Re: MD: ATRAC-R (HiFi)
Steve Corey wrote: I was a die-hard uncompressed PCM DAT fan for years. When MD's first came out, they sounded terrible, so I wrote off the format. Then a person, whose ears I trusted, said that I should really check out the new MD's. I was impressed, and now am the proud owner of a Sony MZR-90. I absolutely love it. Even though it has its share of annoying (endearing?) quirks. Just be careful of the END SEARCH button. Use it even when you don't need to, 'cause it will erase your Md faster than you can say bread and butter. If you're looking for fidelity (faithfulness) I havn't come across a situation where MD has not been adequate. I'm new to MD, however, so perhaps I'll stumble across something that will trip it up. 'Till then I'll happily continue "taping" with my MD. There was one incident with a certain French horn solo on a Sharp 702 that was reproducible. However, it disappeared when another instrument was added to the mix, or a different sequence of notes was played. Most people would have missed the artifact if it hadn't been brought to their attention. -- Jim Coon Not just another pretty mandolin picker. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If Gibson made cars, would they sound so sweet? My first web page http://www.tir.com/~liteways - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: ATRAC-R
Fidelity does mean faithfulness, but so many people have so many different perceptions of what is truly a faithful reproduction and what isn't. So what is lo-fi to one is HiFi to another. Adios, LarZ --- TAMA - The Strongest Name in Drums --- -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of las Sent: Tuesday, 10 October 2000 1:07 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:Re: MD: ATRAC-R Tony Antoniou wrote: So what is HiFi? Whatever appears to be of greatest fidelity to the individual. THAT is HiFi. There is no ultimate answer. Tony, this is one time that I have to disagree with you. It is only semantics but your statement is incorrect. Don't confuse the terms fidelity and better. Fidelity is an objective term. It means faithfulness. Which means that the what you hear is as close to the original as possible. It is true or "faithful" to it. Better is a subjective term. It can be what ever the individual wants it to be. Larry - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: ATRAC-R (HiFi)
"Fidelity" is an objective term. It means faithfulness. Which means that the what you hear is as close to the original as possible. It is true or "faithful" to it. Me being on the digest, this may've already been addressed, but just to continue in the hair-splitting vein: Some people striving for hi-fi are attempting to reproduce exactly what the recording engineer hears on his monitors in the studio. Some people are attempting to reproduce the live event. Which is subtley different, and begs the flippant question - which seat? - because the listening environment overwhelms all else. Some people are trying to create the sound that pleases them most in their environment, a moderate and perhaps sensible approach given that none of us live in anechoic chambers. But it gets very muddy in a world of electronic or processed music. What is the original sound? There is no original acoustic environment for some of this stuff, borne solely of electronics. You can choose the flattest full range speakers possible, but you're still hearing mainly your room. All good fun until someone loses an eye. Time to whip out the Sennheiser phones? Enjoy your MD and remember if you want to have Private Free E-mail while Sharing Information About Yourself use... _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: ATRAC-R
Just to throw a spanner in the works though, the definition of fidelity can be interpreted as one of subjective or objective observation. If we go along with technical, then indeed it (ATRAC) isn't of "better" fidelity than its DAT or CD counterparts. However, if we take it from a subjective standpoint, as most would because we aim for the end result to be appealing to the human ear and not a piece of test gear, then that's where we hit the stalemate. What might sound perfectly identical to the original source (and therefore be of the highest fidelity) to one person may be perceived differently by another. So what is HiFi? Whatever appears to be of greatest fidelity to the individual. THAT is HiFi. There is no ultimate answer. Ok, I'm done now 3#-) Adios, LarZ --- TAMA - The Strongest Name in Drums --- -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of sherryl Sent: Monday, 9 October 2000 3:14 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: MD: ATRAC-R But if "better" means more faithful to the original, ATRAC R is still lossy, and uncompressed digital audio on DAT or CD is better by that definition. Firs of, David, I know I shouldn't be tying right now. I get the distinct impression defined better as a fidelity thing. And as you stated, the answer is no. The reason I say he meant fidelity is because until you even asked him to define fidelity, I was about to e mail him no. You multiple definition thing never even crossed my mind. That doesn't mean I am right though. Just may have tunnel vision. Having "known" you for a long time from the net, I have formed two opinions about you. The first is that you were a very good student when you were in school. The second is that you seem like the kind of student that read things into the question. I used to do that. But in my case it always worked against me. They would ask for the color of the sky. Now you should answer blue without even thinking. But I would be thinking, was the sun out??? Is it raining??? Is it day time. Except when I tried to get the teacher to clarify the question all I get was a dirty look :) Shanna Tova, Larry - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: ATRAC-R
Tony Antoniou wrote: So what is HiFi? Whatever appears to be of greatest fidelity to the individual. THAT is HiFi. There is no ultimate answer. Tony, this is one time that I have to disagree with you. It is only semantics but your statement is incorrect. Don't confuse the terms fidelity and better. Fidelity is an objective term. It means faithfulness. Which means that the what you hear is as close to the original as possible. It is true or "faithful" to it. Better is a subjective term. It can be what ever the individual wants it to be. Larry - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: ATRAC-R
Tony Antoniou wrote: So what is HiFi? Whatever appears to be of greatest fidelity to the individual. THAT is HiFi. There is no ultimate answer. Tony, this is one time that I have to disagree with you. It is only semantics but your statement is incorrect. Don't confuse the terms "fidelity" and "better". "Fidelity" is an objective term. It means faithfulness. Which means that the what you hear is as close to the original as possible. It is true or "faithful" to it. "Better" is a subjective term. It can be what ever the individual wants it to be. Larry - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: ATRAC-R
Chris Moore wrote, | I have recently learned that I own a MiniDisc deck (Sony JE-330) that uses | the newest ATRAC-R compression scheme. | I have heard that this new form of compression creates a recording that is | etiher equivalent to or even BETTER than DAT.is there any truth in | this? Define "better". DAT is uncompressed. It uses no compression scheme. If "better" means more pleasing to the listener, the answer is "maybe." Some people might like the sound resulting from ATRAC R while others will prefer that of the uncompressed digital signal. But if "better" means more faithful to the original, ATRAC R is still lossy, and uncompressed digital audio on DAT or CD is better by that definition. - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: ATRAC-R
But if "better" means more faithful to the original, ATRAC R is still lossy, and uncompressed digital audio on DAT or CD is better by that definition. Firs of, David, I know I shouldn't be tying right now. I get the distinct impression defined better as a fidelity thing. And as you stated, the answer is no. The reason I say he meant fidelity is because until you even asked him to define fidelity, I was about to e mail him no. You multiple definition thing never even crossed my mind. That doesn't mean I am right though. Just may have tunnel vision. Having "known" you for a long time from the net, I have formed two opinions about you. The first is that you were a very good student when you were in school. The second is that you seem like the kind of student that read things into the question. I used to do that. But in my case it always worked against me. They would ask for the color of the sky. Now you should answer blue without even thinking. But I would be thinking, was the sun out??? Is it raining??? Is it day time. Except when I tried to get the teacher to clarify the question all I get was a dirty look :) Shanna Tova, Larry - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: ATRAC-R and Laser Colors
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ATRAC can never surpass CD quality since it stores less information than CD-DA. For the same reasons, equal quality is also theoretically impossible, and practically impossible without increasing the bit stream allowed (24-bits/sample I believe). I"m not totaly convinced. ATRAC allows 24 bit datawords. Sampling a signal results in a datasteam of samples. These samples all together represent a frequency spectrum. The CD bitstream contains all the frequencies (even the one with an amplitude of 0!). ATRAC try's to trow away the frequencies that are inhearable. (Those who're 0 for instance!!!). So if you have a clear digital signal without noise and just a few frequencies (less then one fifth of the total frequencies), ATRAC will store this signal with the same or even higher qualitly as oposed to CD. I can hear people thinking, ATRAC will allways compress. That's correct, but remember that in the digital domain, the value '0' is still a value! Cheers, Ralph -- === Ralph SmeetsFunctional Verification Centre Of Competence - CMG Voice: (+33) (0)4 76 58 44 46 STMicroelectronics Fax:(+33) (0)4 76 58 40 11 5, chem de la Dhuy Mobile: (+33) (0)6 82 66 62 70 38240 MEYLAN E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] FRANCE === "For many years, mankind lived just like the animals. And then something happened that unleashed the powers of our imagination: We learned to talk." -- Stephen Hawking, later used by Pink Floyd -- === - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: ATRAC-R and Laser Colors
Andrew wrote: (hence, "wavelet"), and can reproduce the signal almost *exactly* by compositing the wavelets at playback. This breaks the bounds of Nyquist's rule, which states that you must sample at double the highest frequency you wish to represent... because you're no longer sampling. I suspect this is nonsense. (sorry Andrew) You do have to sample the data to get it into the digital domain, before you can process it. (Unless you are going to do an ANALOG wavelet analysis - please supply diagrams) There are a few major drawbacks to wavelet compression... mainly the computational workhorsing needed, as well as the fact that the compression is unpredictable -- different waveforms will compress to different degrees, solely based on their structural composition. Also, it's not 100% real- time. You have to look at the signal over time to be able to give a wavelet representation. I work with wavelet video compression, and that IS quasi real-time, ie you have to operate on a whole video field at a time, so there is an effective one field delay. I haven't got round to trying wavelets on audio yet, but you would have to select some sample window size ( I think 20mS might be appropriate ), so there will be a short delay. The computational demands are probably similar to ATRAC. I suspect that wavelets will not be as good as ATRAC for any particular data rate, as they seem to me less amenable to psychoacoustic coding. simon - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: ATRAC-R and Laser Colors
Magic wrote: If I take a sound file which is 44.1kHz in 16bit, the same as CD, and ZIP it with WinZIP, it occupies less space. If I did this with all the music from one of my CDs, I could probably copy those ZIP files onto another CD and fit two CDs worth of music onto it (although a normal CD player couldn't play it). I now have twice as much information stored on the same capacity disc. I tried this on a partial CD image of 503 Mb, and it zipped to 481 Mb. Music data is pseudo random (as far as WinZip is concerned) so it does not accept much lossless compression. And, in reply to: Compression, yes runlength encoding and huffman codes can be used to reduce the size of a the file. But they do not alter the bit rate. In order to read your Zipped files you must first decompress them, then decode them, then play them. (I'm not sure what this means) Wrong. ZIP files do not necessarily have to be decompresed before you can access their contents, it is possible to access the contents directly if you store the decoding table in RAM and use this as a reference for the data you read from the file. Wrong (sorry). While it's correct to say that you don't have to decompress the ZIP into a file, you do have to reverse the compression algorithm to extract the data. simon - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: ATRAC-R and Laser Colors
Wrote RJ Kirkland [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Actually the amount of data stored on an MD could be increased by 8x without a blue laser, simply a slightly different red one. MD-Data2 uses the different laser and a smaller track pitch to achieve a 5x increase in disk capacity. Maxell has already prototyped a MD-Data that can store in excess of 1.5gigs of data. But in both of these cases they will (most likely) never be applied to MD audio because of fear that it would hurt the original MD format customer base. I think it would be a great idea, but I understand how it could potentially hurt MD's use in the US especially. My response: Now that I'm beginning to hear about SACD and DVD-Audio -- things are getting far too complicated -- I imagine that it will be more difficult for MD in the U.S.A. However, I know that some DVDs have 2 layers. Could something like this be implemented for MD, one layer holding the "regular" 74 minutes, and the other holding the increased amount of data (either uncompressed, true quality music of the same quality and length; or ATRAC-compressed music of extended length)? I'm just running ideas through my head here. J. C. R. Davis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: ATRAC-R and Laser Colors
ATRAC can never surpass CD quality since it stores less information than CD-DA. For the same reasons, equal quality is also theoretically impossible, and practically impossible without increasing the bit stream allowed (24-bits/sample I believe). Actually the amount of data stored on an MD could be increased by 8x without a blue laser, simply a slightly different red one. MD-Data2 uses the different laser and a smaller track pitch to achieve a 5x increase in disk capacity. Maxell has already prototyped a MD-Data that can store in excess of 1.5gigs of data. But in both of these cases they will (most likely) never be applied to MD audio because of fear that it would hurt the original MD format customer base. I think it would be a great idea, but I understand how it could potentially hurt MD's use in the US especially. The other problem faced by increasing just the size of the disc, is that you will have to record at 1x speed from most sources, except for the Sony CD-MD machine which would allow faster speeds (I doubt more than10x would ever be released for complexities sake). Companies like EDL offer a way for faster access and recording, but like alot of proprietary solutions, they priced their product to make a large profit off of a small user base, instead of the converse. So since at ~$8,000USD it is out of the reach of most people, it has not become a popular piece of software, and MD has suffered. If it had been cheaper then MDH-10/11 (MD-Data drives) would have been higher leading to increased production and possibly better drives in the future. My $0.02, RJ Kirkland Regarding MiniDisc compression, I see that now there is an ATRAC-R. How well does it rate as compared to earlier versions? Since MD's compression algorithm is constantly being upgraded, could MD one day be equal to or surpass CD sound? Also, I believe I read in the January/February issue of SOUND VISION that using a certain color laser (blue?) could practically quadruple the amount of data stored on an MD. Could this mean one of the following: (1) that MD could store the same amount of data as CD without compression, resulting in uncompressed, true CD-quality sound in the same amount of time? or (2) that using ATRAC compression, up to 4x the amount of music could be on one MD? If so, either could be a boon to the MD format! Jonathan C. R. Davis ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: ATRAC-R and Laser Colors
From: RJ Kirkland [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 14, 2000 7:21 PM Subject: RE: MD: ATRAC-R and Laser Colors ATRAC can never surpass CD quality since it stores less information than CD-DA. For the same reasons, equal quality is also theoretically impossible, and practically impossible without increasing the bit stream allowed (24-bits/sample I believe). The quality of the sound *could* be increased with ATRAC to surpass CD quality. It is possible to store the same information by simply not storing what you don't need. Take this message you are reading for example. You can still read it, although it is now only 7 bit, despite the fact that before I sent it, it was an 8 bit message. The unused data was removed without making any difference to the used data. This means I now have 1 bit of data in which I can store something else. A CD is 16 bit and can store all frequencies between 0Hz and 22.05kHz. If I were to use a different method of storing the same data, it would still give the same end result. If this method allowed me to remove the inaudible part - the 0 to 20Hz range for example, I could then use this "spare data" to store something else. There's also another method of storing the same data in a smaller space : compression. If I take a sound file which is 44.1kHz in 16bit, the same as CD, and ZIP it with WinZIP, it occupies less space. If I did this with all the music from one of my CDs, I could probably copy those ZIP files onto another CD and fit two CDs worth of music onto it (although a normal CD player couldn't play it). I now have twice as much information stored on the same capacity disc. If the ATRAC system were improved enough, it is not inconceivable that it could eventually exceed CD quality. Magic -- "Creativity is more a birthright than an acquisition, and the power of sound is wisdom and understanding applied to the power of vibration." Location : Portsmouth, England, UK Homepage : http://www.mattnet.freeserve.co.uk EMail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
