[ghaff]

Basic video is good enough for a lot of purposes. But with minimal gear and software, I can clean up most speakers with very little work in audio (and there are better AI cleansing tools these days as well). For a given quality level, the bar is much lower for audio only.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

This really isn't true. Mixing/mastering if you want to target:

  * in ear devices
  * vehicle audio systems
  * phone speakers
  * laptops
  * mid-range home stereo systems
  * high end home stereo/studio monitoring

is quite complex to get right, and generally you can't optimize for more than one at a time. That's even more so if you actually buy into the "immersive audio" hype, where playback is not even stereo anymore.

[ghaff]

Audio can certainly get complex. But per the upthread query I'd argue that it's still easier to get understandable audio in an interview in a quiet location than it is to shoot video, especially outside of a studio setting.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

and yet ... if the video quality is sub-par people care <--- this much --->, whereas if the audio is sub-par people care <----------- this much ------------->

[ghaff]

Fair enough. For people speaking, we'll tolerate mediocre video with good audio over vice versa.