Damage Posted January 10, 2005 Report Share Posted January 10, 2005 Don't be surprised if the next 2 to 3 years brings the total digitalization of you. Yea, that's right, you. Your documents, your photos, your music, your movies, all digitalized in one form another. Be it your XBOX2, PSP, PS3, PC, iMac, iHomeMac, iPod, Walkman, Digital Cameras, etc. Instead of polaroids, we use cell phone cameras of varying quality for our instant snapshots now. Instead of Casettes or CDs, we have our iPods, iFlashPods, MD walkmans, etc. Instead of a wholesome 35mm cameras, we have our digital cameras. Sure, Jon and Jane believes that digital stuff maybe better for us because we're told to be the case. So, are we better off having everything digital?After all, what happened to the short 40 minute albums? One of my favorite albums, scant 42 minutes long (Out of Time, REM). Now, we have 80 minutes long feast of... jabber and blabber, loud and boisterous, but devoid of content Even the old favorites seem... stale.... Yea, Bono, I'm talking to you!You can have everything digital your way, but me, I'm having a bit of a hankering for some good old LaserDisc right about now. Or a polaroid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeriyn Posted January 10, 2005 Report Share Posted January 10, 2005 Vinyl! Analog > all, at least when it comes to audio. Too bad that out of all my favorite artists, only one has an album cut in vinyl.And btw, I still use CDs religiously. Just not portably. At home on my Cambridge CDP, oh yeah, why listen to compressed music when you can have pure, clean, refreshing linear PCM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted January 10, 2005 Report Share Posted January 10, 2005 As someone who has done editing both in the digital and analogue realms.. I miss 1/4" tape. There was something about shuttling 15ips tape to mark and cut your edits, the spools of annoying white splicing tape.. the sound of large solid-state headphone preamps driving actual watts straight to your ears, shwoooosh-shwooosh... Um, yeah.Honestly, I'm glad I learned how to do most things the "old way", with taped fly-ins and splice-editing and .. and .. Technically, I edited on digital, first. But I never did anything real with either until college, with 1/4" tape machines, it was so much fun. It's such a physical process, there's just something about.. about having control over something real. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Syrius Posted January 13, 2005 Report Share Posted January 13, 2005 After all, what happened to the short 40 minute albums? One of my favorite albums, scant 42 minutes long (Out of Time, REM). Now, we have 80 minutes long feast of... jabber and blabber, loud and boisterous, but devoid of content Even the old favorites seem... stale.... Yea, Bono, I'm talking to you!←"The quality of a media product's content is inversely proportional to the quantity of such content." -Me. I agree with you. I saw the Lion King DVD, and loved the movie (and the digital transfer) itself. But in terms of extras, the Laserdisc deluxe CAV edition Ownz it, big time. I don't care about stupid little interactive games. The documentaries and extras on the other two discs were pure gold, I tell you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted January 13, 2005 Report Share Posted January 13, 2005 LaserDisc's final and triumphant return will come as a weapon in the great format war, a spinning disk of justice to obliberate HD/DVD + Blueray discs. We will equip them like throwing stars and take out all whom oppose.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyk Posted January 13, 2005 Report Share Posted January 13, 2005 Shake it like a polaroid picture... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted January 13, 2005 Report Share Posted January 13, 2005 LaserDisc's final and triumphant return will come as a weapon in the great format war, a spinning disk of justice to obliberate HD/DVD + Blueray discs. We will equip them like throwing stars and take out all whom oppose.. ←Why not make real right and create our own bluray uncompressed analogue [or, well, 1st-order compression, G-RB] video format? LD was kind of a pani in the arse to handle but it sure was beautiful, picture-wise. HDTV looks like garbage to me. I keep going places and overhearing "average consumers" touting its superior quality, but then, two facts that they never seem to recognise:1) something 85% of the current programming on HD is sports [and due to lots of fast motion looks even -worse- than it could] which I'm not remotely interested in paynig thousands of dollars to watch, and2) it still looks bad. I watch it - and I can see the compression artifacts all over the place. This is supposed to be better? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damage Posted January 13, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2005 (edited) Hey, there is always HD Audio... More compressed audio for you! That with Poorly Compressed MPEG2 Video Stream for your TV and audio... blah! Edited January 13, 2005 by Damage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyena Posted January 13, 2005 Report Share Posted January 13, 2005 You can have everything digital your way, but me, I'm having a bit of a hankering for some good old LaserDisc right about now. ←LD rocks. I finally upgraded to a 2 sided player last year. I wish I could afford to buy the Pioneer Elite LD/DVD/CD player that they're still making. That thing is a beauty.(Oh yes, if anyone is looking for LDs, http://www.discountlaserdisc.com/ is a great place to purchase them, I've bought many discs from Mr. Legg, and he's very reputable. /pimp ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROMBUSTERS Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 I wish I could afford to buy the Pioneer Elite LD/DVD/CD player that they're still making. That thing is a beauty.that make that?!?!?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bananatree Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 Laser Disc was analog? I guess I missed a boat or two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeriyn Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 Laser Disc was analog? I guess I missed a boat or two.←It's not analog. It's just uncompressed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 It's not analog. It's just uncompressed.←LD uses an optically recorded analogue video signal, along with [originally] two tracks of AFM audio [audio modulated on the video signal, very high quality that would rival digital recording, really] and later had added to it digital audio tracks, starting with linear PCM.The original LD was an all-analogue beast, really.My guess is that the analogue video would have been "encoded" with the same lossless compression scheme [GY - R - B] used by most broadcausting equipment. If so, it would be capable of recording in the analogue a video signal of high enough bandwidth and resolution to actually outdo broadcast equipment. It's a shame they never made a recordable version [that I know of, at least]. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyena Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 that make that?!?!?! ←I suppose you wanted to say "they make that", or something? Either way, my mistake. Pioneer has stopped manufacturing that particular model. (The DVL-91) However I believe they still have the non-Elite DVD/LD player, the DVL-919. MSRP is set at $1,275. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rumz Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 Laser Disc was analog? I guess I missed a boat or two.←That's what I was gonna say Though I understood what Damage was getting at, hehe... I still remember using tapes! I tend to think of this more in terms of removable media vs. files on a computer/other player. I have a coworker who believes media is dead, only uses mp3s and dvd rips (has a modded xbox that he uses as a media center) Not legal, as he rips his CDs and then sells them (forget about illegal-- it's blasphemous to anyone who cares about audio fidelity, heh). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damage Posted January 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 That's what I was gonna say Though I understood what Damage was getting at, hehe... I still remember using tapes! I tend to think of this more in terms of removable media vs. files on a computer/other player. I have a coworker who believes media is dead, only uses mp3s and dvd rips (has a modded xbox that he uses as a media center) Not legal, as he rips his CDs and then sells them (forget about illegal-- it's blasphemous to anyone who cares about audio fidelity, heh).←Smells like the combined marketing of HP, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, etc. has done a good job of saying Digital is where its at, you don't need much else. I guess the whole tactile sensation of ownership doesn't apply much these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aeriyn Posted January 16, 2005 Report Share Posted January 16, 2005 LD uses an optically recorded analogue video signal, along with [originally] two tracks of AFM audio [audio modulated on the video signal, very high quality that would rival digital recording, really] and later had added to it digital audio tracks, starting with linear PCM.The original LD was an all-analogue beast, really.My guess is that the analogue video would have been "encoded" with the same lossless compression scheme [GY - R - B] used by most broadcausting equipment. If so, it would be capable of recording in the analogue a video signal of high enough bandwidth and resolution to actually outdo broadcast equipment. It's a shame they never made a recordable version [that I know of, at least].←It's stored on the disc in binary, though, which is digital. Lands and pits, just like a CD, right? I wasn't aware that a binary storage format like optical media could even be analog. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted January 16, 2005 Report Share Posted January 16, 2005 It's stored on the disc in binary, though, which is digital. Lands and pits, just like a CD, right? I wasn't aware that a binary storage format like optical media could even be analog. ←The lands and pits are a modulated analogue signal.And, technically, the lands and pits themselves, even on a CD, are an analogue of the digital signal. Which makes all stamped optical media inherently analogue, even if the recorded signal is digital.So there's one to think about, aye? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damage Posted January 17, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2005 (edited) So, basically, the best formats for everything is inherently analog? Sounds good to me! Oh, and aeriyn, here is the LaserDisc FAQ. It's the best I can find on the net at the moment, but the picture is analog, and audio is either analog or digital depending on the pressing. In fact, LDs were the first video formats to carry Dolby Digital / DTS encoded tracks (along with lots of stuff that are now considered standard on most DVDs these days). Edited January 17, 2005 by Damage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dex Otaku Posted January 17, 2005 Report Share Posted January 17, 2005 If you really want to get into a discussion on video.. IMO, if a storage system with sufficient bandwidth were cheap and practical, hi-band or HD analogue video is VASTLY superiour to ANY form of digital video recording. This is one of the reasons that I look at DVRs and cringe - yeah, great, I'll record what was originally a clean analogue video signal [in most cases still] but has been lossily compressed for satellite transmission, then converted back to analogue, then back to compressed digital for local cable distribution.. Whatever. Most of the stuff on TV now has already gone through between 2-5 generations of lossy compression before it even reaches your TV, even with analogue cable systems. So yeah, again - great, let's take that 4th-gen signal and recompress it on my DVR. Fantastic. The whole concept makes analogue masters playing to analogue satellite transmissions to analogue cable distribution to standard VHS tape in the home sound nothing more than blissfully high-resolution, to me.I also believe that analogue audio recording is inherently superiour. It's the same thing though - given a high enough resolution storage and transmission medium, analogue will always be better than digital.Digital is far easier to store and transport, though. It's also easier to process in most ways. Storage, processing, and distribution are what digital is great for. Consistent quality, sure, when used properly. Most of the time, though - as with cable distribution - it's not used properly. By the time the signal reaches the viewer, it's gone through so many generations of loss that it's hardly worth watching. You may as well download windows media 150kbps streams and put them on your TV - I'd say they're roughly the same quality in many cases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Damage Posted January 17, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 17, 2005 Most of the time, though - as with cable distribution - it's not used properly. By the time the signal reaches the viewer, it's gone through so many generations of loss that it's hardly worth watching. You may as well download windows media 150kbps streams and put them on your TV - I'd say they're roughly the same quality in many cases.I think that's being very generous. Local Satellite feeds look like 56kbps Video feed, to be honest. C'est la vie. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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