tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90126982023-11-15T08:33:14.560-05:00For Audiophiles and VideophilesThis is a site where I write about the latest and greatest audio and video technology, everything from new-fangled digital techniques to time-honored analog. From Hi-Def television to Hi-Res audio. So come here often. Because you never know what you might find.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-83657704319338143902010-07-20T16:04:00.003-04:002010-07-20T16:23:03.383-04:00Technology: The Enemy of a Good Photograph?<p style="text-indent: 1em; text-align: justify; text-justify: newspaper; margin: 0">Oh, for a good quality manual camera again! I'm referring to flash pictures, which have become all too common since the advent of the digital camera, due to its automatic flash. This means that the lighting in most pictures is obviously artificial, overly harsh, or completely wasted--the latter owing to an extreme distance of the subject, or else because the sensor is spooked by a misleading shadow over the camera itself. It seems to me that if an average person were presented with one of the better cameras, he or she wouldn't have the faintest clue how to use it. This is because these cameras afford the photographer manual control over such settings as aperture, shutter speed, focus, and of course, whether or not to use the flash, whereas most modern digital cameras make all these decisions for you. "Quel domage," as the French say.</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-45132040043502513282010-01-08T22:28:00.000-05:002010-01-08T22:28:50.213-05:003D TV -- Coming Soon<p style="margin: 0pt; text-indent: 1em; text-align: justify;">For those of you who have been waiting for the advent of 3D technology for television, your wait may be over. The format will soon be here. Televisions are being made that will receive and display the 3D signal, with special glasses to separate the two images for your two eyes. The two proposed presentation formats are already in use by theaters. The one was developed by IMAX and involves switching the two sides of the glasses on and off. The other is the RealD format, which uses polarization of the two lenses 90° apart (vertical for one eye, horizontal for the other, or something like that).<br /></p><p style="margin: 0pt; text-indent: 1em; text-align: justify;">ESPN and Discovery Channel are both launching all-3D channels for later this year, and other networks are expected to follow. If your set is not 3D-ready, there may also be converter boxes available soon. Check your local stores. But be patient, as this is new technology, and it might not be available right away.<br /></p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-40366956245969041812008-01-09T14:26:00.000-05:002008-01-09T14:38:34.944-05:00Hi Def: The Format War Heats Up<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Many of you already know that there are two High Definition DVD-like formats. One is called Blu-Ray and the other is called HD DVD.</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Now for the interesting part: When Sony came out with their PlayStation 3 (PS3), they built into it the capability to play Blu-Ray Disc and SACD formats. But now, not to be undone, Microsoft has weighed in on this competition with their own player which is an Xbox 360 add-on. The new Xbox 360 HD DVD player must be used with an existing Xbox 360 game console, so if you don’t have one, you will need to purchase both. There may also be a combination package available.</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">There’s no clear word on support of other formats (DVD-A, for example), but given the price tag and the fact that Microsoft is notoriously obtuse when it comes to including features people will want, my guess is that it’s only HD DVD compatible, not <span style="display:inline-block; text-indent:0">DVD-A</span> compatible.</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">So, recapping, the two players are Sony PS3 (Blu-Ray) and Xbox 360 HD DVD player (requires Xbox 360 Console). Neither player supports both formats, so you will need them both.</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1141071300843193302006-02-27T14:53:00.000-05:002006-02-27T15:15:00.886-05:00Dual Disc: a Second Look.<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">It has been over a year since I last posted. But here’s an update on the Dual Disc format. What I said earlier is only half the story. True, Dual Disc has two sides, but it’s a lot closer to a dual-layer disc than a double-sided disc.</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Here’s why: the two disc formats are placed back to back, but about as close as two layers of a DVD. This differs physically from the double-sided DVD, which is thicker because it is two discs, essentially, glued to each other, whereas Dual Disc is no thicker than an ordinary CD. So now I know what took them so long to come out with it in the first place!</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">There’s also a reason why the CD data must be on an opposite side. Unlike SACD, which was designed with the capability to support a hybrid format, DVD technology has been ever changing and updating. Nearest I can figure, if CD and DVD were put on different layers of the same side, most existing players would only be able to play the CD layer, and would ignore the DVD data entirely. To avoid this, Dual Disc was designed as a flip-side, rather than dual-layer, format. So yes, we still have to put the correct side in the player; and yes, there are no labels on Dual Discs. But this is the price you pay for backward compatibility.</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1106332248055376022005-01-21T13:30:00.000-05:002005-01-21T13:30:48.056-05:00Binaural with 4 Speakers<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Many people haven’t tried this, but if you play a binaural recording on an ordinary stereo, you can split the output for each side and send each extra signal to another speaker. What this does is simulate the effect of headphones, so that the sound envelops you. Left rear speaker is left; right rear speaker is right. The acoustics take care of the rest.</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1104781116682289672005-01-03T14:37:00.000-05:002005-01-03T16:54:05.410-05:00Two competing formats.<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">As you all know, there’s two competing formats poised to hit the market for HD recordings. One is endoursed by the HD Forum (formerly DVD Forum) and is called—Dadut Dada!—HD-DVD. No surprise there. The other is an independent format that has contributions from 9 companies, including Sony and Philips, and is called Blu Ray. Though some may say two formats cause confusion, I’d like to point out that the two competing audio formats, DVD-A and SACD, are taking off, both of them, much faster than anticipated, fueled by—what else?—competition!</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1102283710874400912004-12-05T16:55:00.000-05:002004-12-05T16:59:50.403-05:00If it’s stereo, why do I hear it behind me?<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">It’s actually a psychoacoustic phenomenon. Some of the acoustics, though not all of them, from the original recording session, made their way onto the disc, into the player, out the speaker, and into your ears. These are cues like difference (L-R), frequency spread, delay, and echo. In some cases, you may even be able to hear sound as if it’s bouncing off an imaginary ceiling. “But it’s only coming from two speakers!” Well? You only have two ears, not 5.1 ears!<span style="font-family:courier new">☺</span></p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1102199099474703842004-12-04T17:25:00.000-05:002004-12-04T17:24:59.473-05:00Why not use DSD for Blu Ray movies?<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">While Blu-ray is trying to settle on audio codecs, why don’t they consider DSD or DST as an alternative, at least? It’s far superior to Dolby Digital.</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1102102167469225982004-12-03T14:29:00.000-05:002004-12-03T14:33:00.646-05:00How About a “Universal Disc”?<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">We have universal players; why not have a universal disc format? Here’s how it would work. There could be a double-sided disc with SACD Hybrid content on side A, and DVD-Audio/Video format on side B. That way, if you didn’t have a universal player or couldn’t afford one (like me), you would be able to play that one disc in any player to the best possible sonic advantage.</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">All that is required is a double-sided, dual-layer-per-side physical format. After that, the sky is the limit, people!</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1101842843415987992004-11-30T14:27:00.000-05:002004-11-30T14:27:23.416-05:00How is DSD different?<p style="text-indent: 1em; text-align: justify; text-justify: newspaper; margin: 0">Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is different from Pulse Code Modulation (PCM). The most obvious difference is the sample size: 1 bit vs. 16 for CD or 20 to 24 for DVD. But there’s more: if you send the raw data stream out to a speaker, with PCM you get random garbage. With DSD you get an intelligible audio signal which bears a striking resemblence to the actual sounds recorded. This is because the 1-bit samples are naturally grouped into understandable patterns, whereas with PCM they are numbers, decodible only by your player’s Digital-to-Analog (D/A) converter. I’ve aready mentioned other differences. Still Don’t believe me when I say SACD is better?</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1101842343797854532004-11-30T14:19:00.000-05:002004-11-30T14:45:53.293-05:00Oh, the superior sound of analog!<p style="text-indent: 1em; text-align: justify; text-justify: newspaper; margin: 0">Most people don’t realize this, but the major defect of records, especially worn ones, is noise, not audio quality. Good records that are well-kept are able to reproduce sounds that CDs shudder to even attempt! This is because CDs need to be filtered so that no frequencies higher than, oh, 22 kHz or so, get accidentally recorded and wind up getting “aliased” as lower frequencies on playback. Records, on the other hand, are not digital. An exact groove is cut into the surface of the master, which is copied to make your record. If the record is well-maintained and high-quality playback equipment is used, any record will sound better than a CD of the same recording.</p>
<br />Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1101576331794815052004-11-27T13:26:00.000-05:002004-11-27T12:25:31.796-05:00Dual Disc: Wow, that’s disappointing.<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">At long last, DVD-A has now come out with their answer to SACD Hybrid—well, sort of. Instead of a dual-layered disc with different format on each layer, they chose double-sided instead. DVD content is on side A. CD content is on side B. What does this mean? No label to guide you to insert the disc in the correct way. Wasn’t it frustrating to have to read that little ring in the middle of a double-sided video DVD, just to make sure you were going to see the widescreen version instead of the “standard” one? Looks like once again, the DVD Forum has come out with too little, too late!</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1101329950411048892004-11-24T15:59:00.000-05:002004-11-24T16:00:50.170-05:00How does DSD work?<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The answer is surprisingly simple. DSD is a patented noise-shaped version of Delta-Sigma modulation, a one-bit sampling process already in use by most multibit-sampling A/D converters. Sony and Philips have simply removed the intermediate step of turning the raw samples into numbers. Now, you know that digital recordings with smaller sample sizes usually have significantly more noise than those with larger sample sizes, but Sony and Philips have taken care of that with fifth-order noise shaping. I’ll probably discuss noise shaping another day.</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1100383874856737542004-11-13T17:11:00.000-05:002004-11-13T17:11:14.856-05:00SACD is better than DVD-A.<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Why do I say that? Well, the answer is really simple. More resolution horizontally (timewise). First of all, DSD, the format used by SACDs, can accurately represent frequencies of up to 100 kHz, even in multichannel mode. DVD-A format is primarily either PCM or Dolby Digital and only has its highest frequency response in 2-channel stereo, where its sampling rate is 192 kHz, allowing for frequencies only as high as, say, 90 kHz before response drops off dramatically. If 5.1-channel multichannel mode is used, that drops down to about 45 kHz. And news flash: stereo and multichannel never appear on the same audio DVD, so the stereo listener is at the mercy of the mixdown algorithm in the player. So much for DVD-A. SACD, on the other hand, has enough room and processor power to handle 6 channels of audio up to 100 kHz plus a premixed stereo downmix, also up to 100 kHz. You may not need to hear sounds that high, but it’s sure nice to know they’re there! </p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1100020288969566842004-11-09T12:11:00.000-05:002004-11-09T12:14:50.940-05:00720p: The world’s finest?<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">During the Major League Baseball games on Fox Sports, I kept hearing the same line in their commercials for their own HDTV presentation of the games: “Presented in 720p: the world’s finest high definition standard.” But wait—I thought 1080i 1080p were the finest standards! What’s going on here?</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">For those uninitiated to Hi-Def, 720p means 720 lines, progressive scan. 1080i means 1080 lines, interlaced scan. 1080 is obviously a better picture than 720, so where do they get this “world’s finest” stuff? More frames per second? Less lossy compression? Or could it be progressive scan vs. interlaced scan? If anybody has the answer, please post a comment.</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1099939984836321372004-11-08T13:53:00.000-05:002004-11-09T12:21:54.493-05:00How do records get scratched?<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Records get scratches because of</p><ol style="MARGIN-TOP: 0px; MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0px"><li><div style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">how they're made,</div></li><li><div style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">how they're played, and</div></li><li><div style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">how they're kept.</div></li></ol><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Records are pressed into vinyl, a type of plastic. Vinyl is soft, so it's more easily scratched than other materials. Records are played with a stylus (called a needle, commonly) that tracks the groove and vibrates by the wave pattern recorded in it. If the tonearm of the player gets jostled, the needle will scrape across the surface of the record; and because the needle is made of diamond, it is a lot harder than the surface of the groove wall. Hence the scratch.</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Records can also be harmed by dust and dirt that is not cleaned out of the grooves. Various cleaning kits are available, but remember to always follow the instructions, and <strong>never</strong> clean a vinyl record in the same manner as a CD!</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1099774316825630332004-11-06T15:51:00.000-05:002004-11-06T16:04:40.793-05:00Not CD, SACD.<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">There’s a new digital audio medium out there, and it’s growing by leaps and bounds. It’s physically the same size as a CD and the same data size as a DVD, but it is neither. It’s called Super Audio Compact Disc, and it was developed by Philips and Sony, the inventors of the original CD format. SACD is the wave of the future: Hi-Res audio to the extreme. The digital data is sampled in individual bits, instead of pulse codes like PCM, at an industry-leading 2.8224 MHz. Why is this significant? Because the higher sample rate and the single-bit sample size mean more exact sound.</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">And there are also hybrid discs available. Hybrids have two layers: one for the SACD player, and one for those of us who still cannot afford one but have an ordinary CD player.</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">SACDs are a multichannel format, supporting up to 6 simultaneous discrete channels: 3 front, 2 rear, 1 subwoofer. Multichannel discs also come with a premixed stereo track for players that don’t have surround.</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Check the <a href="http://store.acousticsounds.com/sacd.cfm">Acoustic Sounds</a> site for further info or to order SACDs.</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1099681160875820052004-11-05T13:59:00.000-05:002004-12-27T15:48:14.670-05:00Stereo is not just left and right.<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Surprised? So was I when I found out. It turns out that most live recordings in stereo, including the old LPs, are recorded with three channels of audio first: Left, Right, and Center. Then when the final master is produced, the center channel is mixed to the left and right channels. For live 2-channel recording, see the binaural article below. But live stereo is recorded with 3 microphones. <em>And now ya know... the rest of the story.</em></p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9012698.post-1099611516380047742004-11-04T19:10:00.000-05:002004-11-05T14:54:52.423-05:00Binaural? What’s that?<p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Surprising to me, most people haven’t even heard of the best audio presentation format available. “Bi-what?” they ask me. But binaural sound has been in existence for over 100 years, longer even than stereo. So what exactly <em>is</em> binaural?</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">It’s really simple, actually. Binaural (“by-nor'-all”) is the same logical format as stereo (left, right) with the functionality of surround sound in 3-D. This is all done by acoustics, so the format can be digital or analog, broadcast, closed circuit, or recording, and the spacial information is retained. It can be recorded on tape, record, CD, SACD, DVD, MP3, you name it.</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Binaural sounds just like live, in-person when listened to with headphones. You hear sounds in front, behind, up, down, left, right, and everywhere in between. No decoding necessary. And it sounds just like surround on a surround decorder. How did they do that? How did they get vertical, horizontal, and front-to-back all in only two channels?</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">The answer lies in where they placed the microphones. To record or broadcast in binaural, you have to put the microphones the same distance apart as human ears: approximately 7 inches, and back-to-back. For best results, in most cases a dummy head or actual human head is used (the technician’s own head, for example), with the microphones placed just inside the outer ear. This acoustically processes the audio before it reaches the microphones, so when it is played back, the brain interprets the position, distance, size, and shape of the object creating the noise (an instrument, for example).</p><p style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: newspaper; MARGIN: 0px; TEXT-INDENT: 1em; TEXT-ALIGN: justify">Surround sound is good, but binaural is better. For further information or to order binaural recordings, visit John Sunier at the <a href="http://www.binaural.com">Binaural Source</a>.</p>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15512196267124357822noreply@blogger.com0