DCC Archive Computer audio rookie question

Is it possible to transfer from an audiophile cd to MP-3 file and retain all the sonic qualities of the original?

[ November 12, 2001: Message edited by: Dave ]

 

Succinct.

 

Dave,

MP3 is great for posting stuff on the web or getting convincing "blueprints" of recorded material but too much info is lost and manipulated in the compression. To shrink the info to such a small data size, compromises have to happen. DVD's are a great example. They look great on TV's and even digital projectors (the bigger you go the less spectacular the picture becomes). The DVD image will never hold up against a good film print. A lot of resolution compromises happen in order to compress the info to fit on a disc. There are good mastering techniques to make it less obvious but laws of nature always apply (darker scenes are the most dificult to work with from what I've read). I hope MP3's don't become the future popular music format...

Todd

 

A little while ago, I came across a post on another forum...don't know what provoked it, but the guy went on a rant about how he was an audiophile for many years and how he thought mp3's were just as good if not better than CD's, even when left at 128 kps. He went on to say anyone who says otherwise was crazy or stupid, and was pretty proud about selling his whole CD collection on half.com. Now, it has the makings of a sarcastic post, but from the way it was written, I couldn't really sense it being sarcastic. It was pretty emotional, if anything.

I just shook my head and thought, "Well, how the hell can you argue with a guy like that when he seems so damn sure of something so wrong?"

 

Cam,

It's the same way I felt about some of what went down on the tweek post. Some people are best off believing what they want to believe, weather it pans out scientifically or not.

The best anyone's had to compress music in a lossless format is Monkey's Audio which uses a different algorythm to make a waveform or PCM file small, and then there's it's bastard cousin called Shorten. Both are used on the Internet, but only for high-speed cable. It has the ability of making full-band audio smaller in file size, but only by 66%. So, a 3-min PCM, while only a whopping 33 meg will be (stereo) about 18 meg average. Monkey's Audio has a
Winamp plugin, but Shorten does not, although Monkey can unravel a .SHN file in the background DOS inviornment. Both are "lossless" formats. MP3 is a sound mapping killer, because of what it was designed to do. Ever seen the movie "The Fly"? It kinda does that to sound. Sometimes MP3 does great for what it is, but it's still Audio Brindle-fly.

[ November 13, 2001: Message edited by: Sckott ]

 

IIRC, audio magazines over here say that the difference between original CD and MP3 is no longer audible to them at >= 320 kbps bitrate. I have a nice 24/96 soundcard now, and will do some tests on my own. But I never believed in Fraunhofer´s claims that MP3 delivers CD quality at 128kbps. I actually got into a fight with one of their scientists on Usenet many years ago about this (that was just before MP3 was released). My point was that I thought it was just a marketing claim; it cannot be CD quality by definition because CD quality is 16/44.1 and MP3 is not CD quality as long as there is only one person on earth that is able to perceive the difference.

 

It depends what you use the mp3s for. I use them occasionally and strictly for the computer station with Videologic multimedia speakers. It works out fine since you have to deal with all that distracting fan noice generated from your GeForce 3 anyway.

Actually, I'm switching to mpc which is supposed to be a slight improvement. Still they're not worthy of a decent system.

 

The Easy CD-DA Extractor people claim L.A.M.E. converter is the best. I didn't do a A/B test so does anybody know if there's a big difference between MP3 encoding methods?

 

Best encoder out now is CDEX found here.

Mp3 is good for some things. Even L.A.M.E., variable bitrate is very good. It doesn't mean anything to a real experience. No comparison, and even at high bitrate, MP3 does evil things, completely changing the sound. Mp3 is fun, but it's never serious.

 

I can believe that Fraunhofer claimed that MP3's are equal to CD quality. Would anyone trying to push a format say or admitt it's worse? I've made a lot of MP3's at 128kbps with Fraunhofer's codec and the quality of the original source always suffer. MP3's are great in their size for sharing stuff via the web or for casual listening on a PC but as a reference music format, no. Higher frequency sound seems to suffer the most (cymbals, etc.). A lot of the computer community agree with Bill Gates goal to have all media bright and beautiful being generated from the PC/Mac (even at the cost of quality/look how the video quality on TV has suffered in the last few years/more channels = more compression/faster less quality rendering of video editing to get it out faster/etc.). Good quality is sadly drifting into the past. That's why we love DCC's stuff.

Todd

 

I wanted to make a comment about DVD video

Sure, its better than VHS, but from day one I couldn't believe the marketing hype around DVD-video.

I must've been the only person on the planet who was disappointed when I found out that on most DVD videos the resolution was only 720x480. I was generating ray traced images on an Amiga at resolutions higher than that in the late 80's.

I mean I have a dedicated 2800 dpi film scanner that turns a 35mm negatives into aproximently 3600x2400. Thats a almost a 9 megapixel image dudes. And there are a lot higher resolution scanners out there (if you can afford them).

Compare that to a 3.1 megapixel digital camera. And I can still use my zoom lenses.

I realize there's only so much info you can put on a DVD disc, but I really think that in a few very short years, a higher resolution format will be out. Right now, how many DVD-videos take advantage of the multisided/multilayered capability?

Just hope I have some kind of display device that will accept the format

This really wasn't to slam any format of audio/video over another. But I'm really tired of the hype.

Does this sound familiar:

CD... Perfect Sound. Forever.

 

There's a new DVD (HD-DVD) that was developed recently but it's not economical (yet) to replace standard DVD's. They use a blue laser technology and can yeild very high resolutions. I'll search for a link...

Todd

 

Drew,

Actually almost 1/2 of all DVDs use the high capacity, double layer right now. Check out a few on the PC when you think of it, and you'll be suprised how many of the less expensive, fairly simple DVDs are capped around 8 gig most of the time.

DVD is merely a storage format. We've only scratched the surface of what we can do with acres of space. Soon, someone will re-invent the laser pickup again, and they'll be 7" discs that will hold 30-40 gig. The DVD thing is merely a stepping stone idea to what can be done with high resolution, and audio.

Someday, higher end formats will be happilly married with media that comes from older technology, and by the time most people feel constriced by bandwith problems, they'll be something else quicky on your heel.

 

Yeah, think about what the majority of the people out there want. For someone with a JVC mini system, mp3s may very well be CD quality. It's all relative.

 

I agree that DVD is just a storage medium. As is CD and a magnetic hard drive. What we a really talking about is the convergence of audio and video into a digital realm that Bill Gates can control. I truly believe that. Why do you think a DVD video player comes with XP?

If it was up to me they'd unbundle everything from windows including notepad and minesweeper. The masses would be in a world of hurt, but it would stimulate competition. I called Bill Gates a quasi monopolist back in the late 80's when I was raytracing on my Amiga

I know the maximum resolution of mpeg 2 (the video compression scheme DVD-video uses) is 1940x1024. Maybe I should create a ray traced animation at that resolution just to say I've done it. Sounds like a lot of work at 24 frames per second.

I read that George Lucas used all digital cameras to shoot the upcoming Star Wars movie. I wonder what the resolution is. I wonder what its going to take to "upsample" that in a few years when a higher resolution becomes standard.


I have a friend that always gives me the "superiority of vinyl over CD" argument. I'm not saying that I disagree with him, but I enjoyed telling him that I prefer those old analog VHS videocassettes when he told me that he bought a DVD-video player.

 

Cam, you're referring to the BSN site from last week. That was a prank post. That message board has had many problems in the last couple of years with imposters, hostile posts, and annonymous posters. They were a bunch of emotionally unstable "regulars" that didn't like my favoring MONO mixes, Luke's style of communication, and, frankly anyone who did not adhere to the facist stereo-only philosophy.

That has all changed as of yesterday. The board is now once again moderated by Mike Callahan. All posts will now be screened first, and any post from a newbie without an email address will likely not be posted.

Finally, you can post and not be subjected to childish, vile flaming.

 

A few general responses:

- The next big storage medium that I've heard about uses a fluorescent technology. While you can't put much more than 2 layers on a standard DVD, the fluorescent discs will be able to have something like 10 layers for a 150 gig disc. Also interesting - the discs are more or less clear to the naked eye. Kind of cool... http://www.c-3d.net/tech_frameset.html

- As much as I hate Micro$oft, I don't really think including a DVD player with Windows is anything underhanded. How's it any different from including a CD player? All Macs come with a DVD player these days, so...

- while DVD *can* have problems, I don't see how you can really say a VHS tape is better than a good DVD. Sure, DVD is only 720x480 (I'm taking Drew's word for fact here, as I don't know the spec myself), but VHS is even less than that. DVD isn't a replacement for film, but we don't play film back on our TVs, now do we?

 

Still, an MP3 coded at 128 kbps is good enough, so that *most* people won´t be able to distinguish it from the CD it was made from. Even when using an above average playback system. And that is the point that Fraunhofer makes.
I even heard that during listening tests, some people liked the sound of the copy better than the original in certain programmes.
And do you think that the average car stereo system, or the average portable headphone clearly reveals the flaws in an 128k MP3 ? On the contrary, I would guess that at least 90% of all playback systems in use today are more sonically flawed than a 128k MP3.

Just to make this clear again: I am not an MP3 advocate, on the contrary.

[ November 13, 2001: Message edited by: Michael Beckmann ]

 

I was making a sarcastic remark to my friend when I said I prefer analog VHS to DVD. Busting his chops.

I haven't much experience with Macs so I can't comment there.

My idea of a perfect operating system (no matter what the hardware platform is) is one that controls my hard drive, video card, keyboard and mouse. Thats it. The end.


I was running Linux about 4 or 5 years ago and I think I might be going back. No more bloated microsoft code.

This isn't the place where I'd expect to get into an OS argument.

 

Being a little bit fanatic about quality, does anybody know if any current movie productions are still made on 70mm film ? I think it is all 35mm now. Decades ago when cinemas were big, they showed movies on 70mm. How else would they get all that light through the film for projecting it on the huge screen, without burning the film. And 70mm makes quite a difference in image quality.

 

Did you know Apple lost a class action suit over its ability to playback DVDs?

See
here.

 

Two things:

- You can choose to *not* install a lot of stuff if you do a custom install.

- Most distros of Linux these days come with a *lot* of stuff - Mozilla, Gimp, Apache, Postfix, Koffice, etc... Of course, you don't *have* to install everything (as above), but most is included by default.

 

I know some of you might think I'm sniffing something, but Windows XP is built much more the same way, as there are things including the browser that you CAN remove. You can also adjust the gooey visuals to nothing, so things run without a lot of caching and swap-file craziness.

Although DVD playback is supported, merely having a DVD ROM on Windows XP is not enough. You still need to have a software or hardware playback system for your PC, just like Windows 2K or 98. It's just that Windows Media Player will attempt to play it, but alas, no ticket, no seat, and it will remind you that decoding has to be used with 3rd party products. Well, duh. Thanks for playing! or NOT playing... Hehehe

Some great points here though, and it's true that the buying public's ear is being fed cheapness. Mp3 is definately a neat trick. Some of the encoders ARE so good that it can be hard to tell what's been ripped out sonically, but Mp3 actually does a number to the broad dynamics of new music, especially. Think of all that really hyperactively mastered garbage, and then Mp3 attacks it. Talk about setting the sound to "puree'"

Oh well. There is better things in life, if you want it.