What About Audio?
DV audio can be either 32K/12 bit or 48k/16 bit. Final Cut will work with either and with 44.1k material, as well. It converts 12 bit material to 16 bit when loaded. It can also mix resolutions and will resample as needed on the fly, so you can freely intercut material at different resolutions – something your Avid can’t do. Final Cut can play as many tracks as the CPU can handle (about 8 on a stock G4) but it can only output two channels simultaneously. This is a big step backwards for those of us who like to output 8 tracks of digital audio directly to a DA-88. Audio is digitized and played back using the standard hardware built into your Mac, and while it sounds pretty good, it is not of the quality we’re used to from the DigiDesign boards the Avid uses. Support for extra audio hardware is limited.
http://www.editorsguild.com/newsletter/MayJun00/tip_fcp.html
We'll start this lesson at the very beginning- acquisition of material. If you're using a DV camera you must check your audio settings. Too many cameras are coming from the factory with the audio settings set to 12 bit/32 KHz. DV cameras have two settings- 12 bit and 16 bit. The 12 bit setting records at 32 kHz and the 16 bit setting records at 48 kHz. There is no reason to ever use the 12 bit setting unless you are planning on doing overdubs directly into the camera. Since you're reading this article, I'll assume that you will be using Final Cut Pro, so a 16 bit setting is mandatory in my opinion.
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/omf_export_protools.html
