Audio in the Silverstack Product Family

5 min read
Audio in the Silverstack Product Family

There’s no better time for shifting perspectives than the beginning of a brand new year! In our first article of 2021, we want to focus on a topic that is not always getting the attention it deserves in motion picture production: Audio. 

We are well aware of the great importance and the vast number of skilled professionals taking care of flawless audio recording on set. However, film production can sometimes feel like a rather image-centric industry, as this saying illustrates: “You only know that you have audio when you suddenly don’t.” While we have to admit that our Silverstack products also mainly focus on handling image-based material, they do come with valuable audio features!

So prick up your ears as we will now take a look at each product individually and outline all the provided audio functionalities. 

Silverstack Offload Manager

The Silverstack Offload Manager comes with great functionalities for handling audio clips on a basic level: 

  • Automatic audio clip detection
  • Secure copy of audio clips
  • Create reports with metadata of audio clips

The Silverstack Offload Manager automatically detects audio clips and reads their metadata, which sets the stage for a convenient workflow. As with all other file types, it is of course possible to back up audio clips securely to multiple destinations.

As the application automatically takes over the necessary structuring work for you, there’s no need for parsing metadata by hand anymore, which saves you a lot of time.

Audio metadata can then be included in basic reports, enabling you to pass on important information in a comprehensive and professional way. Shooting Day reports can even include an audio tape and an audio format summary. 

Silverstack

In addition to the functionalities above, Silverstack comes with the following audio features: 

  • A dedicated, yellow audio bin
  • Playback of audio clips
  • Audio clip metadata in the library

The Silverstack library enables you to organize your audio clips and related metadata in a comprehensive and convenient way. For example, audio clips are displayed in a dedicated, yellow audio bin.

Audio clip metadata like the amount of tracks, track names or wild track flags are also displayable within the library. Having all the information in one place makes managing your assets a lot easier. 

In addition, it’s also possible to play back audio clips directly from the library. The audio panel includes audio meters, solo and mute functionality, panning options and more. Being able to directly access the audio files and work with them makes your workflow even smoother.

Silverstack XT

Silverstack XT extends the functionalities stated above by also including the following: 

  • Take over slate metadata from audio to video clips
  • Manual audio sync to video clips via slate markers

Silverstack XT allows to take over slate metadata from an audio clip to the associated video clip. A match is detected by comparing the TC of the audio and video clip (similar to syncing audio) and then e.g. slate metadata read out from audio clips can be added to video clips.

Audio in the Silverstack Product Family
Select “Transfer Audio Slate” info from the Media menu to transfer audio metadata.
Audio in the Silverstack Product Family
The wizard window to take over metadata that follows.

Furthermore, audio can be synced manually to video clips. Setting a slate marker in both the audio and the video clip defines the position where audio and video should be merged. The audio panel fulfils all your needs concerning the audio mix.

The advanced features of syncing audio and taking over slate metadata are extremely useful, even if you’re only performing these tasks occasionally. Being able to do it all in one software tool, makes the whole process more convenient and less prone to errors.

Silverstack Lab

Silverstack Lab comes with all the functionalities described up to now. You’re wondering what else you could ask for? Check out the following audio features: 

  • Automatic audio sync by TC
  • Audio slip options to adjust for audio offsets easily and additional metadata to communicate the audio slip

Silverstack Lab offers automatic audio sync of audio and video clips by TC. 

The automatic sync process can also be extended to taking over metadata from audio to video clips. Furthermore, additional metadata can be parsed via naming the custom fields a certain way. 

Audio can be slipped in relation to the video clip to compensate possible offsets easily. In addition to a zoomable detailed waveform, all the metadata relevant to track the audio-video relation  is captured transparently in the library.

Of course you can transcode with audio. You can select options for the audio codec, as well as for the audio channels that you want to include in the transcoded proxy clip. 

Do your tasks require you to combine audio and video, create proxy clips with certain audio setting and to leverage audio metadata? Using Silverstack Lab lets you perform all these tasks in one single software tool. 

Audio in the Silverstack Product Family
The audio transcoding options in the transcoding presets of the right bar.

As we’ve seen in this article, all Silverstack products aim to simplify the handling of digital audio clips by providing valuable audio functionalities –  ranging from basic to advanced. It’s up to you to decide which one fits your personal needs best!

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About the Author
As part of Pomfort’s marketing and sales team, Samuel uses his strong technical background in film production to take care of existing and prospective users - true to his motto: “Finding problems in solutions is easy, so let’s find solutions to problems.” At times, he shares them on the blog!