For Your Information

On this page we just give some small bits of information that you may find helpful. You'll find definitions and links to helpful organisations. We'll be adding to it bit by bit. Stay tuned.

We've arranged information alphabetically. Just click on a letter and explore.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Audio Checklist - A Handy information sheet designed to help you solve problems before your shoot. Email Janet have a copy sent to you by email or post.

ADR (Automatic Dialogue Replacement) – It requires the actor to re-record their audible performance while watching a screen. There are various systems to help cue the actor to speak using either pips or beeps in conjunction with screen cues.
ADR has many applications. Some are:
- Replace unusable location sound.
- Add re-scripted dialogue.
- Create foreign language versions of programs.
- Give an actor a different voice.
Some people don’t like to use ADR for very valid reasons. It’s never really possible to recreate a performance absolutely. It might be three, four months later, the actor might be working on another film by then and be out of character. They’re in a nice warm ADR theatre and just had a cup of coffee. So if the location audio can be used, it should be.

Australian Video Producers Association (AVPA) - www.avpa.org.au

Australian Screen Directors Association (ASDA) - www.asdafilm.org.au

APRA/AMCOS - Call on (02) 9935 7785 to obtain the latest copy of the AMCOS Production Music Licensing Schedule. If you have any queries, call either David Sheils or Irvine robertson. They'll be happy to answer your questions. You can visit the APRA web site at www.apra.com.au

Audio Sample Rates - When using multiple vision editing systems, ensure your editors are using the same sample rate. The two options are 44.1kHz and 48kHz. The latter is the rate used for Digital Betacam. Having the same sample rate ensures smooth transitions between systems.

Dolby - There are two types of Dolby surround sound that we deal with in the industry. Dolby Pro Logic Surround and Dolby Digital. For television, the standard is Dolby Pro Logic Surround.

The creation of a Dolby Pro Logic Surround sound track is all done within the Pro-Tools Workstation. Dolby software is used to locate sounds within the surround spectrum and the signal is encoded.

Dolby Digital is the main system for motion picture releases, and other digital forms of transmission. It is known as Dolby 5.1.

Dolby Digital programs can deliver surround sound with five discrete full-range channels - left, centre, right, left surround, right surround - plus a sixth channel for those powerful low-frequency effects that are felt more than heard in movie theatres, the LFE channel is referred to as a ".1" channel.

In both systems, the signal is encoded by the engineer at the final mix. They require a decoder and the proper amplification and speaker equipment to be heard correctly. Dolby Digital can replay as Dolby Surround and is compatible with stereo and mono.

DVD - The original concept for DVD was to provide better video and audio quality for home usage. As a result the format was known as Digital Video Disc. The computer industry also saw the advantages of DVD for its large data capacity and fast access. With more and more potential applications for the format, it has now become known as Digital Versatile Disc. DVD has the potential to be both double sided and double layered. This is what gives the DVD its enormous capacity.

There are also some derivatives of DVD. DVD-A which is an audio only format allowing high definition audio in stereo or surround. Sony also released SACD and audio (with still pictures) high definition system. Both haven't really taken off.

By the way, in pure specification terms, DVD audio is inferior to your ordinary CD. It uses a 'lossy' principle not unlike MP3 which reduces the file size.

Manufacturers adhere to different DVD standards, which has caused problems in the past. These days 'multi drives' can handle just about any format. Thank goodness! Following are some different DVD formats explained.

DVD+R is a recordable DVD format similar to CD-R. A DVD+R can record data only once and then the data becomes permanent on the disc. The disc cannot be recorded onto a second time.

DVD+RW is a re-recordable format similar to CD-RW. The data on a DVD+RW disc can be erased and recorded over numerous times without damaging the medium. DVDs created by a +R/+RW device can be read by most commercial DVD-ROM players.

DVD-R is a recordable DVD format similar to CD-R and DVD+R. A DVD-R can record data only once and then the data becomes permanent on the disc. The disc cannot be recorded onto a second time. There also are two additional standards for DVD-R disks: DVD-RG for general use, and DVD-RA for authoring, which is used for mastering DVD video or data and is not typically available to the general public.

DVD-RW is a re-recordable format similar to CD-RW or DVD+RW. The data on a DVD-RW disc can be erased and recorded over numerous times without damaging the medium. DVDs created by a -R/-RW device can be read by most commercial DVD-ROM players.

DVD-RAM discs can be recorded and erased repeatedly but are compatible only with devices manufactured by the companies that support the DVD-RAM format. DVD-RAM discs are typically housed in cartridges.

DVD+R DL (also called DVD+R9) is a Dual Layer writeable DVD+R.

DVD-R DL (also called DVD-R9) is a Dual Layer writeable DVD-R. The dual layered discs can hold 7.95GB. The dual layered discs (DVD+R9 and DVD-R9) can hold 7.95GB and double sided dual layer (called dvd-18) can hold 15.9GB.

DVD-ROM was the first DVD standard to hit the market and is a read-only format. The video or game content is burned onto the DVD once and the DVD will run on any DVD-ROM-equipped device.

Foley - is the process of recording sound effects in synchronization to edited picture in post-production. It was named after Jack Foley, who is said to have invented the process.

Foley generally consists of three elements:

Clothing moves - The "moves track" is a layer of sound that recreates the clothing rustle of actors as they walk, run and move. Without the moves track, the Foley would sound sterile and too perfect.
Footsteps - When the original dialogue is replaced due to noise or bad performance, the sound of the actors walking also needs to be redone. Every footstep for each character is covered; the sync and surface of each step must be matched.
Specifics - Anything an actor touches or affects is considered a "specific" and recorded as a separate element often involving layers of sound. The Foley artist uses many props for the specific tracks.

The final product of these three elements is a natural sounding track with a clarity that location recording could not achieve.

Internet Sound - Because of the access limitations using a modem, new technologies were developed to deliver audio and video in real time. These are called "streaming" technologies.
Unfortunately, to "stream" something means the file size has to be small and hence, quality goes down. Also, to play these files you need a special software player, but it's usually free. The major players in streaming technology are: Real Audio, Windows Media, Quicktime and Flash.

Although it's great to be able to listen to something in real time, the formats vary widely in quality. With a greater up take of Broadband, things will impove.

MP3 is the main format used today because it reduces file size but hold a reasonable quality. A three minute song which would normally be about 35megabytes, is reduced to just 3megabytes and is said to sound almost as good as a CD. Put them up side by side and you'll get your answer. Chalk and cheese!

Jump Drives - They have been slowly appearing over the last few years, and now prices have dropped and they have become common place. Jump Drives are small portable devices capable of storing data. They use FLASH Memory to hold data. They are powered from the device you connect to, to save, erase or change data. Once you disconnect, they don't require power to remember their contents.

This technology is commonly used for MP3 players, digital cameras, data storage/transfer. We've read that in the near future there will be a sixteen gigabyte jump drive available. That's about 15500 floppy disks!

M&E (Music & Effects mixes) - The purpose of an M&E is to create a version of a program that can have a foreign language added to the mix. There are two versions of M&E's that we're asked to create. The first is a true M&E, which involves creating a mix that doesn't contain any dialogue. This can be very difficult given that location audio in many cases is both the dialogue and the effects track. In this case, the effects must be re-created from effects CDs and Foley. This can be a time consuming process, but the final product allows for a perfect foreign version.

The second method is used quite a lot for television (especially lifestyle shows). It involves losing the narration and providing an 'undipped' mix of sync dialogue, fx and music. This allows for different durations in the foreign narration, and the final version will have the English sync dialogue 'dipped' under the new language translation. Not perfect, but satisfactory and a lot cheaper.

MEAA - Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. Amalgamation of Journalists Union & Actors Equity. Ph: (02) 9333 0999 - www.alliance.org.au

Multimedia – In earlier days of multimedia, audio, along with pictures, were of poor quality due to the computer processor speeds that were available. Productions were made to work on the lowest speed computers and CD ROM drives were double speed at best.

Today there are still restrictions because of CD ROM drives. They are nowhere near as fast as a hard drive. A four-speed drive can only read 600kiloBytes per second and even a sixteen-speed drive will only give you 2.4megabytes per second. These amounts of data do not allow real time usage of large audio and video files. Added to the problem is the fact that there are several elements in a production including graphics and interactive data.

Audio is generally recorded at a professional standard of 16 bit, 44.1kHz, but you may have noticed that it is normally split into several small files instead of one big one. This makes it easier to load into RAM and speeds up the process. Also, music is often “looped” by recording a four bar phrase and playing over and over to create one long seamless piece of music.

Multimedia presentations are often created for both Macintosh and PC computers. Because each have their own file formats you can use a file format common to both Quicktime, Windows Media or make two versions with specific files. Multimedia presentations can also be run directly from a hard drive which many people do, which will allow full screen video as well as all the other elements.

OMFI - Stands for Open Media Framework Interchange and is a file format that facilitates the transfer of digital media between vision systems like AVID and Final Cut Pro to Pro-Tools. We've used this system for quite a while and it saves a lot of time and hassle and is a seamless process. After transferring the file to our hard drive, we simply re-conform it to a Pro-Tools session and it opens with all the tracks laid out as the editor intended in their respective timecode positions. You can make last-minute picture changes without re-conforming each element. You will also retain the highest picture and sound quality with all-digital transfers.

Podcast - "Podcasting" is making audio files (most commonly in MP3 format) available online in a way that allows software to automatically download the files for listening at the user's convenience.

Replay Venues - Sound mixes are determined to a great extent by where they will be heard. At Hullabaloo, we automatically take the replay venue into account with any mix. With television, most of the audience will hear the production through a 3inch speaker so it's important to check on a television set to make sure it's reproduced correctly.

Screen Producers Association of Australia (SPAA) - www.spa.org.au

Sound Design - is a term that has proliferated with the advent of Digital Audio Workstations. It really means to be responsible for an overall "sound" in a production, much like the art director for a film is responsible for the "look".

Some people see it more as a musical term. We have been approached to compose music and integrate sound effects in a musical way or, create music just with effects.
There are many ideas on the meaning, but more importantly, if you want a sound designer on board, get them involved in the early stages of your production. It can point your production into new areas that you would not have considered.

Timecode calculator. If you're in front of the PC and need to add some times for a script, this little program is a big help. Just click on the link and save it to your hard drive. Then double click to install on your PC.

Timecode Calculator