Multiple subjects can speak to each other with Professional Audio enabled.
Can we use an external mic and the built-in speaker instead of using AirPods?
Yes! Users no longer have to use AirPods to leverage Professional Audio. Without an external mic, a Director is able to talk to a subject via device speaker. If an external mic is plugged in, the Director will need to use “Hold to Speak” to talk to the Subject unless they have another audio output (i.e. external mic and AirPods).
Glossary of audio terms:
- PCM (Pulse-Code Modulation) – Conventional method for converting analog audio into digital audio. This is raw “uncompressed” audio.
- AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) – Audio coding standard that achieves higher sound quality than MP3 at the same bit rate. This is “compressed” audio.
- Audio Bitrate – Number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time (similar to video)
- Audio Bit Depth – Determines the number of possible amplitude values we can record. Think of it as the “granularity” of the audio signal. The higher the bit depth, the more nuanced a recording can be. OpenReel captures 16 bit audio.
- Audio Sampling Rate – Determines the range of frequencies captured in digital audio.
- WAV Audio – Uncompressed audio file format, primary for Windows machines.
- Audio Container – Audio data format with defined storage layer
Interested in learning more about OpenReel Capture 2.0? Check out the other powerful new features or reach out today to see it in action.
