mike_mccue


I think of bit depth on the Z axis. It defines the color space and light value dynamics rather than spatial resolution

I've seen plenty of vectors in video edit/composit/motion graphics applications but I have never seen vector math used in any digital video distribution formats other than "flash" and "silverlight".

Maybe Blue Ray authoring has some?



best regards,
mike

No need on a video that's being produced for a particular screen resolution, other than for the text used for titling/captioning purposes or overlaid graphics elements.  We know now that the audio has been taken care of so we don't need to worry about that either anymore.

It's still sort of amazing, to me, to think that the engineers can sync up 48kHz sound with +/-30Hz pictures and make it all work.

Great link and thread here. I always use dither Pow r-2 because I read something a long time ago that said it was the best compromise. I don't know if that is even the case, or if it's really improving things but I do it at the end in the master process. I also agree with others above (and Ethan) that the beauty of digital recording is its clarity. It's a foundation from which one can deviate into coloration and distortion as needed. However, in the same train of thought, it’s more work if you try to accomplish these characteristics after the fact. This is why I have moved more to analog gear and away from plug-ins for certain sounds. Faster results if you just use the sonics you know, trust, and build them right into the tracking process.

More controversial is getting things to sound like they ran through a tube. I just haven't heard the plug-in that truly duplicates something like an LA2A or a V76. The sound is a combination of transient response in various regions of the frequency spectrum and distortion. Rich in the low end that can be partially addressed with EQ but it never sounds the same. Getting off track from Dither so will end this.

mike_mccue


It's still sort of amazing, to me, to think that the engineers can sync up 48kHz sound with +/-30Hz pictures and make it all work.

A freind of mines father built some Heath Robinson style contraption for painting the magnetic stripe alongside super 8 or 16 mm cine film.  We used to take turns operating it when we felt masochistic enough to earn a bit of beer money when we were young.
 
Dern thing always used to break down on my shift and I rarely got paid being as it was piece work.  The guy who owned it made some good money out of it for a good while during the late 60's early 70's contracting out to duplicating houses.
 
Ingenuity will always create the means regardless of the technology available.
 
I saw a quote from someone the other day that said "We used to have computers in our studios, now we have studios in our computers".

Many years ago I heard an old BBC recording of a classical concert played through some ridiculously expensive audiophile system which included a beautiful looking valve amp I cannot remember the name of. I don't recall thinking how wonderfully analog it sounded, or how warm the valves made everything sound, all I remember is closing my eyes and realizing that I might as well be in the room with the orchestra. 

An other random thing to consider;

Oscilloscopes don't really show you a continuous wave.

It just looks like they do.

An analog, CRT tube, oscilloscope is really displaying a series of pulses or samples.

The inability of the Phosphor to go dark immediately and our mental capacity for persistence of vision allows our minds to construct a continuous line/vector/curve form in our minds.

I don't know how that applies to the discussion... but I thought some might find it curious. I think it is easy to assume that a scope shows the actual waveform, but it's really just showing an analogy of it.


best regards,
mike

mike_mccue


An other random thing to consider;

Oscilloscopes don't really show you a continuous wave.

It just looks like they do.

An analog, CRT tube, oscilloscope is really displaying a series of pulses or samples.

The inability of the Phosphor to go dark immediately and our mental capacity for persistence of vision allows our minds to construct a continuous line/vector/curve form in our minds.

I don't know how that applies to the discussion... but I thought some might find it curious. I think it is easy to assume that a scope shows the actual waveform, but it's really just showing an analogy of it.


best regards,
mike

Yes but what he's saying about it is that the vector plot is as true as the billboard sized font.
 
Yes I'm aware you can adjust the persistance of the phospors showing the plot on the scope but it is the accompaning dialogue that's where the meat of the matter is contained.  The actual vector plot is likely far more accurate than the scan lines on that ol' scope can represent.
 
Again it's just the map not the territory.
 
The funny thing is because you have to band limit the signal so as not to get into an infinite equation it's harder to reproduce a 'perfect' square wave due to the 'Gibbs' effect than it is to reproduce a perfect sine signal.  That is a complete paradox when people are thinking the sine waves are stepped when in actuality the stepped square waves are ideally derived from an infinite number of 'curves'.
 
 

I wish there was a convenient coffee shop where we could meet up and draw on napkins and stuff.

:-)

Good times.

mike_mccue


I wish there was a convenient coffee shop where we could meet up and draw on napkins and stuff.

:-)

Good times.

I'm sure there's some real time digital collaboration thingy which could make that happen. You'd have to scan the napkins though. 

Middleman


Great link and thread here. I always use dither Pow r-2 because I read something a long time ago that said it was the best compromise. I don't know if that is even the case, or if it's really improving things but I do it at the end in the master process. I also agree with others above (and Ethan) that the beauty of digital recording is its clarity. It's a foundation from which one can deviate into coloration and distortion as needed. However, in the same train of thought, it’s more work if you try to accomplish these characteristics after the fact. This is why I have moved more to analog gear and away from plug-ins for certain sounds. Faster results if you just use the sonics you know, trust, and build them right into the tracking process.

More controversial is getting things to sound like they ran through a tube. I just haven't heard the plug-in that truly duplicates something like an LA2A or a V76. The sound is a combination of transient response in various regions of the frequency spectrum and distortion. Rich in the low end that can be partially addressed with EQ but it never sounds the same. Getting off track from Dither so will end this.

Dither does improve things, that is clearly shown, I find you can hear the effects of not dithering when a signal decays into the noise floor you can hear it step down as it gets nearer.  You might have to amplify your signal enough to be able to hear it but it sure happens, when you dither providing you can't hear the noise floor anyway then you should hear any stepping as the signal decays.  Using shaped dither just pushes the bulk of the noise floor into the higher frequency ranges where it is less prone to being heard.  It just needs to be done once and only once as the last thing you do at the point of reducing bit depth down to a 16 bit delivery format.
 
I agree also that if you want something to sound like it's going through a tube circuit then undoubtedly the best way to do that is just to use a tube circuit.
 
I think the pre-occupation with getting DSP to emulate analogue gear has been a waste of time that has held back the progress in producing real innovation in the digital realm.  I do notice that trend starting to change now but I think it's because people have finally got sick of yet another emulation of a familiar looking bit of old iron rather than people pro-actively looking for truly breakthrough digital processing methods.
 
Either way the future is looking more exciting as a result.