American Cinematographer - April 1993 - 70

Sound mixer
David
MacMillan
chose the
Stelladatfor his
work

on

the

upcoming
motion picture
The Firm.

presented at the AES/EBU digital
1/O, leaving 20 bits for actual audio

D, said Bruck. "With 20-bit architec¬

information.
Current Nagra-D ma¬
chines are being delivered with 18bit resolution but can be upgraded
to full 20-bit capability when lower

so

time code

G

£ and editor of GDAN

format includes a cue track that can
receive a mix of the four audio
channels or commentary from an
external cue microphone; a time
code track with full SMPTE/EBU
time code information for both
video and cinema applications; and
a control track that can record data
for future postproduction and com¬

puter control applications.
"If you

had asked me a
I'd have said DAT will

year ago
become the (dominant) format/'
said Danny Michael, C.A.S., who

(Gazette & Di-

gestfor the Absolute Nagrist), a news¬
letter for Nagra users. "In an ideal¬
ized situation, each bit equals 6 dB
of S/N, so that a perfect 16-bit sys¬
tem has 96 dB of

S/N.
"However, matters are
never so ideal," Swanson added.
"A system is most often limited by
the quality of the initial analog-todigital conversion, so that it typi¬
cally performs at around 88-90 dB
S/N, or with a degradation of a
digital bit or more." Add to that the
effects of digital signal processing,

At

$29,900 ($2500 less without a
module), the digital
Nagra costs more than twice its

fully-equipped DAT chal¬
lenger. The high cost is a key rea¬
son
virtually all early Nagra-D re¬
most

corders in the field were on loan to
users from the manufacturer.
"If anything, producers

spending less and less on my
end of the business. Nagra-D is
overkill for production sound,"
are

said

John Pritchett, C.A.S.

Proponents of the DAT
format for motion picture produc¬
tion recording contend that the

Nagra-D is too expensive for the
market, too heavy, too power hun¬
gry and full of unneeded features
and capabilities for the application.
They further point out that the pro¬
prietary Nagra-D format is not a
universally-accepted industry stan¬
dard.

Swanson said, which can also intro¬
duce noise into digital recordings.
"Increased headroom is a

"The Nagra-D records to a
format that is not supported by any
other machine in existence," said

major advantage of the added reso¬

Jeff Wexler, C.A.S.,

on the
Paramount feature Flesh and Bone.
"Now I think the Nagra-D has the

lution," he continued. "Much field

owner.

potential to be a great new tool for
making movies."

it

recently used the Nagra-D

Ditto for music, said Peter

McGrath,

a

recordist of orchestral

works whose

audiophile releases
miking
techniques. "I find the machine ut¬
terly extraordinary," said McGrath.
"It is a killer. It's undoubtedly the
finest machine to buy if you want
to do serious digital recording in
are

made with minimalist

the field."

Proponents of the Nagra D favor its 24-bit per sample record¬
ing capability, which is said to pro¬
vide superior signal-to-noise ratio,
dynamic range and headroom
when compared to the 16-bit DAT
format. Four of the bits per channel
are

68

handle it.'"
One negative

can

ing, Nagra-D recorders now being
"Another way of looking
| at resolution is in the more accesd sible
concept of the system's signal¬
's to-noise ratio," said Albert
| Swanson, a Seattle-based recordist

digital audio tracks, the Nagra-D

OK. I

with the
Nagra-D, all agree, is its high price.

*s

In addition to the four

you

power consumption A/D convert¬
ers become available in the near
future. To achieve full 20-bit record¬
delivered must use an outboard A/
D converter.

|

have the dynamic range,
don't have to worry about
levels," he noted. "You've got head
room; you've got the ability to sit
back and say 'Let them shout. It's
ture you

dedicated to command data

American

Cinematographer

or

remote

recording is

uncon¬

trolled, with only one chance to get

right. Considering that transient
peaks can be 10 dB or more above
the average signal level; that digi¬

a Stelladat
"DAT, on the other hand, is

universally accepted.
"The Nagra-D is

a won¬
derful machine. It makes much bet¬
ter

recordings than DAT," Wexler

continued. "Whether

we

need

tal overload distortion is industrial-

something that good is still debat¬

strength; and that analog limiters
are often taboo,
engineers are un¬
derstandably skittish about record¬
ing full-scale. This reluctance effec¬
tively degrades the resolution still

able."

Richard Lightstone, C.A.S.,
Fostex PD-2 owner, said the 16-bit
DAT format offers dramatic im¬
a

provements over traditional analog
tape recording in terms of dynamic
range and tape noise. "Most con¬

further."
The principal benefits of
18-20 bit recording, said Swanson,
boil down to two things: providing
the release format with true 16-bit
resolution and allowing a margin
of professional safety for the engi¬

Very few production mixers record
at 15 ips," Lightstone said. "Now
we've moved to the 16-bit digital

neer.

domain where
All of this

means

that the

job of the field recording engineer
is made much easier by

April 1993

the Nagra-

ventional film sound has been re¬
corded on mono Nagras at 7 lA ips.

we

have

no

tape

noise at all to deal with."

Having used his Fostex to
record location sound in

hot, dusty
American Cinematographer - April 1993

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