VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[GunslingerWriting]

Hi,

I'm lining up a remote project for our company and have a couple of questions regarding upload speeds for voiceover files so I'll know whether we can manage to operate effectively there for a month or more.

During most of our company's field projects, voiceover recordings are made in the field and then, once back in civilization, sent electronically to their appropriate destinations. However, for an upcoming trip, we'll need to send some of the recordings to clients every day from the field, where upload speeds are very slow.

Some of the clips will be commercials of :30 to :60 and, in addition, it appears that some may be narration of up to 20 minutes. I'm not too familiar with the necessary speeds or the transmission times associated with them, so I'm hoping that someone might have an opinion on the practical VO limitations/workability associated with upload speeds of .38 mbps and download speeds of 1.19 mbps (how long such transmissions might take, whether our voiceover people can work with those speeds in a sustained way over a month or so, etc.).

I'd like to take advantage of this project but need to know what those speeds might mean to our ability to submit the daily voiceover transmissions
effectively and reliably.

Thank you very much!
Keith

[Bruce]

Mbps stands for mega bits, standard terminology for Internet providers. In audio production we talk in mega bytes, MBps.*

There are 8 bits to the byte so when you see the upload speed I have here at home of 12Mbps that means it will upload 1.5 megabytes per second IF I'm using a service like YouSendIt which seems to accept files at full speed. Some FTP sites and services limit their upload speed.

In my case, that means a one minute stereo file in wav format will upload in about 7 seconds and that same file in a "thinner" mp3 format will upload in about a second.

In your case, upload speed of .38 Mbps is equal to roughly .0475 MBps, so to upload a 10 Megabyte (M one-minute stereo wav file would take about 3 and a half minutes, and the mp3 version about 30 seconds. And this is presuming you have a stable Internet connection. If you can send mono files then all these times would be cut in half as that would be half as much digital information.

So, you can do it. It's just going to take some time. Your best time saving bet is to send files in the lowest mp3 quality your receiving end can tolerate.

B
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*article on Mbps vs. MBps: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-mbps-and-mbps.htm
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VO-BB Member #31 Enlisted June, 2005

I'm not a Zoo, but over the years I've played one on radio/TV. .

[GunslingerWriting]

Bruce,

Very clear and very thorough.

Thank you.

Keith