In article ,
Mike Barnes wrote:
Max Demian wrote:
I used to have Beethoven's Ninth on LP, where they always have to
split the third movement, and got so used to it that I would jump if I
heard the whole thing without the split (on a radio broadcast). Then I
got it on Musicassette which split the movement in a different place,
so I would jump in two places.

This might be an urban legend but I heard that the inventor of the CD
was a big Beethoven fan, and one of the design criteria was that the
Ninth had to fit on one disc.

Urban myth. The max length was defined by the available tapes for the
U-Matic recorder. The rather odd time being down to the same tapes being
used for PAL and NTSC, but running for a longer time at 25 frames per
second. ie, a 60 minute tape at 30 fps becomes 72 at 25. 60 minute tapes
were just over 60 minutes long to allow for line up data - it was a pro
format. Hence the 74 minutes.

--
*All generalizations are false.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
RJH wrote:
On 29/04/2014 09:46, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 29/04/14 08:04, RJH wrote:
On 28/04/2014 14:19, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
snip

Tape was truly AWFUL.

CD MUCH better.


Pre-digital (1980ish?) audio recordings were all 'awful'?


I didn't say that.
I said tape was awful.


I'm afraid i don't follow. Pre-digital recordings of, say, the 60s and
70s were done on tape.

IF you had a wide enough tape running fast enough and you calibrated the
kit on a regular basis and re spooled the tape every few months to avoid
ghosting and' it COULD, with a sacrifice of a virgin and a goat at
midnight, give a passable imitation of 'a recording device'.


*Much* better than passable, I'd say. Even something by, say, Elliott
Smith (who used a portable 4 track) sounds stunning. At least to my ear,
and certainly not 'awful'


Unless you added Dolby, in which case you needed three virgins and a
prayer to St. Bridget as well.

Can't say I agree.


Well since you were disagreeing with a straw man you yourself set up.
that's not surprising.

Did the BBC achieve miracles of recording with tape? Yes they did. They
had engineers who understood it.

Is the average analogue recording from a rock band so bad as to be in
places unusable? yes.

I remember standing behind a desk and saying to te 'sound engineer;''
'er the hi hats are totally overloading' and of course I could hear
that... because hi hats are sharp transient high frequencies which
tape does NOT like. 'No they aint' he said pointing at the VU meters
just tipping into the red...

I thought about telling him about short high frequency transients, high
frequency tape pre-emphasis, and the sort of averaging a VU meter does,
its needle inertia the like. Then I looked at him, thought better of it
and nodded' and left.


I think you're referring to *using* tape, and not tape per se. In the
hands of decent engineers, I'd defy a good number of listeners to able
to distinguish between tape and digital.

I remember being asked to set up a Nakamichi cassette recorder to give
the 'best possible' sound. Widely hailed as the best cassette recorder
ever made. I was completely unable to get a flat response beyond
2.5khz, and it was largely dead at 8khz, about -4dB more on on track
than the other irrespective.

I tried it on a variety of cassette brands and technologies. Each one
had a completely different frequency response and gain. Enough to make
using Dolby a complete joke.

IN the end I decided not to look at the meters and just got as much
treble as I could without being edgy, and made sure it gave an adequate
response to its owners favourite recordings. "Isn't it a piece of kit?"
he enthused.."Yes, it certainly is," I agreed and left hurriedly.

The Russ Andrews syndrome* we call it today I think.


Not really, you're talking about cassette tape, rather than pro
machines. I did have a semi-pro Revox a while back. I couldn't reliably
distinguish between a recordings and original CDs. I'm not saying that
'test' is the last word in scientific rigour - simply that tape is far
from 'awful'.

some years ago, I was running sound on production of a Noël Coward play. I
called for a member of cast to play the piano. Unfortunately, the actor
involved could not do more than pick a tune with one finger, so I made a
recording - on tape - at a friend's house (she had a Steinway). Most of
the audience thought the music was really coming form the concert grand
they saw on stage. Mind you, if I'd used the cassette the director gave
me, I don't think anyone would have been fooled.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

In article ,
Max Demian wrote:
Prior to the renovation of the Royal Opera House just before the
Millennium, they used mercury arc rectifiers to power the First World
War submarine motors they used for the stage machinery.

Most theatres and cinemas had those for arc lamps and projectors, at one
time.

--
*I wished the buck stopped here, as I could use a few*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Tape is awful. Get over it. Just because with a huge amount of calibration
and understanding by some really good sound engineers and design engineers
it was good ENOUGH doesn't make it great. Just. Barely. Good. ENOUGH.

I wish people here didn't assume that tape means analogue. There were (even
if they don't exist now) quite a few digital tape systems.

--
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

Email sent to my from-address will be deleted. Instead, please reply
to replacing "aaa" by "284".

In article id,
Jeremy Nicoll - news posts
wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Tape is awful. Get over it. Just because with a huge amount of
calibration and understanding by some really good sound engineers and
design engineers it was good ENOUGH doesn't make it great. Just.
Barely. Good. ENOUGH.

I wish people here didn't assume that tape means analogue. There were
(even if they don't exist now) quite a few digital tape systems.

Trouble is you don't have one of the major advantages of a digital system
- random access. Having to spool up and down a tape to find something was
a real PITA. And they usually could only be copied in real time.

--
*Born free...Taxed to death.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 29/04/2014 17:45, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Mike Barnes wrote:
Max Demian wrote:
I used to have Beethoven's Ninth on LP, where they always have to
split the third movement, and got so used to it that I would jump if I
heard the whole thing without the split (on a radio broadcast). Then I
got it on Musicassette which split the movement in a different place,
so I would jump in two places.

This might be an urban legend but I heard that the inventor of the CD
was a big Beethoven fan, and one of the design criteria was that the
Ninth had to fit on one disc.

Urban myth. The max length was defined by the available tapes for the
U-Matic recorder. The rather odd time being down to the same tapes being
used for PAL and NTSC, but running for a longer time at 25 frames per
second. ie, a 60 minute tape at 30 fps becomes 72 at 25. 60 minute tapes
were just over 60 minutes long to allow for line up data - it was a pro
format. Hence the 74 minutes.

It's origin is more uncertain though there is a lot of association with
the 74 minutes and Beethoven's 9th.

Tapes were made of various lengths, not just 60/72 minutes. Where did
you get this inference?

http://www.snopes.com/music/media/cdlength.asp

In article ,
Fredxxx wrote:
Urban myth. The max length was defined by the available tapes for the
U-Matic recorder. The rather odd time being down to the same tapes
being used for PAL and NTSC, but running for a longer time at 25
frames per second. ie, a 60 minute tape at 30 fps becomes 72 at 25. 60
minute tapes were just over 60 minutes long to allow for line up data
- it was a pro format. Hence the 74 minutes.

It's origin is more uncertain though there is a lot of association with
the 74 minutes and Beethoven's 9th.

Tapes were made of various lengths, not just 60/72 minutes. Where did
you get this inference?

From the designers of the CD system (from the Philips side) at its launch.

--
*Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 29/04/2014 18:56, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article id,
Jeremy Nicoll - news posts
wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Tape is awful. Get over it. Just because with a huge amount of
calibration and understanding by some really good sound engineers and
design engineers it was good ENOUGH doesn't make it great. Just.
Barely. Good. ENOUGH.

I wish people here didn't assume that tape means analogue. There were
(even if they don't exist now) quite a few digital tape systems.

Trouble is you don't have one of the major advantages of a digital system
- random access. Having to spool up and down a tape to find something was
a real PITA. And they usually could only be copied in real time.

I was moderately impressed with how LTO handles this. Lots of linear
tracks (2716 in LTO6 according to Wikipedia), but only writing a few at
once (16 for LTO6) - though the write bandwidth is still really pretty
high (160MB/s uncompressed, ie more than Gb).

It writes forward, back, forward, back, etc for lots of passes. The
advantage being that it doesn't take nearly as much winding to get to
where your data is - a tape which takes over 4 hours to fill still has
an access time of under a minute.

On 29/04/2014 19:12, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Fredxxx wrote:
Urban myth. The max length was defined by the available tapes for the
U-Matic recorder. The rather odd time being down to the same tapes
being used for PAL and NTSC, but running for a longer time at 25
frames per second. ie, a 60 minute tape at 30 fps becomes 72 at 25. 60
minute tapes were just over 60 minutes long to allow for line up data
- it was a pro format. Hence the 74 minutes.

It's origin is more uncertain though there is a lot of association with
the 74 minutes and Beethoven's 9th.

Tapes were made of various lengths, not just 60/72 minutes. Where did
you get this inference?

From the designers of the CD system (from the Philips side) at its launch.

But Philip's prototype was only 60 minutes at 14 bits?

I can't see any article that suggests that Philips were instigators of
the 74 minute 16 bit CD.

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 16:53:02 +0100, Clive George
wrote:

On 29/04/2014 16:18, Johny B Good wrote:

[1] around the equivilent performance of a high quality cassette deck
with accurately aligned dolby level. Realistically, a C90 TDK SA tape
would only manage the equivilent of 700MiB of storage.

Really? That implies a C90 is capable of similar quality levels to CD,
and I'd be very surprised if that was the case.


What you seem to have overlooked is the extra 18 minutes of run time
compared to a 74 minute CD (C90s were typically 46 minutes or so each
way).
--
Regards, J B Good

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 08:36:56 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

Simon Cee wrote:

check out 'photonics' for some amazing old
electronics... eg:

Mercury Arc Rectifier [100 yrs old]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY6V2syGnZA

Amazed that chap hasn't burned his attic down yet!

Obviously not too well up on electrical theory if it wasn't
immediately obvious to him that it was a three phase _fullwave_
rectifier designed for use with bi-phase secondary windings off a
three phase transformer. Six phase it wasn't!

--
Regards, J B Good

On 29/04/14 18:05, Jeremy Nicoll - news posts wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Tape is awful. Get over it. Just because with a huge amount of calibration
and understanding by some really good sound engineers and design engineers
it was good ENOUGH doesn't make it great. Just. Barely. Good. ENOUGH.

I wish people here didn't assume that tape means analogue. There were (even
if they don't exist now) quite a few digital tape systems.

indeed. You get over *nearly* all the problems if you go digital.

After all hard disks are 'tape done different' its all spinning or
moving rust of one sort or another.

The real breakthrough is in NAND memory like SSD and flash..


But the point remains spinning rust is awful, and analogue spinning rust
is the worst off all.

digital technology allows compensation for the worst analogue
variabilities by hiding it below the bit level.



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

On 29/04/2014 19:29, Johny B Good wrote:
On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 16:53:02 +0100, Clive George
wrote:

On 29/04/2014 16:18, Johny B Good wrote:

[1] around the equivilent performance of a high quality cassette deck
with accurately aligned dolby level. Realistically, a C90 TDK SA tape
would only manage the equivilent of 700MiB of storage.

Really? That implies a C90 is capable of similar quality levels to CD,
and I'd be very surprised if that was the case.


What you seem to have overlooked is the extra 18 minutes of run time
compared to a 74 minute CD (C90s were typically 46 minutes or so each
way).

No, I didn't. That takes it to 560-odd MB vs 700, ie it's holding 80% of
the information. Are cassettes really that good?

On 29/04/14 20:23, Clive George wrote:
On 29/04/2014 19:29, Johny B Good wrote:
On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 16:53:02 +0100, Clive George
wrote:

On 29/04/2014 16:18, Johny B Good wrote:

[1] around the equivilent performance of a high quality cassette deck
with accurately aligned dolby level. Realistically, a C90 TDK SA tape
would only manage the equivilent of 700MiB of storage.

Really? That implies a C90 is capable of similar quality levels to CD,
and I'd be very surprised if that was the case.


What you seem to have overlooked is the extra 18 minutes of run time
compared to a 74 minute CD (C90s were typically 46 minutes or so each
way).

No, I didn't. That takes it to 560-odd MB vs 700, ie it's holding 80% of
the information. Are cassettes really that good?


No.

the bandwidth is very low. AS is the SNR

Id say you can get about 4Khz bandwidth at about 55dB SNR.

ie about 10 bits deep and 4khz so 40Kbps.

216Mybtes for a C90. maybe 300+ using the edges of the spectrum and
pushing towards 6Khz and more.


Really the cassette tape has nothing to recommend it anymore at all.


When you can get 8Gbyte on a thumb drive...that costs the same as a few
blank cassettes.

I think te final nail in te coffin for me was hen I was looking to
backup a wew tens of GB on my home server.

It wpuldnt fit on a DVD.
A tape wss around 200 and I would need dozens of tapes to do a 'nightly
copy' There would be no guarantee the tape would be usablle
anyway..BTDTGTTS


IN the end the thing that did the job of protecting me against hard disk
failure was...another hard disk!

cheapests and simplest option.

Th backup drive went earlier this year. In with a new one, and leave it
running over the weekend absorbing all the data .

If any of the main ones hop its really just a question of copying all
the data back..

Now I am looking at my first SSD/SD machine. NO spinning rust at all.

Another seminal moment..



--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc-ra-cy) €“ a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

charles wrote:

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Tape was truly AWFUL.

Cassette tape, yes, properly maintained 15ips or even 30ips - no.

Where do you think the masters for CDs came from?

Indeed. I've just listened to a 1964 (first transmission; they don't say
when it was recorded) BBC recording of a song recital given by Benjamin
Britten & Peter Pears:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...d_Peter_Pears/

I didn't find the sound quality got in the way of my enjoyment of this
performance. I suppose it is possible that the BBC might have cleaned up
the original recording in some fashion before making this available on
iplayer, but even if that's true it means the original recording was well
engineered.

Do the people who think pre-1980s tape is dreadful think this performance is
dreadful too?


--
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

Email sent to my from-address will be deleted. Instead, please reply
to replacing "aaa" by "284".

On 29/04/2014 09:46, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
I tried it on a variety of cassette brands and technologies. Each one
had a completely different frequency response and gain. Enough to make
using Dolby a complete joke.

Our current cassette deck does some faffing about when you tell it to
set up a tape for recording - I'm pretty sure it's doing an analysis of
the tape to get the exact characteristics. Certainly the blinkenlights
suggest it's writing pulses at different volumes; I'll guess the other
pass is a frequency sweep.

And yes, we do still have one. It's handy for recording things for the
car, and we have a lot of old tapes.

Andy

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Id say you can get about 4Khz bandwidth at about 55dB SNR.

Surely better than that with a decent machine, and decent quality tape,
especially if you use Dolby C (or if you can stand the artefacts) dbx
encoding.

--
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

Email sent to my from-address will be deleted. Instead, please reply
to replacing "aaa" by "284".

Jeremy Nicoll - news posts wrote:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Id say you can get about 4Khz bandwidth at about 55dB SNR.

Surely better than that with a decent machine, and decent quality tape,
especially if you use Dolby C (or if you can stand the artefacts) dbx
encoding.

Back in the 1980s (I think) I used a Marantz CP430 3-head cassette deck
(powered from NiCds) with a pair of Calrec cardioid mics run from a 48 V box
of NiCds to make recordings of a choir as we travelled all over Europe,
often singing where mains electricity was iffy or non-existent. Provided
the recordings were played back on the same unit, the quality was not bad at
all. I did however use an external LED peak meter rather than depend only
on the machine's mechanical metering.

--
Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.

Email sent to my from-address will be deleted. Instead, please reply
to replacing "aaa" by "284".

On Tue, 29 Apr 2014 19:28:09 +0100, Fredxxx wrote:

I can't see any article that suggests that Philips were instigators of
the 74 minute 16 bit CD.

Herbert von Karajan was used by Sony to publicise the advantages of CD
over vinyl. Did the Beethoven 9th suggestion originate from them?

--
Alan White
Mozilla Firefox and Forte Agent.
By Loch Long, twenty-eight miles NW of Glasgow, Scotland.
Webcam and weather:- http://windycroft.co.uk/weather

In article ,
Fredxxx wrote:
From the designers of the CD system (from the Philips side) at its
launch.

But Philip's prototype was only 60 minutes at 14 bits?

At the launch of the CD. Not a prototype.

I can't see any article that suggests that Philips were instigators of
the 74 minute 16 bit CD.

It was a joint Philips/Sony thing.

--
*I was once a millionaire but my mom gave away my baseball cards

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article id,
Jeremy Nicoll - news posts
wrote:
I didn't find the sound quality got in the way of my enjoyment of this
performance. I suppose it is possible that the BBC might have cleaned
up the original recording in some fashion before making this available
on iplayer, but even if that's true it means the original recording was
well engineered.

Do the people who think pre-1980s tape is dreadful think this
performance is dreadful too?

Most would be very happy with the performance 1st generation high speed
1/4" tape gives at its best. It became more of a problem when
multi-tracking became the norm, as each generation adds noise, etc.

--
*Two many clicks spoil the browse *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On 30/04/2014 00:10, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Fredxxx wrote:
From the designers of the CD system (from the Philips side) at its
launch.

But Philip's prototype was only 60 minutes at 14 bits?

At the launch of the CD. Not a prototype.

I can't see any article that suggests that Philips were instigators of
the 74 minute 16 bit CD.

It was a joint Philips/Sony thing.

Maybe, but the 74 minute/16 bit has always been seen as chosen through
Sony's influence.

Can you indicate otherwise with cited documentation?

On Mon, 28 Apr 2014 19:09:14 +0100, gremlin_95 wrote:

Presumably old age is having its normal affect on hearing and
sight
so you don't notice how crap downloads and/or streaming are
compared
to CD or Blu-Ray (or even DVD come to that). B-)

What worries *me* is that many teenagers are of the opinion that
downloads are better quality than CDs.

Even at my age, I can tell the difference, even on earbuds and
small
screens.

There must be something wrong with me then because I can't really tell
the difference

Yeah but you are so young you've probably never seen or heard what
good systems fed with good signals are like or haven't had the
artifacts of the systems failings pointed out.

The population as a whole seem to think that Freeview DTTV is fine. I
find it almost unwatchable with all the artifacts the from lossy
compression that is applied to bring the 1 *Giga* bps plus out of the
back of a camera to around 2 *Mega* bps on Freeview. DSAT is better
but still has some problems but no where near as distracting. Both
DTV and DSAT, even in HD, are kicked into a cocked hat by Blu-Ray on
a decent "Full-HD" screen.

--
Cheers
Dave.

In message , Brian Gaff
writes
I loved meccano. I used some the other month to make a door closer for my
porch.

Good man, Brian. I have a stock of old, bent Meccano which is perfect
for creating all sorts of little brackets and similar uses.
--
Graeme

"News" wrote in message
...
In message , Brian Gaff
writes
I loved meccano. I used some the other month to make a door closer for my
porch.

Good man, Brian. I have a stock of old, bent Meccano which is perfect for
creating all sorts of little brackets and similar uses.

My dad had a large cabinet of Meccano - lots of drawers with little
compartments for each type of gear, plate, metal strip etc. I used to love
making models (eg a back-axle differential) with it, but when I grew up and
left home, Dad lent the Meccano to a work colleague for his son to play
with. After a year or so he asked for it back. The colleague had thought
that it was a gift and had eventually disposed of it (he hadn't even sold
it) when his son got tired of it. Relations between dad and his colleague
were a bit strained for ever afterwards :-(

On 30/04/14 08:56, Dave Liquorice wrote:

Yeah but you are so young you've probably never seen or heard what
good systems fed with good signals are like or haven't had the
artifacts of the systems failings pointed out.

The population as a whole seem to think that Freeview DTTV is fine. I
find it almost unwatchable with all the artifacts the from lossy
compression that is applied to bring the 1 *Giga* bps plus out of the
back of a camera to around 2 *Mega* bps on Freeview. DSAT is better
but still has some problems but no where near as distracting. Both
DTV and DSAT, even in HD, are kicked into a cocked hat by Blu-Ray on
a decent "Full-HD" screen.


625 line on an *average* set wasn't that great either - no artifacts,
but I found the slight fuzziness annoying when I had DTV and Analogue
side by side.

Pity the same standards are not applied to licensing a station now as
were applied even when Channel 4 was created though - we have 60+
channels of useless **** when instead the bandwidth could have gone to
making about 10 channels *really good* DTV quality.

Any why in god's name did they shove radio on the same muxes?

It's all going to become moot anyway as most of the population move
towards streaming media over the Internet. I never watch Freeview now -
Netflix and iPlayer and Youtube[1].

[1] There is a surprising amount of original content - mostly "shorts",
but also some other interesting stuff.

"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.co.uk...
On Mon, 28 Apr 2014 19:09:14 +0100, gremlin_95 wrote:

Presumably old age is having its normal affect on hearing and
sight
so you don't notice how crap downloads and/or streaming are
compared
to CD or Blu-Ray (or even DVD come to that). B-)

What worries *me* is that many teenagers are of the opinion that
downloads are better quality than CDs.

Even at my age, I can tell the difference, even on earbuds and
small
screens.

There must be something wrong with me then because I can't really tell
the difference

My threshold for detecting artefacts in audio is around 128 kbps for MP3: I
can distinguish that from anything higher, but I can't hear any difference
between (for example) 192 and 320 kbps.

The difference between analogue (especially vinyl) and digital (CD) is VERY
noticeable: vinyl suffers very badly from disc noise, even on a brand new
record from an expensive record label (ie not made on the cheap), whereas CD
sounds perfect. And dust and scratches are very hard to avoid.

As an aside, I've always wondered about people who say they prefer vinyl to
CD. Do they prefer the imperfections and signal processing that vinyl
introduces, I wonder? Do they find a live performance (mic, amplifier,
speakers) as bad as a CD, or do they find that the digitisation modifies the
signal - can they distinguish live electronic (all analogue) from CD?


Yeah but you are so young you've probably never seen or heard what
good systems fed with good signals are like or haven't had the
artifacts of the systems failings pointed out.

The population as a whole seem to think that Freeview DTTV is fine. I
find it almost unwatchable with all the artifacts the from lossy
compression that is applied to bring the 1 *Giga* bps plus out of the
back of a camera to around 2 *Mega* bps on Freeview. DSAT is better
but still has some problems but no where near as distracting. Both
DTV and DSAT, even in HD, are kicked into a cocked hat by Blu-Ray on
a decent "Full-HD" screen.

I hadn't realised that the output from a camera is as high as 1 Gbps. That
really is a LOT of compression to get it down to 1-2 Mbps.

I mainly watch TV (DTV) on my PC screen, sometimes in a window that only
occupies part of the screen, but then I am only a foot or so from the
screen. Mostly I'm not aware of compression artefacts of DTTV but there are
occasions on a very detailed picture when the camera pans and all detail is
lost or replaced with large blocks for a moment. But then I've seen some
DVDs where that happens.

Having said that, I am very conscious of the PAL artefacts (coloured fringes
around vertical edges, especially captions, and a fine dot pattern) on any
old programmes (eg repeats of 1970s or 80s programmes, or old news footage).


HD on DSat is a great disappointment. I remember watching the Opening and
Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics just after we got Sky and being very
aware of the compression artefacts.

The biggest problem with digital TV is that it doesn't handle overexposure
very gracefully. Drama is usually well graded and the picture is perfect,
but a lot of documentaries, especially fly-on-the-wall types, suffer from
horrendous featureless orange skin tones or other bleached colour. Tube
cameras had their faults (lag, smear) but somehow they managed to make
overexposure less objectionable.

"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
Pity the same standards are not applied to licensing a station now as were
applied even when Channel 4 was created though - we have 60+ channels of
useless **** when instead the bandwidth could have gone to making about 10
channels *really good* DTV quality.

Agreed. There are far too many dross channels (shopping, holidays,
docusoaps) which should be made to reduce their bitrates to allow room for
the mainstream channels. Even when additional multiplexes have been
introduced, they have been to provide more channels (eg HD versions of SD
channels) rather than to give existing channels more bandwidth.

Any why in god's name did they shove radio on the same muxes?

The quality of radio over Freeview is a lot better than on DAB. It is much
easier to schedule a recording of radio on Freeview than to work out how to
scehdule a recording from DAB radio.

It's all going to become moot anyway as most of the population move
towards streaming media over the Internet. I never watch Freeview now -
Netflix and iPlayer and Youtube[1].


I mostly watch on Freeview (well, I record and watch later, so I can edit
out adverts) because the picture quality and the ability to be able to go
instantly to any part of the recording are much better with my own off-air
recording than with iPlayer or the ITV, CH4 or CH5 equivalents - and there's
no time limit within which you've got to watch a programme before it is
removed from the server.

NY wrote:

As an aside, I've always wondered about people who say they prefer vinyl to
CD. Do they prefer the imperfections and signal processing that vinyl
introduces, I wonder? Do they find a live performance (mic, amplifier,
speakers) as bad as a CD, or do they find that the digitisation modifies the
signal - can they distinguish live electronic (all analogue) from CD?

I recall being a bit concerned about the sibilance I was
experiencing playing a particular folk LP (yes, that long ago).
When I next saw the artist, live and without any amplification,
it was quite clear that the recording was accurate :-)

As a long time fan of live music, usually in the folk field, I
have long felt that there is a problem. I have been to a number
of events where the sound at the venue has been pretty appalling,
but the radio recording has been excellent. One was Albion Band
at Fleetwood a good while ago; I stuck my head inside the control
van during the set, and it sounded great, inside the great domed
hall it was just a mush.

There has to be something really ironic about having to go home
to be able to listen to a live event properly.

I once (and only once) went to see Equation at Leicester Phoenix.
I sat next to the sound desk, and didn't hear a single word of
lyric all night. I could only assume this was intentional.

Seth Lakeman, at Loughborough festival a few years ago, was
deafening, (but incomprehensible) though the rest of the
evening's performers were fine. I really like his CDs, but would
never want to see him live again.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK


Plant amazing Acers.

NY wrote:
"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
Pity the same standards are not applied to licensing a station now
as were applied even when Channel 4 was created though - we have 60+
channels of useless **** when instead the bandwidth could have gone
to making about 10 channels *really good* DTV quality.

Agreed. There are far too many dross channels (shopping, holidays,
docusoaps) which should be made to reduce their bitrates to allow
room for the mainstream channels. Even when additional multiplexes
have been introduced, they have been to provide more channels (eg HD
versions of SD channels) rather than to give existing channels more
bandwidth.

If the 'mainstream channels' wnated to broadcast higher bitrates, they
could surely do their bit to free up room by removing their largely
redundant and unnecessary +1 channels, which seem to me to be just a way
of channel-squatting as insurance against the unlikely event that they
find anything worthwhile to broadcast. Would they really be missed if
they were closed down?

My threshold for detecting artefacts in audio is around 128 kbps for MP3: I
can distinguish that from anything higher, but I can't hear any difference
between (for example) 192 and 320 kbps.

The difference between analogue (especially vinyl) and digital (CD) is VERY
noticeable: vinyl suffers very badly from disc noise, even on a brand new
record from an expensive record label (ie not made on the cheap), whereas CD
sounds perfect. And dust and scratches are very hard to avoid.

Many years ago I was invited to a few audio tests involving amplifiers
and speakers at the home of a Dr Derek Scotland the designer of the old
Audiolab range before they sold out.

He had a pair of Quad ELS 63 electrostatic speakers these driven by his
200 watt Monoblock amps.

He was playing some excellent music and I didn't at first notice where
the source was as that was in the room next door it all being so that
you couldn't see what amps were actually being used etc..

I was staggered to find that what I'd been listening to was off Vinyl
disc!!

He did say that he didn't expect me to have heard it like that before as
the discs were pressed by a specialist company in Japan or Germany and
used much higher grade Vinyl than anyone would normally use.

Course it didn't get round the end of side distortion and other
artefacts that disc can and does introduce but I was really taken as to
how good it could be !...


As an aside, I've always wondered about people who say they prefer vinyl to
CD. Do they prefer the imperfections and signal processing that vinyl
introduces, I wonder? Do they find a live performance (mic, amplifier,
speakers) as bad as a CD, or do they find that the digitisation modifies the
signal - can they distinguish live electronic (all analogue) from CD?

Ask that of such as the shellac collective when you see them playing at
places like bestival...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaCDkaNSe1g

I once suggested that it would be simpler to put all their stuff on USB
sticks..

Dare you to suggest that to them, almost got lynched to shouts of
blasphemer!! and heretic!!;!...



Yeah but you are so young you've probably never seen or heard what
good systems fed with good signals are like or haven't had the
artifacts of the systems failings pointed out.

The population as a whole seem to think that Freeview DTTV is fine. I
find it almost unwatchable with all the artifacts the from lossy
compression that is applied to bring the 1 *Giga* bps plus out of the
back of a camera to around 2 *Mega* bps on Freeview. DSAT is better
but still has some problems but no where near as distracting. Both
DTV and DSAT, even in HD, are kicked into a cocked hat by Blu-Ray on
a decent "Full-HD" screen.

I hadn't realised that the output from a camera is as high as 1 Gbps. That
really is a LOT of compression to get it down to 1-2 Mbps.

I mainly watch TV (DTV) on my PC screen, sometimes in a window that only
occupies part of the screen, but then I am only a foot or so from the
screen. Mostly I'm not aware of compression artefacts of DTTV but there are
occasions on a very detailed picture when the camera pans and all detail is
lost or replaced with large blocks for a moment. But then I've seen some
DVDs where that happens.

Having said that, I am very conscious of the PAL artefacts (coloured fringes
around vertical edges, especially captions, and a fine dot pattern) on any
old programmes (eg repeats of 1970s or 80s programmes, or old news footage).

Thats depended on how well that was recorded and whether or not there
was a good comb filter in the receiver. I have seen studio originated
PAL pix and they were excellent...


HD on DSat is a great disappointment. I remember watching the Opening and
Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics just after we got Sky and being very
aware of the compression artefacts.

The biggest problem with digital TV is that it doesn't handle overexposure
very gracefully. Drama is usually well graded and the picture is perfect,
but a lot of documentaries, especially fly-on-the-wall types, suffer from
horrendous featureless orange skin tones or other bleached colour.

Prolly done on cheaper hand held cameras by less than experienced
persons..

Tube
cameras had their faults (lag, smear) but somehow they managed to make
overexposure less objectionable.


We've got a SONY Bravia and I'm quite picky of faults but by and large
it makes a very good job of processing the signals but can't put right
such as the bad audio in programmes like Jamaica Inn recently;!..


There does seem still quite a variation on the actual pix produced by
DTV televisions..


Never forgot what my old English teacher once said never be put off bu
the cover and binding of a book, content is the key thing...
--
Tony Sayer

There has to be something really ironic about having to go home
to be able to listen to a live event properly.

I once (and only once) went to see Equation at Leicester Phoenix.
I sat next to the sound desk, and didn't hear a single word of
lyric all night. I could only assume this was intentional.

Seth Lakeman, at Loughborough festival a few years ago, was
deafening,

Wonder why they do that?.

I have noticed over time that a lot of people who are DJ's and do live
sound seem to be a bit hard of hearing;!(...

(but incomprehensible) though the rest of the
evening's performers were fine. I really like his CDs, but would
never want to see him live again.

Chris

--
Tony Sayer

On 30/04/2014 09:49, NY wrote:

snip

My threshold for detecting artefacts in audio is around 128 kbps for
MP3: I can distinguish that from anything higher, but I can't hear any
difference between (for example) 192 and 320 kbps.


Agreed on the whole.

The difference between analogue (especially vinyl) and digital (CD) is
VERY noticeable: vinyl suffers very badly from disc noise, even on a
brand new record from an expensive record label (ie not made on the
cheap), whereas CD sounds perfect. And dust and scratches are very hard
to avoid.


Apart from between tracks and quiet sections, it is largely inaudible to
me. And when I can hear it it doesn't bother me. But that is a
preference - I know that's an artefact of the medium. In a sense it's
supposed to be there, and my brain 9sort of!) filters it.

As an aside, I've always wondered about people who say they prefer vinyl
to CD. Do they prefer the imperfections and signal processing that vinyl
introduces, I wonder? Do they find a live performance (mic, amplifier,
speakers) as bad as a CD, or do they find that the digitisation modifies
the signal - can they distinguish live electronic (all analogue) from CD?


I don't think there's a single reason. Young folk, I suspect, like the
physical medium that's completely lost on mp3, and IMO largely absent on
CD. They like the tactile aspect, too. I don't think sound quality as
such figures to much of an extent - IME they don't have playback systems
capable of significant differentiation.

For me, often I prefer the sound, but that's partly to do with the
quality of 'transcribed' (not sure of the proper word) recording, rather
than the capacity of the medium. But sound quality can be excellent -
and often is, at least on my system. I also tend to listen to a whole
record, rather than skit about with the audio streamer thing I have.

Other reasons - largely sentimental, plus those ascribed to the
youngsters, above.

Overall, though, I don't take the vinyl vs CD thing too seriously. I
like and use them both, and each have strengths and weaknesses.

--
Cheers, Rob

In article ,
Fredxxx wrote:
On 30/04/2014 00:10, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Fredxxx wrote:
From the designers of the CD system (from the Philips side) at its
launch.

But Philip's prototype was only 60 minutes at 14 bits?

At the launch of the CD. Not a prototype.

I can't see any article that suggests that Philips were instigators of
the 74 minute 16 bit CD.

It was a joint Philips/Sony thing.

Maybe, but the 74 minute/16 bit has always been seen as chosen through
Sony's influence.

Can you indicate otherwise with cited documentation?

It makes no difference. The maximum playing time was dictated by the
mastering machine of the day.

--
*Dance like nobody's watching.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
NY wrote:
As an aside, I've always wondered about people who say they prefer vinyl
to CD. Do they prefer the imperfections and signal processing that
vinyl introduces, I wonder? Do they find a live performance (mic,
amplifier, speakers) as bad as a CD, or do they find that the
digitisation modifies the signal - can they distinguish live electronic
(all analogue) from CD?

Ignoring any surface noise etc, vinyl adds its own distortion. Which many
just happen to like.

If you carefully copy vinyl to CD I defy anyone to tell the difference in
a properly conducted blind test.

Do it the other way round - more difficult - and most can tell the
difference.

Which proves vinyl is distorting the original.

--
*The older you get, the better you realize you were.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

"RJH" wrote in message
...
As an aside, I've always wondered about people who say they prefer vinyl
to CD. Do they prefer the imperfections and signal processing that vinyl
introduces, I wonder? Do they find a live performance (mic, amplifier,
speakers) as bad as a CD, or do they find that the digitisation modifies
the signal - can they distinguish live electronic (all analogue) from CD?


I don't think there's a single reason. Young folk, I suspect, like the
physical medium that's completely lost on mp3, and IMO largely absent on
CD. They like the tactile aspect, too. I don't think sound quality as such
figures to much of an extent - IME they don't have playback systems
capable of significant differentiation.

I can understand the preference for a physical, tangible copy of the
recording, though that's something which applies equally to records and CD
(and not to downloads).

I'm talking about audiophiles who prefer the *sound* of vinyl over CD. Now
they are perfectly entitled to, but I'm intrigued to work out what it is
that they prefer - they say that sound of CDs is cold and clinical, and too
perfect. Fine. But they make it sound as if the CD process *introduces*
something that the unrecorded electronic sound doesn't have.

Does anyone who whether anyone has carried out any trials of a live
performance (of whatever genre), reproduced to the test subjects:

1. by microphone, amplifier and loudspeaker

2. an identical sound mix by microphone, amplifier, CD mastering, CD
playback, amplifier, loudspeaker

to see whether they prefer one over the other. If they can't reliably
distinguish then all they are saying is that they prefer the imperfections
and modifications necessary to record on vinyl.

IF you had a wide enough tape running fast enough and you calibrated the
kit on a regular basis and re spooled the tape every few months to avoid
ghosting and' it COULD, with a sacrifice of a virgin and a goat at
midnight, give a passable imitation of 'a recording device'.


Unless you added Dolby, in which case you needed three virgins and a
prayer to St. Bridget as well.

Only for the Russ Andrews supplied one Dolby line up for everyone
else..


Can't say I agree.


Well since you were disagreeing with a straw man you yourself set up.
that's not surprising.

Did the BBC achieve miracles of recording with tape? Yes they did. They
had engineers who understood it.

Is the average analogue recording from a rock band so bad as to be in
places unusable? yes.

I remember standing behind a desk and saying to te 'sound engineer;''
'er the hi hats are totally overloading' and of course I could hear
that... because hi hats are sharp transient high frequencies which
tape does NOT like. 'No they aint' he said pointing at the VU meters
just tipping into the red...

Thats why they like tape, it can compress those very transients a
bit..

I thought about telling him about short high frequency transients, high
frequency tape pre-emphasis, and the sort of averaging a VU meter does,
its needle inertia the like. Then I looked at him, thought better of it
and nodded' and left.

I remember being asked to set up a Nakamichi cassette recorder to give
the 'best possible' sound. Widely hailed as the best cassette recorder
ever made. I was completely unable to get a flat response beyond
2.5khz, and it was largely dead at 8khz, about -4dB more on on track
than the other irrespective.

I tried it on a variety of cassette brands and technologies. Each one
had a completely different frequency response and gain. Enough to make
using Dolby a complete joke.

IN the end I decided not to look at the meters and just got as much
treble as I could without being edgy, and made sure it gave an adequate
response to its owners favourite recordings. "Isn't it a piece of kit?"
he enthused.."Yes, it certainly is," I agreed and left hurriedly.


Now quite some years ago there was a recording engineer around called
Angus McKenzie who was excellent at his job, but sadly became blind at a
young age and like those who are missing one sense they seem to develop
the others more than most..

Anyways was at an audio exhibition for pro engineers and equipment
suppliers and on his stand he was demo'ing some of the recordings he had
done and one of them was of a small classical quartet. The audio was
actually off a Nak cassette machine and also off a Studer A80 or 800 odd
can't quite remember now but listening on Stax electrostatic phones you
could switch between them.

The Studer had Dolby SR fitted the Nak was IIRC using Dolby C but he had
set it all up very carefully as was his way of doing things. The
difference?, barely noticeable you had to really try to find any in fact
it was stunning to think that small cassette could almost compete with
15 IPS 1/4 tape..

Wonder if the one you experienced was duff in someway as I had one for a
while and as long as you like you say tweaked it all up as it should be
it was very good...


The Russ Andrews syndrome* we call it today I think.


;!)...

That people achieved miracles with it and with vinyl, is despite, not
because of its inherent qualities.


When you actually look at the amount of pre-emphasis applied, and the
amount of companding that Dolby did, you will realise that in the case
of anything short of professional studio machines you were already
'compressing' the data severely on a tape. Just in a different way.

That MP3 players (and CDs) wiped out cassette players in a few short
years tells you something. MP3 was better even at low bit rates than
Cassette.

And you only need to look at the pre-emphasis to see why. Cassettes may
have appeared to give you 100hz-8khz and 55dB S/N. But they certainly
did NOT have that dynamic range in the last couple of octaves.
You could do lossless comparison of audio and get data rates massively
down. And still be better than tape. CDS are not compressed not because
its gives a better sound, but because it makes the player cheaper. At
the time small CPUS capable of untangling a compressed digital stream
simply were not available - they had enough issues with the D to A
converters which were truly dire and led to the 'Vinyl sounds better
than CD' myth, that started as a fact but became a myth a few years later.

Actually the most difficult sound to compress without loss is the
audience applause that follows the concert.

I did spend 12 years or more designing professional audio kit. I stopped
at about the time digital recording came in because apart from the
actual loudspeakers, every other link in the chain was developed to the
point where it was essentially so good you really didn't need to try and
make it better.

And my name ain't Russ Andrews.

I should hope not;!...


That people have leveraged compression to try and squeeze more onto less
to the point where informations is lost does not mean that compressions
itself means loss of information that you wanted to hear.

And I stand by my statement that tape was, the worst possible recording
medium ever, except for all the alternatives available at that time.



*the more you pay the better it sounds, irrespective of what objective
tests tell you.


--
Tony Sayer

Now I am looking at my first SSD/SD machine. NO spinning rust at all.

Another seminal moment..

As long as its a good one usually the Intel ones are, some aren't...




--
Tony Sayer

On 30/04/2014 11:17, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Fredxxx wrote:
On 30/04/2014 00:10, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Fredxxx wrote:
From the designers of the CD system (from the Philips side) at its
launch.

But Philip's prototype was only 60 minutes at 14 bits?

At the launch of the CD. Not a prototype.

I can't see any article that suggests that Philips were instigators of
the 74 minute 16 bit CD.

It was a joint Philips/Sony thing.

Maybe, but the 74 minute/16 bit has always been seen as chosen through
Sony's influence.

Can you indicate otherwise with cited documentation?

It makes no difference. The maximum playing time was dictated by the
mastering machine of the day.

That sounds like a "no".

On 30/04/14 10:54, Norman Wells wrote:
NY wrote:
"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
Pity the same standards are not applied to licensing a station now
as were applied even when Channel 4 was created though - we have 60+
channels of useless **** when instead the bandwidth could have gone
to making about 10 channels *really good* DTV quality.

Agreed. There are far too many dross channels (shopping, holidays,
docusoaps) which should be made to reduce their bitrates to allow
room for the mainstream channels. Even when additional multiplexes
have been introduced, they have been to provide more channels (eg HD
versions of SD channels) rather than to give existing channels more
bandwidth.

If the 'mainstream channels' wnated to broadcast higher bitrates, they
could surely do their bit to free up room by removing their largely
redundant and unnecessary +1 channels, which seem to me to be just a way
of channel-squatting as insurance against the unlikely event that they
find anything worthwhile to broadcast. Would they really be missed if
they were closed down?


+infinity...

yes - the whole regulation of stations has degenerated into a farce.