The limits of digital audio in film post-production

It is pointed out that the vast majority of sound work on major motion pictures and episodic television is done on analog recording tape, cut and spliced by hand. The author presents an overview of the problems in trying to apply computers in this area. The emphasis is on the ways in which digital audio fits into the film process. The approach is to examine the complexity of the tasks and evaluate the ease, or lack thereof, of replacing the technology currently in use with digital audio and computers. At the heart of the user interface is an on-screen representation, called a cuesheet, of the written record created by an editor after the editing is finished. SoundDroid uses electronic cuesheets because it is easy for an editor to understand how it works and to grasp the consequences of any action.<>