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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: Chuck on April 26, 2010, 06:13:39 PM
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I made a chart today (file location attached) that tells how much 16 and 24 bit 44.1 kHz WAV audio can fit on a 4 GB and 16 GB memory card. I've joined the all-in-one multi-track recorder team and wanted to know at a glance what those numbers were. These numbers are only approximations. I don't know how to account for the fact that (1) 16 GB card really stores less then 16 GB of data though...
I searched everywhere for this information and couldn't find it. If someone knows of a more accurate source for this info, please let me know.
http://www.filesavr.com/wavfilesizes
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Edirol usually has a chart of sorts on their site. There is one for the R-44 on an 8GB card. Click on the Specifications tab at the following link.
Link to Edirol R-44 (http://www.edirol.com/index.php/en/products-mainmenu-421/field-recording-mainmenu-390/313-r-44-compact-solid-state-4-channel-field-recorder)
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The Sound Devices audio calculator is a pretty neat tool, although not a chart. Simply enter the storage size, bit depth, and sample rate.
http://www.sounddevices.com/calculator/
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the confusion of why a 16 GB card is not truly 16 GB is because of how the term gigabyte is defined and calculated.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte
if you look at the chart on the right, you will notice the Binary & Decimal have two different values.
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I put together the attached chart (see PDF below) a while back. It gives a good range of scenarios... 16 bit vs 24 bit... 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, or 192 kHz.... 2 channels or 4 channels, etc, etc....
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Awesome. Thanks for sharing that!
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I don't think this is 100% what you wanted, but i have found it very useful http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=199.0
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If you're cutting it so close that you need a chart, perhaps you should just stick to the lower sampling rates. Or get a second or bigger card. Throw in voice activation recording modes and any charts go out the window.
A CD is 16/44.1 for 2 channels at a cost of 700MB per 74 minutes. Over simplified to 1GB an hour. If you're going to be recording 16 hours of content in a single sitting, you've got greater needs than a chart. Anyway simple math can be applied to the CD quality specs to derive most approximate file size to time ratios. 24 bit would be 150% of 16 bit, or 1050MB per 74 minutes. Still basically 1GB an hour. 5.6 DSD for 2 channels rounds up to about 6GB an hour, a little closer to 5, but always nice to play it safe.
Unless you have some variable track count that you need to account for, I'm not sure why you'd need a chart. At any rate, any decent recorder should give you time/capacity left as well as battery life remaining. It might not be easy to find or accessible while recording, but a feature on many stand alone devices.