NEW: help choosing 5.1 PC audio vs Home theater

[sunnyimran]

Hello, My PC mobo (ASUS P5QL PRO) has built-in Realtek 7.1 sound output.


Wanna buy a 5.1 speaker system

I need to choose between these 5.1 speakers


EDIFIER R251 http/www.edifier.com/eng2005/product/s0024_01.htm

OR

LOGITECH X 530 http/www.logitech.com/en-gb/speakers-audio/home-pc-speakers/devices/211

OR

HOME THEATER ?
SONY DAV TZ 210 http/www.sony.com.au/product/dav-tz210

SONY DAV TZ 130 http/www.sony.com.au/product/dav-tz130





Q.1 Put you opinion in Logitech x 530 and Edifier R251 which one is best in audio quality?


Q.2 with little high price those above two SONY home theaters available, they are also 5.1 Will they perform better than above two logitech and edifier speakers?

I will currently use it with my PC built in audio.

Later wanna use with LCD TV, DVD and other accessories. In that case will PC speaker be god choice or above home theaters? ( giving priority to powerful quality audio, Please suggest. Thanks

When PC audio on home theater 5.1 -OR- on 5.1 PC speakers, which will be more quality audio?

Please suggest. Thanks

 

[MEgamer]

i skimmed over what you said..

i agree that the mp3 files you get from itunes, amazon aren't of the utmost quality. however, higher quality files are often much larger in terms of size. i don't know about you buy i'd sacrifice a little bit of quality in order to carry around more than a few albumns.

until we see larger capacity portable audio players i know that i'm not going to even bother. that said, it would be nice if they had a service where you could in fact purchase the higher quality tracks.

as for recording tracks with multiple mics to get a surround sound recording: the most ideal listening point is not always where the sound originates. i could see some interesting combinations with surround sound in use but overall i prefer having my rear speakers repeat the fronts to give more ambient sound instead of subtle variation.

----

personally i use the windows 7 version of windows media player for playing dvds (when i'm not playing them on the ps3) because of its convenience. i get surround sound, highdef, the only thing i lack is any upconversions (for normal dvd) and playback controls. it works well enough to not warrant buying software (although i know i have a copy of pdvd around).

---

i realize that the source files when movies are recorded are higher quality than what we get in a finished product. however, that does not mean that the sound/visuals on an older movie remastered for blueray will equal that of a new release. sure the older movies sound and look better than they used to but it just is not the same. recording instrumentation has gotten better, effect techniques have improved, etcetera.

audio definitely, but video, not so much in the film area, only a few companies are starting to make the use of 70mm cams where as the 35mm have been using for over 50 years now. digital have improved a lot, but for analogue its still pretty much the same, the only thing that has improved a lot for the film era, is the scanners, which is the cruical factor to the end-form quality.

..and as i have said before, multiple mics simultaenously is only popular in music recording- for movies, it all depends, (but still rarely for surround sound, only for recoding the actors voices) if the camera is zoomed out so much that the actors are small on the frame, then boom mics arent possible, so they use clip on mics to each individual actors, same goes for 'loud and busy' scenes... they arent really busy the background commotion are all just added effects. rear channels and side channel sounds are half of the time -sound effects or mono recordings that have been panned.

there are ipods that carry over 16gb of capacity, the older generations are up to 320gb, even carrying CD formats, you could put in at least a 'few' albums.

 

[ssddx]

this is why i mentioned new recording instruments. yes i realize that not all films utilize them but some do. the films i am referring to are the ones that use the new equipment.

oh i agree, multiple mics are not required. i just mentioned that they could provide some nice sound effects if used propperly in certain situations. you could also achieve a similar effect by manually matching sounds to speakers during editing.

i have an 80gb ipod currently with 3,086 songs using up 23gb. that equates to about 7.5mb per song. all are higher quality mp3 or aac.

if i wanted to use a lossless format such as flac the average file size would be about 28mb per song (looked average flac size up on google) or about 86gb for my collection.

granted i could still carry "almost" my whole collection with me but compared to some people my collection is puny. i agree that i was exaggerating a little on sizes but you get what i mean.

 

[MEgamer]

oh btw i meant 160gb

 

[anwaypasible]

i would carry a fatter ipod to hold a 2.5 inch hard drive rather than the smaller version.
but the people who have no care about the higher quality versions of the audio files will start to see the bigger capacity as an 'unlimited' amount of space that could be said to 'urge' them to purchase more music to try and fill up the memory available.
since they dont care about the higher quality versions, they dont form the right view of the fatter ipod.
some people will say 'why would i buy a bigger one when this smaller one has done the job time after time?'
and that doesnt look good for the company if/when there are equal number of fatter ipods to smaller ipods.
as a fatter ipod would confuse the customers who have been constantly told 'small.. slim.. portable'
and they couldnt market the fatter ipod as being made specifically for 'audiophiles' because that would make the rest of the older ipods look bad, and people would feel like their ipods are not audiophile quality.
if such an attempt was made, they would have to reveal the truth about any imperfections of their previous products.
and those imperfections might anger the loyal customers.
audiophiles will have to use an alternative until the solid state disks (or the regular hard drives that fit) become larger.

we still have an ackward moment of 'cd quality' versus 'dvd quality' and the low number of artists who release music for the 'dvd quality' market sector.
there are thousands of people who are home theater enthusiasts.. and these people dont necessarily dive deep into the reasons of why the audio sounds better.
some of us see the sample rate and bit depth as the reason, but other people simply use the dolby digital or dts format upgrade.
when the surround sound format says things like 'master audio' or 'truehd' .. that is enough for some people to sit back and relax as they enjoy 'high definition' audio.
but, even then, that doesnt stop people from listening to these new audio formats and knowing good and well that the audio sounds better than the past.

phasing out cd's should happen.
as it will revolutionize the entire car audio industry by forcing them to install dvd players in all of their vehicles.
maybe some wont have a screen to watch movies.. but the option would be there.
i wonder what it would mean for the radio broadcast industry.. as i dont know if they can stream dvd quality audio.
if they could, i would imagine the reception distance would be less.
but i really see two things that could happen:
1. the radio stream isnt full dvd quality to keep the broadcast wide for a lot of listeners.
2. the artists and publishers might not want their audio to be played in such a low format version
because if the audio quality isnt as high as 'usual' .. the licensing fee to be paid for playing the music should be less.
and that might again anger the artist or publisher.

it could and should very well happen.. because as it has been since cd's came out, if you listen to the same song on the radio - the quality is less.
and if the gap between radio and dvd audio was bigger.. that would be another reason to go out and buy your favorite music.
since there are more samples for dvd audio than cd audio.. those extra samples would mean more data information in the air from the broadcasting towers.

i dont think bluray will be the be all that ends all format.
if you think about it, we had floppy and then zip drive.. then cd's .. then dvds .. now bluray
that is five improvements.
since cd quality was the first digital mainstream product, that should put it right there in place of the floppy disk.
technically, floppy was shrunk down in size and could be said to be the equivalent to dvd.. and again with bluray.
but the comparison isnt apples to apples since i havent said (and i dont know) of when not only the size was decreased, but the amount of data that could be stored went up.

an entire album could be put on a memory chip and loaded into a music player to read from the chip.
but that might not happen if they shrink the size of data smaller than bluray discs.
sample rates and bit depths would go up a whole bunch again.
and i believe super audio cd has shown to us, when the sample rate gets 'fine' enough.. the bit depth can actually go down.
if they can fit all of those samples onto a standard sized disc already for the super audio cd.. then we should be good to go as we wait for the lower sample rates to be phased out (meaning the cd standard will be defunct)

i'm not all that sad about it.. because they made tapes defunct (and some still use tapes since they were in the crowd of superior quality tapes to begin with).
but the reason people forget about tapes is because they didnt use a properly functional song skip feature.
i think the 'consumer' based song skip function was to keep the tape head on the tape to find a pause, and a pause = new song.
but running the head on the tape always destroys the tape slowly (probably a matter of the tape quality itself.. but be fair for everybody)
a photo optic system could be used to capture a moment of silence, and that would eliminate excessive destruction of the tape.
we even seen these options on consumer quality tape decks towards the end.
the problem with them was that the moment of silence was programmed too short and a pause in the song was enough to make the seek function stop in the middle of a song.
meaning a standard 4 second gap would have proven to be superior for everybody as it would take 3 seconds of silence to trip the seek function to stop fast forwarding.

but lets face it..
not everybody knew about tapes that could have audio quality closer to bluray than dvd quality.
not everybody could afford it.
the usual tapes at the stores are junk compared to some of the superior options.
and the tapes could still get chewed up and eaten (with a cleaning required and a much longer length of time before it happened again for professional quality tape players)

the only reason they held onto it was to prevent themselves from being stuck with inferior quality that was on the cd.
for the rich or well blessed it might be to also avoid the quality on dvd's .. but since there is no need for that now that we have bluray, there isnt really anything that could persuade me with tapes other than an increase in their quality that allows for something like super audio cd quality at a fraction of the price.
being out in the workfield and have a tape that gets chewed up, the entire testing session is probably ruined.
not only do you need to stop everything and clean the tape deck.. it might have been clean and gotten dirty because of the environment.
meaning special attention to keep the tape player clean.
dvd and bluray recorders already have a sealed up compartment.
and inorder for the tapes to have comparible seek times, the tape needs to be wider.
you might have some serious motors giving some solid speed.. but those motors cost money.

i havent heard of a lot of people who are really upset about transfering tapes to digital format.
sure, the analog to digital chip might have been poor quality.
and the sample rate might have made the digital version less quality than the tape.
but they phased out vhs for video, and they phased out tapes for audio (considering the consumer market here).
we need to hear the benefits of the new technology to accept and appreciate the phasing out of cd quality.
i havent heard bluray quality yet because i dont own a bluray player.
but with sample rates being three times as high, and the bit depth also increasing.. i fail to see how the improvement is not heard, unless the microphone used to record the audio was junk.


with all of that said,
i dont know if recording studios are being pushed to use individual microphones.
they should be, but that might be the loss of a job for extra spectral analysis persons.
if there was a team to do all of the panning, they might not need the entire team.
yes, it would be faster.. because as i mentioned above, the data needs to be viewed to properly cut and paste the up close and personal microphones.
some cutting and removing of unwanted/unmatched sounds would also need to happen.
so for some studios, maybe this means hiring some help.
i dont know which one takes more time and skill.. to sit and pan the entire length of the movie - each sound needs to be reviewed and panned.
compared to..
the entire length of the movie needs to be reviewed, with less panning - but the cutting and pasting needs to happen, along with the removal of some sounds.
if the less panning is enough, then the cutting and pasting could be much the same as cutting and pasting each individual track (microphone)
and if there was ever some removing of sounds before, then it would be about the same.

talking to the right person leads to knowing the potential reason to give it a try.
those video people who do the 3d depth videos should know all about the importance of multiple cameras.
anybody in the field of stereoscopy knows the importance of two cameras.
mirrors and lenses dont always provide.
when a single lens allows one sensor to perform as if there are two cameras 2ft apart.. you might find that to be perfect to capture a photo or video of a pair of dice on a table.
but that isnt opening doors to bigger objects.
if you wanted to record an entire side of a building, there would need to be more cameras involved.
i really dont know if a mirror is acceptable to give the sense of depth.
if they can, i would think they are something extra to carry around and the calibration of those mirrors takes more time than setting up a second or third camera.
it is a matter of the simple basics being far superior than trying to cut corners.

one camera might be able to take multiple photos to be joined together later for the illusion of depth from a single picture.
but if you try to record video, the camera cant be two places at once.



what i really wanted to say about the individual microphones, the listening point of the example might prove to be confusing.
the listening point always needs to be from the perspective of the video camera for perfection.
but
that doesnt mean you cant have the microphones on the trees behind what the camera can see to record audio for the front channels.
and then the cameras on some trees (or stands) to the side (or behind) the camera for the rear channels.
the result would be a demo.. and depending on your use of the word 'localised' would depend on whether the demo is or isnt localised.

as the vehicle draws closer to the camera, people have come to expect the sound to grow louder from the front two speakers and especially the center channel.
as the mic on the camera represents the center channel and a microphone off to the side of the camera represents the front left and right.
this is perfection for the perspective of the camera.
but, not all movies give the perspective of the camera full surround capabilities.
sometimes they use the actor as the listening point.
they really shouldnt ever do this as it is unprofessional, because the visual perspective doesnt match the audio perspective.
only when the camera switches to a first person persepctive can the surround be tailored to the actors position.
this has been done for video games, since many of the games have a first person perspective.

and that raises a solid question.. just what is going on behind the camera that we care to hear?
if an actor begins talking while behind the camera and travels forward to eventually be seen on camera, then yes.. the rear speakers would mimic what the camera see's and hear's.


the four microphones and a vehicle romping around in a field is not the typical sound field people are used to.
as the front speakers should never really get loud.
if they did, it would throw off the cameras perspective.
instead, the microphones are supposed to be used to pickup ambient sounds.
when the vehicle gets close to the camera, the rear speakers will get louder as the front speakers are simply providing ambient fill (and if any at all that could be heard at that moment)
BUT
the real trick and excitement making the situation worth a try is to trick the brain into thinking you are standing where the camera is.
as the vehicle draws closer to the camera, you are beginning to think that you might get run over.

the hard part is getting the rear speakers to sound like they are not directly behind you.
because it is a severe conflict to have a roaring engine in front of you and hear the engine noises from behind you.
and all you have to do is use some reverb to place the sounds of the rear speakers in front of you.. then continue to use the front and left speakers as ambient fill.
that brings the engine noises in front of you, and that gives you the ultimate amount of ambient fill from a quadrophonic speaker setup.
if you attach a microphone directly onto the camera, that provides a center channel and it should really bring the whole ambience into synchronization.

you might be thinking, why on earth would i want those far away microphones clear on the other side of the field playing sounds from the front two speakers?
well i will admit, the whole thing is a bit schizophrenic.
and you have to grasp the concept of how many speakers are in the room, and how to put them to good use.
think about it, if you have rear speakers and you are recording the vehicle romp around in the field.. you would need microphones way back behind the camera, and they wouldnt capture anything useful without a wall to reflect the sounds (or a serious breeze making noise, which is not really important because you cant see or feel the breeze)

so, since the rear speakers are duds without much of anything to do.. you use them for the up close and personal sounds.
that leaves the two front speakers wide open to be used for something.
well.. surround sound is all about ambience here, not localization.
once the rear speakers have been calibrated to be heard in front of you and no longer behind you, then you can use them as front speakers.
and since your ears face forwards rather than backwards, the sound captured from the far away microphones across the field in front of you.. they will be in the direction that your ears are picking up information from.
those sounds cant be loud at all from those microphones.
you are essentially capturing the echo of the soundwave as it travels further away from you.
because there are reasons those soundwaves can be heard as they travel across the ground, it is wise that you include them since your ears have satellite dishes pointed in that direction.


and here is the absolutely beautiful part..
the soundwaves from the rear speakers have to come into contact with the soundwaves from the front speakers.
together they can recreate the size of the field in any sized room.
all you need is the mental power to forget about the walls and focus on the video.
the rear speakers are up close and personal sounds and the front speakers are distance speakers for all 'distant' sounds in front of you.


you might be thinking.. well why not let the two microphones on each side of the camera pick up the distant sounds in front of you?
that is because the two microphones arent the same distance apart as your ears.
therefore you need to grab the far away sounds and add them into the audio track for a more solid inclusion.
the whole technique is a form of inclusion and making efficient use of the speaker setup.. also known as ambience.
loud volumes from afar will ruin everything quickly.
but
it is the same principle as using a clip on microphone to capture the vocals.. and then a boom microphone above the camera to capture the room's sound.
the difference between these two is complex, but extremely similar.
as the boom mic is above the camera, you capture the room echo close to your ears.
but we know good and well that there are room reflections on the wall close to the actors (opposite corner/wall to be exact)
if those reflections arent captured, you are listening to a corner of the room and are being robbed of the directivity of your ear's satellite dishes.

for perfect ambience, you want a microphone in each of the four corners to triangulate the audio.
of course the microphones far away in the opposite corner are going to be output low from the speakers (think 35dB or less)
but some of us know how important it is to triangulate.
stereoscopy isnt ambience.
triangulation isnt ambience.
stereoscopy is a factor of two.
triangulation is a factor of three.
ambience is a factor of at least four.
because the camera deserves its own microphone for perfect perspective, that includes the center channel.

high resolution of the audio quality is directly related to the recording.. meaning if the audio quality is low, you are going to hear the imperfections when the microphone is inches away from the person's mouth, or if the microphone is 8ft away.

high resolution of the ambient quality is all about the quality of the microphone (and at least two of them are needed)
but, we know microphones arent as sensitive and dynamic as are ears connected to our brain.
it just doesnt happen often enough that a microphone can record something in mono, and then we listen to the audio from one speaker to our ear and hear everything as perfect as if we were standing there ourselves.
since that lack of fidelity exists, more microphones can help capture the ambience that we use to process distance and degree of angle.

this isnt fantasy or imagination.
you simply cannot have a microphone pick up every detail for sounds 30ft away.
the microphones have limitations, and one of those main limitations are the distance of sound that can be picked up and recorded.
picked up is hard enough to get, but try picking up those sounds and recording them will perfect detail.
it isnt possible, and that is why they should place a microphone in the problem area to capture and record those voids loud and clear.
then we can add them to the audio track with pristine clarity and attenuate the sound until it matches the decibel level of what it would have been if we recorded the decibel level at the camera lens.

doing it this way should be considered 'parallax listening'
because the word contains inside of it 'parallel'
we need to know where the 'lax' part comes in.
i believe the two front speakers are parallel to eachother.
the two rear speakers are parallel to eachother.
and then going cross divded between front left and rear right (again for front right to rear left).
all of these combined creates the 'lax' portion of the word.

once this project is complete and you think it might have been difficult or easy..
you then gotta realize that there are sometimes sounds from behind the camera, and above shows a two point chamber (one far away in front and one up close and personal for the side)
another point needs to be added to the chamber, and that is the one far away from behind.
it would look like this:
____________________
. .


. .


. .
____________________


the above is for standing in the middle of the room, and the camera is usually towards the bottom wall.. so we remove the two middle dots and let the two bottom dots provide all that is needed.
since you are with your back to the wall, nothing is going to be coming from behind you except some room reflections that should be easily captured for each corner.
all you have to do then is know the decibels from the microphone to the camera lens.

but
when there is plenty of room behind you, then the two middle dots are used as the up close and personal.
those two dots can move closer to either wall.. and this works perfectly until the distance between middle dots and 'wall dots' become seperated too much.
think of a warehouse and you have one wall equipped with microphones, and then the middle dots are there for your up close and personal.
if the other two dots are like 50ft away, the noise might not register on the decibel meter from the camera lens, and that is the threshold of the rear dots being too far away and worthless/pointless.
if you continued to use them.. a person would walk into the warehouse and close the door behind them as they came in.
you would hear the sound because of the microphones close to the door.. but based on your position in the warehouse, you would be thinking 'what did i just hear? do i have super human hearing today??!'
and yes, you would have super human hearing.. more like what a dog can hear.
it is a matter of being out of range that can be quickly determined with a decibel meter at the camera lens.
as long as the decibel meter isnt much more sensitive than what the average person can hear, the whole scheme works quite well.
and the hardest part of the job of the audio mastering is to determine how sensitive the person's hearing is.
if the sounds are loud enough to hear in the video playback.. that person simply might not be able to hear that good if they were actually standing in the same spot as the camera.


with the dot example above, it should become clear that the microphone arrays are becoming to a point where they simply exist and another single dot can move anywhere amongst those microphones and get a localized sound.
its like video game programming or those 3d demos where the object bounces around the speakers and the room is supposed to sound exactly like the point of sound source moving around.

the beauty of this is when the surround sound format (or the studio itself) doesnt have the effect pre-programmed to demonstrate the same distance and angle.
you dont have to rely on those presets anymore, and you also dont have to take the closest one and manipulate it until it sounds about right.
the only problem i could think of would be the sounds not accepted by the surround sound encoder - as if to say the sounds are 'out of range'
and it can happen when 32bit bit depth is needed and you are stuck using 24bit (or you are using 64bit bit depth and you need something higher)

it is basically a problem of two things:
1. the microphone isnt as dynamic as our ears, meaning they cant capture the distance and position as well as our ears can (some mics can do it, but they dont go the distance our ears can)
2. the bit depth isnt as dynamic as our ears, again with the ability to have the information of distance and position that our ears can naturally capture.

that is why all of the scenes in movies are small.
or
they scene might be big, but you dont dare hear anything far away.
if you do hear something that is far away, what happens?
you guessed it, the sound appears much more up close and personal than what it really was.


the new trick with this setup is pretty clear.
the rear speakers being used as front speakers would also need to have the reverb revoked for sounds that are ment to be heard from behind.
since side speakers in a 7.1 speaker setup dont even begin to point forward, there is no way for them to use reverb (easily) and be heard as front speakers.
so with that said, yes.. it would be easier to use the rear wall surround speakers to play forward sounds and act as front speakres .. then use the side speakers behind you for the surround/rear sounds.
but
this proves to be highly complex, as the side speakers would blast soundwaves that collide with the rear speakers trying to do their job as front speakers (listening to only the reflection off the front wall, with no actual sound heard from behind you from those speakers)
that collision would need to be mastered and 'interlaced' to clear up the collisions.
digital sound processing would be more complex, as professional installers who do reverb would already be able to handle this.
however, consumer receivers wouldnt have the processing power needed to make it easy.. and it should be looked at.


ALL of this is dependant on the lack of microphone quality.
but
you could also say that capturing the distant audio with a microphone up close to the sound can prove to record a higher quality representation of the sound and then attenuated to fit into the audio track with higher clarity.
not saying resolution by sample rate.. but fidelity because you were close enough to capture the details.
it all boils down to helping people hear better in their listening room compared to their hearing ability if they were at the same spot of the camera while it was all happening.

not everybody can see with stereoscopic depth.. each person is different.
same thing as being able to see well in the dark.
film producers have always helped those who cant see in the dark finally be able to see in the dark by forcing good vision in the dark and recording it with a camera.
people with abnormally sensitive ears could share their experience with people who have a harder time hearing.
does it bring people of different hearing abilties together for a moment? yes.
is creating movies with 'above normal' abilities to hear helpful or annoying?
i think if we took everything and gave it a boost, people who cant and never could use their human senses to that degree of precision would benefit viewing into a world they might never have known existed.
i think one could go too far with the 'enhancements' as it would break free from the average and be really unnatural.
nobody wants perfect vision in the dark, but we should be thankful we can see in the dark when watching the video.
i havent seen many movies that were filmed in the dark and i thought to myself 'i would never ever be able to see that good in the dark.. what where they thinking?'
i might have done it once or twice, but usually i think to myself 'if i cant see that good in the dark, i know there is SOMEBODY who can.'
and the same should be applied to the audio.

it takes a dedicated person to learn of the shortcomings of a microphone.
especially if the microphone's accuracy is solid for a 15ft radius.
takes some experimenting to benchmark the attributes, but it is those attributes that they lack causing a need to fill in the voids.
if we watched film after film with super human hearing, and if it was done right, we would go outside and think we have the same super human ability to hear all the things in the film.
it would be a good gag/joke.. but it is really why the 'enhancement' shouldnt be too much.

but then again, i have seen some movies shot in the dark and i know i cant see that good in the dark.
if i was to watch these movies often enough, i would probably go outside and become quickly dissapointed with my inferior vision in the dark.
and viewing ability in the dark is easier to be known than hearing.
like, you will know right away that you are no competition in the dark.
hearing could take quite some time.
it all depends on how far away the noise is, and how many examples of that distance we get to compare.

a whole lot of writing, but i am really excited about it.
i kinda think i would make this stuff a career.

i hope the original poster isnt too upset, as the information has everything to do with 5.1 or better speaker setups and how recordings are done to create the sound from each speaker.
we are talking about how they actually do it, and the improvements of the recording techniques to make the sound from the 5.1 speaker setup more realistic (and all the more reason to buy some 5.1 speakers !! )
i think i have gone into detail about why 5.1 shouldnt be the industry standard anymore.. and quite a bit of what it would take to make that happen as a new industry standard.

i know it might seem far-fetched to expect any speaker to use reverb and play sounds from the opposite location.
but this is a clear and fair warning to digital sound processing programmers (and home theater receivers alike) to come to terms with reality and where things need to go.
if you want the casual consumer to particpate and enjoy real fidelity.. this is what it is going to take.
it is all here?
talking about the microphone placement and the quality of the microphones.. completely aside from sample rates and bit depths.
should be a relaxing alternative to the many discussions of the limitations inherent to sample rate and bit depth.
as it clears some of the confusion with why anything more than a 5.1 speaker setup should be on the market at all.
if you are hearing something better from the 7.1 or 9.1 speaker setups.. this conversation talks about how the experience can go above and beyond what is already available.
i dont think any enthusiast would have a problem with an upgrade, when all they have to do is calibrate their receiver and pop in the movie.
it would be the same distant measurements.. but would likely include distance from speaker to the wall.
one more measurement isnt going to kill anybody.. but it is a considerable amount of work for digital sound processing programmers.
although, they should be expected to know something of this complexity would eventually come.

 

[anwaypasible]

this is why i mentioned new recording instruments. yes i realize that not all films utilize them but some do. the films i am referring to are the ones that use the new equipment.

oh i agree, multiple mics are not required. i just mentioned that they could provide some nice sound effects if used propperly in certain situations. you could also achieve a similar effect by manually matching sounds to speakers during editing.

i have an 80gb ipod currently with 3,086 songs using up 23gb. that equates to about 7.5mb per song. all are higher quality mp3 or aac.

if i wanted to use a lossless format such as flac the average file size would be about 28mb per song (looked average flac size up on google) or about 86gb for my collection.

granted i could still carry "almost" my whole collection with me but compared to some people my collection is puny. i agree that i was exaggerating a little on sizes but you get what i mean.

multiple mics not required is simply a 'dont knock it without experiencing it' on the behalf of the skeptic.
i went into more detail about feasibility in my post above.
it's just another example of people being stubborn until somebody does it and shows them what they are missing.
because until then, they dont know or care.. because if there isnt a lot of talk about it, it cant be very good right? lol
i beg to differ.. because there are a lot of products available for sale that have HUNDREDS of positive reviews, and then when you try it yourself.. it really isnt all that good.
hopefully some of those reviews are talking about the product not breaking, and that is a good thing.
but people always say 'it is the best' when they havent ever tried something better.
kinda like the saying 'i found it.. it was in the last place i looked'
of couse it is in the last place you looked.. why would you continue looking for it after you already found it?!! lol


but anyways..
i think some people with ipods might have bigger collections, but that doesnt mean they have the best setup.
if your collection is bigger than the hard drive, you should consider organizing the ipod into different groups.
then put each group on a different hard drive, or a different ipod altogether.
maybe it is music genre
or
maybe it is by the year the song was released.

if i HAD TO divide a music collection.. i would probably do it by the year the song was released.
and even then, i would probably want a spare ipod (or hard drive) to be able to throw together a custom mix of many different decades.
i dont see how people can use an ipod, because selecting what i want to hear can prove to be very difficult.
do i want to make a playlist for a road trip that is going to last 3 hours?
or
do i simply grab a decade (such as the 1970's or 1990's and listen to a song.. then think long and hard about what i want to hear next.
i get angry flipping through a music collection trying to play music one song at a time.
sometimes i think of an album i want to hear.
sometimes i think of an artist i want to hear.
and sometimes i think of a decade i want to hear.
it is when i want to hear music of a specific 'generation' that i get upset.
wanting to be alternative rock or hiphop .. and then if i press 'randomize' .. i might hear songs from decades i want to avoid.

more than one hard drive shouldnt be too bad while we wait for bigger capacities.
changing the hard drive in an ipod might be a little difficult.
i dont know about that as i dont own one or have had to change the hard drive.
removing a cover and sliding out the hard drive would allow for quick changes.
even if it was similar to removing a battery from a cell phone.. as that isnt too hard.
but
removing a cover with lots of screws might be annoying.
and having to remove some circuit boards to get to the hard drive would be really annoying.
kinda like 'urging' us to simply buy more than one ipod.

since cd's are usually about 700MB each right?
that means the 120gb ipod could store about 175 albums.
but
they also say an audio cd has an average maximum of 80 minutes.. and it doesnt use the full space available.
since it is data that is most important, the minute length is nothing.
i am guessing most music cd's dont even care about the minute length as long as the data will fit onto the disc data limit.

wikipedia says the cd's are 650MB - 900MB
so i will do the math again for 900MB
a 120GB hard drive is said to hold about 136 albums of cd quality sound (no trimmed flac or compressed mp3)
but we all know a 120GB hard drive will actually be a little bit less, and who knows how much the ipod will take away from the hard drive.
136 albums isnt enough for an entire music collection, no doubt about that !!

the ipod video has a hard drive upgrade, with the new hard drive size being 240GB
still not enough for an entire collection, and when you get that close to being completely done.. i think almost getting there makes it more frustrating.

 

[MEgamer]

dont worry about radio, its an analogue signlas, so long as they come up with a new standard, i know in america they already do satellite radio same goes for japan and korea. they have HD radios and DAB in UK.

new resolutions for radio will always be possible, so long as the radio receiver has such a decoder, but since its analogue they shouldn't need to have a 'revised' or an 'upgraded' version. btw the HD in HD radio is just a name and does not stand for anything.

ion england right now, the sound quality is far much worse on the DAB, compared to the CD, the maximum i have seen by research is 256, and the lowest is 80kps by radio five.

before radio moves into the dvd sound qulaity area, they need to be the CD... they are quite far off tbh, plus the compression just makes it sound horrible, but its a comprise... u need the compresssion.
but gd thing about the HD radio is there is no pop or hiss, plus no room- building reflection.


-----------------------------------------
136 albums is a lot to listen to. but neverthe less, some peo;ple to carry that much on their PC.

"multiple mics not required is simply a 'dont knock it without experiencing it' on the behalf of the skeptic."

unless ur talking about life, animal or scenery documentaries...
they only use multiple mics for multiple actors.

if u are on about multiple mics for enviroment recoding during films, almost 100% is all effects,

when u see a scene that is indoors and is busy, the sound u are hearing isnt actually there...
they are jsut added mono recodings or effects of people talking and is panned to the right places..

"it takes a dedicated person to learn of the shortcomings of a microphone.
especially if the microphone's accuracy is solid for a 15ft radius."

boom mcis are never placed that far away, the only time they use mics for at such a distance would be when recoding wildlife, using a shotgun mic, quality is no where up to far with a boom, or a clip. though.

multiple mics are usually clip on mics, attached to actors, thats really the main use of it. almost all ambience are simple just effects.

 

[anwaypasible]

usually i am the type to simply grab some music that i feel like listening to for the day.
but
if the time i expect to be bored grows longer than anticipated, i might listen to the playlist twice.. but would really be annoyed on the third time around.
that is when i would be wishing i had the entire collection on the music player.

136 albums assorted by 1970's / 1980's / 1990's / etc
might prove to be enough.
i am very picky about my music anyways.
those are ALBUMS .. not individual songs, so i would probably be able to combine some of the decades.
i wouldnt want the entire ablum if there were songs i dont like.
saves space and makes using the 'shuffle' or 'random' feature much more pleasant.

 

[ssddx]

ipods by default allow you to select by artist, song, or album.

if you want to play from a certain decade then you could create playlists using such data.

---

i do have one of the ipod classics. mine is several years old and going strong so i'm not about to get a new one (as i still have space on it)

---

i take my entire collection with me all the time on one device. dealing with two devices would be quite the hassle not to mention more expensive. creating playlists and loading music for the week would be irritating as well since i don't know what i want to listen to.

typically i just pick an artist to listen to and swap when it starts to repeat. or if i'm not sure what i want to listen to i just randomize everything until i decide. i don't use playlists.

---

i agree that dvd should replace cd as the typical audio storage medium. however this would also mean that dvd blanks would have to be at a price range around the same as cd blanks. it is utterly rediculous what they get for blank media nowdays. i've seen blueray disks go for as much as $50 for 3. i highly doubt it costs them more than a few dollars to make the disks at max.

 

[sunnyimran]

While the discussion is on for playing Audio, more specifically playing stereo audio on a entry level 5.1 system, i-e say for example spread out stereo to 5.1 system this way at least we listen sound from all speakers although media is plain stereo. Not a true surround experience but still at least better than having 6 speakers and listening sound only from two.

I am happy with foobar200 for all that, otherwise I had an opinion that my logitech x530 is just a pice of junk.

But when it comes to play a variety of video , specifically from internet, sound is still from two speakers, because foobar2000 is not in action for that. I use k-lite player mostly.

What is the trick for spreading plain audio in video clips of various kinds. what is a good free player for tricking this and also for video quality.

 

[ssddx]

you could set the rear speakers to play what the front speakers do. you should be able to set this in your sound properties (or using the program that came with your sound card). you might have to switch it back whenever you do listen to 5.1 audio though.

as far as internet video quality... what you see is what you get. if you have a lowdef source you're not going to be able to step it up. if you want hidef then look for a site which offers HD content.

 

[sunnyimran]

My soundcard have an option to do this , but I was not happy configuring it till I used foobar2000. So far only on foobar2000 I get much better audio.

is there a player+plugin combination using foobar2000 integrally as its part to do the trick?

for video playing, Windows Media player 11 is better than k-lite but does'nt support lot of video formats unless codecs are installed and some codecs are'nt free. K-lite mostly plays everything, even flash movies.

 

[anwaypasible]

ipods by default allow you to select by artist, song, or album.

if you want to play from a certain decade then you could create playlists using such data.

---

i do have one of the ipod classics. mine is several years old and going strong so i'm not about to get a new one (as i still have space on it)

---

i take my entire collection with me all the time on one device. dealing with two devices would be quite the hassle not to mention more expensive. creating playlists and loading music for the week would be irritating as well since i don't know what i want to listen to.

typically i just pick an artist to listen to and swap when it starts to repeat. or if i'm not sure what i want to listen to i just randomize everything until i decide. i don't use playlists.

---

i agree that dvd should replace cd as the typical audio storage medium. however this would also mean that dvd blanks would have to be at a price range around the same as cd blanks. it is utterly rediculous what they get for blank media nowdays. i've seen blueray disks go for as much as $50 for 3. i highly doubt it costs them more than a few dollars to make the disks at max.

the point here wiould be 'dvd or bluray = less choice = less money for bluray'
as the choice would be a matter of size, as it has always been.
i dont really see much difference for speed.. but i really havent compared the two i suppose.
would we then be talking about higher resolutions and more audio/video quality?
there will always be people who realize the recording standards are low compared to what they could be.
could and should is two different things.
the entire bluray market would still see some reason to make the bluray roms faster.. meaning the read speeds would go up to continue marketing the product.
as it stands now, there is already the possibility that people will want all of their audio on bluray - totally skipping dvd format.

since there are three choices available, and cd's are still widespread in use.. that is what is making it possible to charge extra for bluray.
when dvd's are the lowest choice, there will be more blank dvd's in production.
probably more dvd's in production now than cd's .. because movies eat up a whole warehouse, and music isnt released at the same rate.
if you have a computer and want to store something on a disk for a backup.. the 3 choices are there.
you can go small with cd, medium with dvd, or large with bluray.
meaning most people will either be poor and choose one of the lower two, and the rich might choose one of the higher two.
as when dvd and bluray is the only choice, people who are seeking for an upgrade for the simple fact of 'relief and change' would then be looking at bluray as the only alternative.
this can bring more attention to bluray.. although, people might look - that doesnt mean they will take the initiative and upgrade.
forcing the price down by 'running up' the selective choice will make bluray a better price to performance ATTAINABLE , and thus more active.
as it is now, most people are relying on bluray for popping in a rented movie .. thats about it.
there are obviously some industry professionals that use bluray for storage, but it is a small fraction compared to when the mass majority of people can reach out and obtain the bluray media type.

because it is true.. some people simply get on the internet with their 5-6 year old computer, and maybe they have a bluray set top box/player.
they might go YEARS without thinking this thought:
'i wonder if i could record a bluray disc myself'

because sometimes people arent active enough when they are new, and they dont require the extra storage space.
when dvd and bluray are the only choices, then they can focus on speed of reading and writing.. and that would permit the dvd media players/recorders to increase their read/write speed some more - to make an effort of becoming obsolete.
then, there could be speed 'races' between the two media types.
those results should once again help bluray sell itself.

probably long and boring to other people who already know this.
but
the american dollar went down in value, and the price of gas went straight up to get the same amount of money per gallon of gas to reflect the dollar value change.
did people get a raise from their employer? NO
the day the dollar value went down, most people were told 'you are now worth less to the company'
the cost of their products slowly go up, and the business owner sucks up all of the profit while their employees are starving for gasoline and all of the new electronic toys.. and even clothes!!
cant clean your house for the same amount of money either.
food prices have gone up too.
so it is really hard to say that these employees dont notice any difference.

 

[anwaypasible]

While the discussion is on for playing Audio, more specifically playing stereo audio on a entry level 5.1 system, i-e say for example spread out stereo to 5.1 system this way at least we listen sound from all speakers although media is plain stereo. Not a true surround experience but still at least better than having 6 speakers and listening sound only from two.

I am happy with foobar200 for all that, otherwise I had an opinion that my logitech x530 is just a pice of junk.

But when it comes to play a variety of video , specifically from internet, sound is still from two speakers, because foobar2000 is not in action for that. I use k-lite player mostly.

What is the trick for spreading plain audio in video clips of various kinds. what is a good free player for tricking this and also for video quality.

a good player to do that would be the 'media player classic home cinema'
if you can get around in foobar2000, you can get around in media player classic home cinema.
there are quite a lot of tutorials to walk you through the basics step by step.. and most importantly, you usually only have to do it once.

but thinking back, i really dont remember if media player classic home cinema will allow you to copy the front speakers and play the audio on the rear speakers.
the internal audio plugin allows you to say how many speakers you have, but that doesnt mean the audio will play from all of the speakers.
there is a 'downmix to stereo' option.. but no 'upmix to surround' option.
usually people rely on their soundcard to do that for them.
the creative xfi soundcards have 'cmss 3d' to play the sound from the rear speakers.
but creative isnt the only soundcard that uses the xfi digital sound processor with all of the features and goodies.
one thing really nice about the cmss 3d .. you have the choice to play a soft ambient sound from the rear, or you could choose to play a louder 'copying' of the front speakers.
it is a matter of choice and need.
and i would suggest to get a soundcard that uses the xfi processor for the option.
as when i say the sound is soft and ambient.. it is like you cant really hear the individual rear speakers, they only fill the rear of the room with sound.
it uses a different technique than simply lowering the volume of the rear speakers.
as some sounds will shoot backwards and others wont.
when you select the louder 'copy' version of the virtual surround, then all sounds are equal again and you have the choice of making the rear speakers as loud as you want.

i've never used a software plugin to play stereo movies from the rear speakers.. i always used the soundcard.
without the experience, i dont know if there are any plugins that will do it for you.
maybe somebody using the FMOD plugins could speak about if their audio plugins allow you to play stereo audio from the rear speakers.
i have tried the plugins in the past, and i always felt that my main use for them was for VST plugin support.. and it was a stressful attempt, as the support wasnt solid enough to use it on a per movie basis.

the only way to get stereo audio on the rear speakers for videos from places like youtube.. either get a soundcard that does it for you, or download the video and play the video in a movie player (probably with an audio plugin/filter) that copies the front audio to the rear speakers.

 

[anwaypasible]

My soundcard have an option to do this , but I was not happy configuring it till I used foobar2000. So far only on foobar2000 I get much better audio.

is there a player+plugin combination using foobar2000 integrally as its part to do the trick?

for video playing, Windows Media player 11 is better than k-lite but does'nt support lot of video formats unless codecs are installed and some codecs are'nt free. K-lite mostly plays everything, even flash movies.

i wonder why foobar2000 sounds better.
i mean, it might have everything to do with bypassing the windows audio by using kernel streaming or asio output.
i've always noticed a difference when switching to kernel streaming or asio when compared to the windows default.
the audio always seems to pour out from the speakers faster/more.

you could try j river media player to play video with better audio quality.. but the player costs money.
and even then, the video player requires something more to keep the audio and video in synchronization.
i tried j river media player 16 while it was in beta stage, and it didnt do the job of keeping the audio and video in sync.
when you use the program 'reclock' to keep the audio and video in sync.. you lose all of the 'audiophile grade' audio components of the media player that they brag about on their website.
if the audio and video was in synchronization, i would buy the program even though i wasnt happy with their support on their forums.
the software is pretty quick and easy to learn as far as setting up the audio and video (some knowledge of video and audio filters is a must-have though)
as the audio was clean as described, and it offers support for the hundreds of VST plugins.. i lost all of those features when forced to use 'reclock' as those features became disabled.

if your soundcard will do it with the software that comes with it.. then that would be the easy choice.

 

[ssddx]

if what you said was 100% true, dvd spindles would be down around cd spindle prices. after all, dvd production is in the same league as cd production. however, the companies know they can get more money so they do.

i can see your point about bluerays not being quite as mass-manufactured as cd and dvd media. however, even the newer style of br media which uses the same machines to manufacture that cds do costs 80-90% the same as older br media. they already have the machine so there are almost zero costs compared with what they yield. if this isn't an easy grab for the money pot i dont know what is.

in the end the main thing keeping the whole market from advancing is always price. if i use the movie market as an example... who in their right mind would pay $35 for a new release br movie? one would think that when br came into the picture that dvd prices would drop. they might have by a dollar or two (when not on sale) but overall they are still about $20. i'm betting on greed as the culprit (from the manufacturers or producers probably). its keeping the market centered on "dvd" instead of expanding quickly into "blueray" as it should be. at the current rate dvd will still be the main media for another 5-10 years.

 

[MEgamer]

at the current rate DVD will be the main for 5-10 years???? lol we will see. in england DVDs are quite cheap, infact by about 5 to 10 pounds,

i dont see a reason why a price of DVD will drop anyway, only because blu-ray hasnt quite overtaken DVD as the new standard, but im saying this a little too late..... it is ALREADY dying fast...

i paid a lot of movies for about $35, i bought a few dvd 3 years ago for £20 each. ... seems quite small to me... right now there about £12... the standard price, and a bargain to me

 

[anwaypasible]

if what you said was 100% true, dvd spindles would be down around cd spindle prices. after all, dvd production is in the same league as cd production. however, the companies know they can get more money so they do.

i can see your point about bluerays not being quite as mass-manufactured as cd and dvd media. however, even the newer style of br media which uses the same machines to manufacture that cds do costs 80-90% the same as older br media. they already have the machine so there are almost zero costs compared with what they yield. if this isn't an easy grab for the money pot i dont know what is.

in the end the main thing keeping the whole market from advancing is always price. if i use the movie market as an example... who in their right mind would pay $35 for a new release br movie? one would think that when br came into the picture that dvd prices would drop. they might have by a dollar or two (when not on sale) but overall they are still about $20. i'm betting on greed as the culprit (from the manufacturers or producers probably). its keeping the market centered on "dvd" instead of expanding quickly into "blueray" as it should be. at the current rate dvd will still be the main media for another 5-10 years.

well everyone see the major point of concern here..
some thought the price of DVD's would drop when bluray came out, and the reason it hasnt is quite simple.
when technology advances yet again, it means more bandwidth.. more sensitive equipment to go faster, higher accuracy is needed when creating the hardware.
all of those upgrades will cost extra money, until the pieces used to build these products are a standard with a new upgraded alternative taking on the new price point.
to me, that is why dvd prices stayed the same and bluray is more expensive.

i cant imagine how a dvd disc can be burned with bluray sized dots and expect to function perfectly (or if at all).
the dots are smaller on bluray, and that means a different layer of 'tattoo ink' is used.
it also means the grid space is tighter, leading to more accuracy needed during assembly.
sure, if you can do tiny dots.. you can do the larger dots of dvd no?
but what about when the dots shrink AGAIN and the machine is maybe useless?
the improved accuracy during assembly is going to cost money, and we are paying for the upgrade before it happens.
it is supposed to be insurance for the company.. to say that they will be around when the new upgrades happen.
otherwise their machines dont do anything but cd's and dvd's and now that cd's are no longer in production.. all they have left is dvd's.
they would be closing their doors soon and going out of business (or doing something else).
so if they are charging more, they are 'supposed' to be there in the future with new products of the new technology.
if they get a loan to buy all of the upgrades, maybe they have to pay off the loan first and that means they arent making any profit.
profit goes to the building that holds the machines, the people who pack the discs into boxes, the warehouses that hold the products, and sometimes the shipping delivery service to get the sold product to the business.

 

[anwaypasible]

at the current rate DVD will be the main for 5-10 years???? lol we will see. in england DVDs are quite cheap, infact by about 5 to 10 pounds,

i dont see a reason why a price of DVD will drop anyway, only because blu-ray hasnt quite overtaken DVD as the new standard, but im saying this a little too late..... it is ALREADY dying fast...

i paid a lot of movies for about $35, i bought a few dvd 3 years ago for £20 each. ... seems quite small to me... right now there about £12... the standard price, and a bargain to me

if you think about it.. 5 - 10 years is how long it is going to take for people to get high definition televisions in their homes.
then those people will have the choice to buy a bluray player or dvd player.
during the 5 - 10 years.. some of the old hardware will become broken, and people will be forced to buy a high definition television.
also during this time, the content availability of a high definition version of the television broadcast will also need to continue to happen.
as it will be another incentive to buy a high definition television.
once the television is replaced with more pixels.. it is only natural to get a movie player that supports all of the new pixels.

i think a lot of it has to do with the life expectancy of the old televisions.. as there will be a time when everything should be dead or repaired (and on its way to death again).

really.. music artists need to have a look at putting their music on DVD to start the movement.
not a lot of music comes out every month, this is true.
and when the music does come out, if there was a higher quality DVD version.. it would support the audiophile industry.
even if they jumped straight to bluray releases, it helps them receive the money when the higher quality versions are available.
of course, a publishing company is going to say 'all vehicles come with a cd player standard.. why would we want to print dvd's only?'
to that i say, because the music video 'extras' at the end of a dvd movie are NOT ENOUGH.
i dont think i have ever sat down and listened to dvd quality audio on a movie disc.
it is too rare for me to stumble upon it.
the music videos get some high definition attention.. and with that high definition video should be a higher quality version of the audio (something better than the cd version)
but i still dont get that audio in my house.. it is too rare (i dont have HD mtv)

i bet there are some 'live concerts' on bluray .. but nobody wants to hear you singing on stage while you are bouncing around acting.
the studio version was perfect, and that is the one us audiophiles need.. not your lazy and winded attempts on stage.

 

[ssddx]

@megamer

dvd is still the most commonly bought media for movies. why? well because it isn't worth paying $35 for a movie you know you will only watch one or two times that wasnt that great when you could get it for $15-20 on dvd. The only movies i buy on blueray (i pay $22-23 because walmart has a sale on them for like the first day only) are movies i know for a fact to be truley great.

if you only buy a few movies then $35 might be manageable.. however do consider that i have around 1700 hours of media sitting on my movie shelves. for those of us who buy many movies (we dont have cable) price is a huge concern.

plus i've known for a fact that we're getting shafted. they did it with dvd, now they are doing it with blueray.

@anwaypasible

yes i understand that there will always be some money used for future equipment, research, etcetera etcetera.

however, i know for a fact that they are currently using machines that create cds, doing a very minimal overhaul and producing a certain type of blueray media on them.

also consider that blueray technology is a few years old now so the machine technology already exists so should be readily available. even if they had to buy special "blueray disk machines" if you look at how long-lived dvds are they have at least 8-10 years of solid production without even having to think about upgrades.

lastly... i know i can buy blueray media for about $1 a disk if you go to some blueray websites out there. i prefer to buy off of well known legitimate sources so i avoid these, but if they can make a profit what is stopping the big guns? why is it then that well known brands charge 15x + for the same product? i could see if the r/w speeds were superior but they are not.

---

last:

we started veering off course from the original OP topic. if there is nothing else to add i say this thread should be closed.

if you want to continue this discussion megamer or anway, post a topic up in a PM

 

[sunnyimran]

So I got the idea after owning a entry level 5.1 PC audio , that 90% of items to play specially from internet are not multi channel.

so for to time to come , we need some good players / hardware configurations to at least enjoy plain stereo on multi channels although not true multi channel surround, but still better than plain stereo.

I searched several of my favorite audio tracks, little old, could not find them in DTS or other surround.

This all has grown my interest in digital audio. please specify some good links to get more insight of digital audio.