Windows 7 - Whats a good image management app?

What's a good program that can do operations including compression on multi=
ple images? I just noticed my new camera folder album exceeded 2GB, which i=
s ridiculous. I have noticed the given resolution of taking a picture with ev=
ery digital camera is always twice the real resolution less. it is so obviou=
sly blurry it looks upscaled. Same thing with 1080p Blu-rays, they all look=
upscaled 720p. Pure waste of bandwidth and storage.

So is there a program that can resize all my images to 50% and then apply c=
ompression, preferably the compression being customizable. I always go with=
95 for photos I need perfect and 80 for the rest.

There are tons. I suggest Irfanview. Photoshop also works well, but
not many people have it. Photoshop Elements is a very good program
that does not get mentioned very often.


I have not seen a digital camera where the resolution (and inversely
the file size) has not been adjustable. Sounds like you may need to
visit the camera's menu system and play with the options.


Make sure you are not using digital zoom. Other than that, make sure
the lens is clean. Digital cameras made in the last 5-10 years should
have no problem creating very clear images.


You have something wrong with your display device, your playback
device, or your source material. You did not provide enough information
to be able to narrow it down any further.


Yep, see above. There are many.

n on multiple images?

I have Photoshop CS6 tho I am a newb to PS, I got it recently. Its quality s=
elector is non-standard, its from 1-12 while the standard is 1-100.

culous. I've noticed the given resolution of taking a picture with ever=
y digital camera is always twice the real resolution less.

You totally missed the point. Yes, the resolution is adjustable and I natur=
ally select the maximum the camera allows, but it ends up looking so obviou=
sly blurry and upscaled that it may as well not exist, and the makers of th=
ese shit cams oughta be sued for false advertising. Why did I pay $90 for t=
his hunk of junk when its only capable of half the megapixels it advertises=
?

The file size is adjustable too, the problem is the camera's compression al=
gorithm sucks ass and it requires nearly the same filesize no matter the co=
ntent. Lots of my pics are indoors with a solid white wall and its maybe 10=
0-200 KB smaller than the more complex photos.


I have made sure of both. The max selected resolution is still fake.

te of bandwidth and storage.
n

No sir, it is quite common for idiot entrepreneurs to exaggerate and push t=
he limits of technologies to give as low possible quality at the highest po=
ssible resolution. A blu-ray resized to 720x576 looks way better than a DVD=
of the same resolution. In fact, I have found most DVDs real level of detail=
to be around 360p, not 480-576p.

Nothing's wrong with any of my equipment, what is wrong is that fuckheads ar=
e trying to sell the public garbage and get rich. A rather common practice =
in America.

Here is a screenshot straight from the Blu-ray, does this look 1080p to you?
http://i45.tinypic.com/2dsgvwi.jpg

The level of detail in that particular scene is not even 720p! Obviously up=
scaled.

If you say your unspecified digital camera is a steaming pile of crap,
I will not argue. All I can offer is to do more homework next time. Check
specs, check user reviews, and take advantage of return policies if it
does not work as advertised. My digital cameras do not produce blurry
photos in general, although they tend to struggle a bit in extremely
low light conditions. I am aware of that, though, and it is not a
problem for me.


With zero knowledge of the source or any of the equipment involved in
playback, I cannot begin to hazard a guess.

naturally select the maximum the camera allows, but it ends up looking so =
obviously blurry and upscaled that it may as well not exist, and the makers=
of these shit cams oughta be sued for false advertising. Why did I pay $90=
for this hunk of junk when its only capable of half the megapixels it adve=
rtises?
ression algorithm sucks ass and it requires nearly the same filesize no mat=
ter the content. Lots of my pics are indoors with a solid white wall and it=
s maybe 100-200 KB smaller than the more complex photos.
k
ry
0p to you?
sly upscaled.

This has happened on 3 cameras I bought in a row.

The equipment you speak of is a built-in blu-ray drive in my computer and d=
ecoded by FFDShow. But I really do not see the relevance. This is digital. I=
t either works or does not. The only artifacts that do exist from improper d=
ecoding are corrupted frames, wild colors you normally need to drop acid to=
see or slight brightness/contrast offsets. Blurriness is never a digital m=
edia artifact.

Btw, I welcome you to give me any screenshot straight from a Blu-ray with t=
rue 1080p detail. That would be a sight to see.

The term "1080p" does not infer any specific level of detail or picture
quality. It can be the blurriest picture you have ever seen and still be
displayed at 1080p.

Well, now you are mixing topics.

Video is a different animal than still camera shots. Video does
both spatial and temporal compression (for video formats that
involve compression). If you shoot video of a perfectly still scene,
then the I-frame collected should be reasonably equivalent to a
still camera picture. If there is motion in a picture, any
particular frame selected from the video, may not look
very good as a "still".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_types

As for your camera, and the lies they wrote on the side of the
box. I will give an example. My webcam is 1280x1024 native format.
Yet, it promises to shoot 5 megapixel pictures for stills. When
in fact, I know I have got all the detail it has to offer, if
I shoot in the max "native" resolution. That's what you want
to do with your camera, is use the native value. Not any value
which requires interpolation to make any in-between pixels to
pad out the image.

Some cheap cameras, only record in compressed formats such as JPEG.
They do this, because the built-in flash chip is so small, and they
want to be able to claim the ability to store a large number of
photos. Whereas the users, would want the image to be recorded
at native resolution, in an uncompressed format (BMP or some particular
TIFF format). Some camera users will select RAW as a format, but
this has implications for aspects other than just the number of
pixels.

As for compression methods, there are "lossy" and "lossless" methods.
If you have an 8 bit photo, you can use GIF as a "lossless" compression
format. No information should be lost with a lossless compressor, but
the level of compression to expect is relatively low (maybe 3:1 to
just make up a value). Things like JPEG, on the other hand, have a
I could probably get a 100:1 compression ratio with JPEG, but the
resulting image would only be fit for the Trash Can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jpeg


Some cameras, will "soften" the image before storage, and this may be
an attempt at noise reduction. You can "sharpen" the image with
Photoshop or equivalent, to get back some of the detail. Oversharpening,
is a form of digital mutilation, so do not "turn the knob too far".
After a few trials, you will get some idea what looks natural, and
what looks like "too much".

If shooting stills, with a camera with excessively noisy sensor, and
the scene is *perfectly still*, you can shoot two photos, one after the
other, with exactly the same lighting, then use Photoshop arithmetic
operation to compute (A+B)/2 or the "average" of the two images. This
helps reduce the noise to some extent, but without degrading the image.
But it only works for things like indoor scenes, where everything
in the scene is under your control. I used that technique, when
preparing photos for a "how-to" manual for something constructed
indoors. Every shot, consisted of two pictures, with the pictures
averaged together to get rid of camera sensor noise. it is what you
get, from a $100 camera. Even with halogen lighting of the scene,
there is still sensor noise present. Better quality sensors, make
that less evident (until it gets a lot darker).

HTH,
Paul

But is that really so bad?  I think it greatly depends on the compression
used.   Who wants to deal with such a huge file as BMP in the first place?
Or raw video, for that matter (instead of compact MP4 video!).

I only hope if/when I get one, it will have JPEG and MP4 output capability,
not BMP and/or raw video.


That's a pretty good reason though, I think!


I guess this is assuming most users want the best possible image/video,
regardless of the file size.  I sure would not.   (for the same reason I
prefer to have a collection of MP3 files, not WAV files, stored on my
computer)


Interesting link.   I think even the 23:1 compression one looks pretty good!

My experience with JPG compression is you can often compress the image quite
a bit, and still get good results - and save a ton of disk space.  But it
depends on the image.

Hi, Bill,


It all depends on what you want to do with the photo.  If you are just
going to print the photo on your inkjet, or send to Walgreens or
similar, the JPG will be just fine.

But, if you are a professional photographer, the Ansel Adams level, a
compressed format is the last thing you want.

it is somewhat analogous to the music you hear from a record or tape
(JPG) or a CD/DVD (TIFF, RAW, BMP).

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

Absolutely.  You shoot and keep/archive RAW format but you deliver in JPG.



--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp

Or especially if you are going to blow up that print too, I guess, which I
guess is what a professional photographer might also need.  That, in
addition to not seeing ANY artifacts, I guess, no matter what s/he does with
the image.

It seems it might be better to either sell two types of cameras, then, to
the two different markets (pro vs amateur),  OR at least offer the option to
save in JPG and MP4 formats, which, I would think, would satisfy the vast
majority of most customers.   (I mean, the savings in disk space is so
huge).

I guess I can relate to this somewhat, in that whenever I work on or restore
an audio file (as a hobby), I really prefer to work directly on the WAV file
format, and not the compressed one it may have come to me in.   And
actually, if it is not in WAV format, more than likely I will convert it to
WAV, and leave it there, until all my restoration work has been applied to
it, and I am satisfied with the results.

But I probably will not retain it in (uncompressed) WAV format, because I'd
fast run out of disk space if I did so.   I suppose if I were working in a
sound studio, as a sound professional, with unlimited resources, I'd leave
it that way, however.

From: "Bill in Co" <surly_curmudgeon@earthlink.net>



They are.  Point and Shoot (P&S) and Digital Single Lense Reflex (dSLR).


--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp

Oh.  Ok, good to know.
Hopefully the P&S ones can save in JPEG for stills, and MP4 for videos,
although I am guessing that the latter (video) may still be using the old AVI
format (which is a pretty old format nowadays), in most instances.  I
have not checked into it, because I am not really in the market, but it is just
interesting to be aware of these things.  :-)

I think we all know what IOne means, however.

(Equally, the p does not convey anything about the detail that could be
extracted as a still.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he
is
very probably wrong." - Arthur C. Clarke

writes:
[]
[]
Though "8 bit" is not actually wrong, in that GIF can use 8 (or, I
think, 4 or 1) bits per pixel, I do not _think_ the colours have to be
8 bit colours: GIF selects a palette of 256 (or 16 or 2) colours, and
records which one each pixel in the image is - but I think the colours
can be 24 bit. For example, a picture of a sunset might have 256 shades
of yellow orange and red), but each one can be store to finer detail.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he
is
very probably wrong." - Arthur C. Clarke

Of course we know what he meant. I was just pointing out that he was
operating under a false assumption.

Some point and shoot cameras save in Quicktime format.  Mine does, and
it actually takes better photos than my brother-in-law's dSLR.  He's not
happy about that.   <grin>

But to be fair, his dSLR is a couple years older than my P&S, and I
do not know the specs of his camera.

You are correct on the blowing up of the print.  The lossless formats
allow you to blow the photo up larger than the compressed formats.  But
with the options in my P&S camera, the one "blow up" I have ever done (not
a photo buff, it was an experiment) came out fine with no artifacts.  8 X 10

The problem I run into is I take most photos in 16:9 aspect ratio, hard
to find a place that will print that ratio.  Walgreens does not.  :-)


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

That looks backwards to me... the vinyl record or tape would be
analogous to RAW or BMP, the CD analogous to JPG.
--
Glen Ventura
MS MVP  Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
CompTIA A+

CD/DVD's have much more dynamic range and sound data than any record or
tape.  Just listen and compare.

RAW, BMP, TIFF have far more pixel data than any compressed format like
JPG.  Just take a RAW photo, then create a JPG file version.  Now, start
enlarging each type of file, and see which file format is the first to
pixelate.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

That's true.
IIRC, it is theoretically 96 db for CDs (16 bit limits), but perhaps more
like 90 db or so in practice.  Which is a very good dynamic range.  (Not
quite equal to the human ear's dynamic range, but it is getting there).

For a LP record, you are talking about only 60 db or so.   A 60 db dynamic
range is not terrible, but it ain't spectacularly great, either, that is for
sure.  You can hear the hiss in the background of  a record, even on a high
quality LP.

Tape is normally better than records, and even more so using tricks such as
Dolby, but even at that, CD's still have a greater dynamic range.  (But
let us not talk about cassette tapes here; I am talking about open reel to
reel, running at 15 IPS, or more.  :-)

And at any rate, raw sound files are normally in the WAV file format.   And
can eat up quite a bit of disk space for storage.  :-)

I wanted a quick example of an image format with lossless compression.
Something I could contrast to JPEG. I was not trying to dwell on the
fact that GIF uses a palette, whereas some other formats, do not
(for practical reasons).

GIF has a palette of 256 colors. Your eight bit value, selects one
of those colors from the table. (That's called "Indexed" as another name.)
Now, if you convert the GIF to JPEG, then later, use a tool to count the
number of colors in the JPEG image, the tool will tell you "hundred of thousands",
and the reason for that, is rounding errors in the color space. Using a
quantizer, you can convert the JPEG non-palette based image, back to GIF
with its closest palette. The process should work pretty well in this
case, because we know the GIF could only have 256 colors to begin with.
So converting back to GIF should not hurt the color table too much.
If you take an arbitrary photo and convert to some smaller palette,
then a lot of damage will occur (GIF is poor for photos, good for "cartoons").
One of the reasons I use GIF in my imageshack postings, is because
most of the things I post are screenshots of the desktop (which
do not have a lot of random pixels present, like a photo would -
Windows desktop screenshots are closer to "cartoons").

The point here, is JPEG is capable of great compression, but with
the side effects of its "loss" being felt in more than one dimension.
The pictures on that web page, of JPEG quality versus compression
ratio, was intended to show the consequences of a camera making
is ruined, even before you get to work on it (soft, and compressed,
and with color rounding errors). And some people like it that way.

People who seek RAW from their camera, are trying to avoid the
compression part of that story. RAW is not immediately useful,
because its, well, a little too raw. Usually the camera software
has some kind of utility for making the RAW captures useful. I
do not have a camera like that, so cannot provide examples. RAW
would not be BMP for example. RAW is closer to coming straight
from the sensor (like perhaps, a Bayer pattern), and the
camera utility software does whatever is necessary to make
the image useful again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter

result in varying-quality final images. This can be done in-camera,
producing a JPEG or TIFF image, or outside the camera using the
raw data directly from the sensor."

Paul

Theoretically.... but many audiophiles will tell you the sound quality
of an LP is superior to a CD, regardless of those "numbers".
--
Glen Ventura
MS MVP  Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
CompTIA A+

But their listening tests are biased.   Let me explain.

One good way to truly compare them would be to take a LP and record that LP
directly to WAV format, and then play them both back, side by side, using an
A-B switch.   I seriously doubt anyone could hear any difference in *that*
particular test.

NOTE that listening to one recording of some performance on an LP, and then
listening to another recording of the same title (done later, of course, to
a CD), is NOT a valid comparison.   We're comparing apples and oranges here,
with other variables in the mix.

Or: another test could be as follows:

Take a CD, and make a record from that CD (assuming you had a studio).   Now
in this particular case, I bet there would be some that might prefer the
Nope.  BUT the response of the LP (cartridge) will add its own coloration to
the mix.   But that has little to do with "fidelity", per se.   Just
personal preference, in how it sounds.   One could say something similar
about the sound of different loudspeakers, for that matter.

Now there are some that swear that digitizing a sound destroys it, period,
end of story, and of course, they can hear that "digitizing distortion" from
the A-D conversion process.  Except that it is B.S.   (That may include the

And there are also those who swear by the "golden sound" - of ONLY using
gold-plated "Monster Cables" to connect to their loudspeakers.   That's not
even worth addressing, however.  :-)

Well, I think the term "ruined" is a little harsh here  :-)  (unless you are
a purist)
Even the 23:1 was pretty good, IMHO.  :-)  And what a consequent savings in
disk space!   (If that is too much compression, maybe 10:1 would be better
(and more akin to MP3 audio files, by the way).

I trust you also listen to MP3 files?   Do you consider them "ruined"?   :-)

I guess I am one of those who just does not like the cost/benefit ratio of
dealing with BMP files.   :-)    I like JPEGS, precisely because they can
have some compression and can still be quite good (if not unduly
compressed), and do not take up the whole hard drive, or (if too large)
forever to load in a photo app program.  :-)   Ditto on MP3 files!  :-)

Compression is a necessary evil, not something to aspire to.

Some content, handles it better than others.

When I convert a VCR tape to digital form, that is an over 100GB file
when I use my WinTV capture card. The VCR is old, and has a bit of head
roll along the bottom edge of the image. Now, when I convert that to a
~7GB DVD version, there is little loss, because the source was not very
clean to begin with. I can live with tossing the 100GB file, as there
is little chance of improving the quality of the 7GB output version.

Other kinds of media, do not take as well to compression.
So if I collected such things (which I do not), then it would
depend a lot on the value of the material as to whether my
sole copy would be a compressed one or not. With the VCR case,
I can simply run the VCR again, if I wanted another copy. For
as long as the VCR continues to work, and there is something
still on tape worth converting.

CDs are not compressed (they are PCM), so you get whatever the
original source allows in terms of quality, up to the Nyquist
limit for the CD sampling rate. If you collect older music, which
was recorded on old tape equipment, the CD may not be at fault
in terms of the material. Newer studio material, would not have
the problem of some old tape deck in the way.

If I had a choice between the CD original, and some second-gen MP3,
I think you know which one I'd keep.

Paul

We do not want to confuse some who may be reading this thread, Bill, so...

RAW format for digital photos and a raw format for audio being WAV are
two totally different things.

And, IIRC, the only difference between a RAW digital photo and a TIFF
file is the TIFF file header info has been prefixed to the RAW data.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

Now your starting to get into the subjective area of audio, those with
the "golden ears".

When digital audio came out, there were, and presumably are, those who
could claim to be able to hear the difference in sound produced by
digital units and vacuum tube units.  There must be at least some
perceived difference, and there are still high end vacuum tube units.

IIRC there were tests done that did show a difference on test equipment,
but I could never hear it, and I have a mix of both, although quite old
equipment these days.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

In message <jutug3$826$2@speranza.aioe.org>, Ken Springer
[]
[]

Although there are some slight differences when used in the linear part
of the characteristic (probably more due to the difference between class
A and class AB rather than valves/tubes versus solid state, though there
_are_ harmonic differences, and tube/valve designs also often use less
negative feedback), the _main_ difference is that valve gear "soft
clips", i. e. when it reaches the limit of its linear range, the
distortion is somewhat less immediately obvious. But this should only
become noticeable when the gear is driven into overload anyway (-:!
So do I - I have ears that are 52 years old, and thus less sensitive to
higher frequencies than they once were (-:
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Listen, three-eyes, do not you try to out-wierd me, I get stranger things than
you free with my breakfast cereal. (Zaphod Beeblebrox in the link episode)

Yes, that good ole, vacuum tube amp vs solid state amp debate (along with
the golden ear, gold plated, Monster Cable debate) is ... interesting.

I would not bet my life on the idea that one cannot hear some differences or
different nuances between these, BUT again, that does not necessarily, and I
might add, LIKELY, mean that the vaccuum tube amp is more faithful to the
source material than the solid state one!   THAT point is what is lost, in
all these debates.

Different loudspeakers can, and often, will sound different.   But that does
not directly equate to the sound's fidelity, and some people will prefer one
sound over another (depending on its equalization, or even the small
remaining distortion terms (harmonic or IM) that might still be heard)

Exactly.  And I am glad you brought out that point, which I left out, and
which is indeed true at the extremely high levels near clipping (where the
amp is being pushed near its limits).

But who is doing that?

On second thought, maybe it IS those audiophiles, and that is why they like
it.  :-)


So how high can you hear now?  You can find or dowload some freebie sound
test apps online, and give it a go.  :-)

Relatedly, I looked online for some good statistical charts for this, but
did not find many that actually gave the high cutoff frequency profiles vs
age, with any great statistical detail.    Like bar graphs of what % of the
population, at age such and such, can only hear such and such a max
frequency.

I am still thinking about getting into email, but you know my speed in
regards to change.  :-)

[]
[]
I am not actually _aware_ of any degradation in the last couple of
decades (I have a vague memory of discovering, about that long ago, that
I'd lost some of what I'd had earlier as a child, but nothing since); I
just _assume_ I must have lost some. (Not that I am a disco or heavy rock
concert fan or anything, just normal ageing. BICBW.)

Trouble with these sound test app.s: how do I know (assuming I cannot
hear something) whether it is my ears or the speakers I am using that
cannot reproduce that frequency?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I found a batch plugin for GIMP and it worked perfectly. On a quality setti=
ng of 90 and resizing by half, I have reduced the 2 GB to 200 MB.

Thanks for all the other suggestions though, I will keep them in mind. ThumbsP=
lus was pretty good but it lacked the option to use Floating point instead =
of integer for the encoding.

On another note, JPEG-XR BLOWS. Same quality at the same filesize my ass, i=
t was worse quality at the SAME size.

For the subthread:

1. I am aware 1080p is just a resolution. You're juggling semantics and red =
herrings here, my friend. You remind me of American nationalists claiming i=
n glee what a free country they have and then later give asinine lecture li=
ke a wise-ass how freedom does not guarantee happiness the next time some se=
rious incident fucks the credibility of their shitty, oppressive, malfuncti=
oning country up.

Resolution MUST guarantee detail or there is nothing except a waste of bandw=
idth for the increase in resolution.

2. Conversion of analog audio to digital ALWAYS introduces quality loss, bu=
t is really damn hard to discern and anyone who can cannot coherently explai=
n what the difference is. it is like seeing living a life of darkness and th=
is year seeing a flicker of bright white light for 1/500th of a second ever=
y couple seconds. You cannot see it, but things feel different. You KNOW som=
ething is weird.

Either way, the sum is zero in the end. Vinyl media decays slowly and gradu=
ally the artifacts of damage arrive. Digital media retains perfect integrit=
y for a short while but when it DOES decay, the data is utterly shit-canned=
forever without warning.

The faith in digital media is almost religious, the belief that it is "magic=
ike anything else. Nothing abstract about this shit.

3. Please call do not call video "MP4". MP4 is an audio format, the successo=
r to MP3, usually called for unfathomable reasons "AAC." MP4 video should'v=
e been called "MPG4" but the cock-filled wonders of the dipshits working at=
MPEG/ISO have no fucking sense of consistency whatsoever, almost as if to =
purposely make discerning these containers and formats as confusing as poss=
ible.

To make shit worse, Blu-ray does not even utilize the MP4 container but "M2=
TS" or "DGA" and the basement-dwelling idiot fanboy communities pioneered a=
completely non hardware-compliant, practically identical-to-MP4 container =
called "MKV" to popularity.

Make. Up. Your. Fucking. Minds. Retards.

So if possible, refer to modern digital video as "MKV" since that is the mos=
t popular media container today.

4. 7GB? You can do way better than that, Paul. A VHS video can be compresse=
d to 350 MB with very high quality depending on the length. Most 720p Blu-r=
ay rips can fit under 4.7 gigs with perfect quality.

Who are you quoting as "your friend"?   No attrbutions were given.




The bottom line is that MP4 *is* a composite format that normally contains
both video and audio streams.   Period.   The audio only component is m4a,
the video m4v.   Together, they make MP4.

Yup, and that is the way it goes for all of us, unfortunately.   Just like
loss in one's vision accommodation (due to the lens hardening) - aka:
presbyopia


How many speakers or headphones do you know that cannot reproduce 15 kHz?

Here is one such application that is easy to use.   it is called Ear Test.
http://www.programming.de/freeware_windows.php

[]

No, 1080 is a resolution, if we are talking still images. The p (or i)
determines the order (and possibly frequency) of pixel display when
talking video.
[]

Agreed.
[]

That's actually only true of digital media with error correction (which
most has). But the difference is that you can copy a digital recording
perfectly, given error correction, and such copying can be done
indefinitely.

See above. (The main problem with digital is marketing - just because
something is digital, it does not necessarily mean high quality, only
consistent quality; when the CD format first came out some decades ago,
digital _did_ mean - for most people - high quality. Once low bit rates
[even with compression] became common, marketers [or those who genuinely
did not understand] kept the "digital means high quality" which was no
longer [necessarily] the case.)
[]
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

... of the two little boxes in the corner of your room, the one without the
pictures is the one that opens the mind. - Stuart Maconie in Radio Times,
2008/10/11-17

[]

Not sure about the ones in this netbook.
Oh dear - I seem to cut out somewhere between 11500 and 12000!
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

... of the two little boxes in the corner of your room, the one without the
pictures is the one that opens the mind. - Stuart Maconie in Radio Times,
2008/10/11-17

Outrank you here, I am closer to 65 than 64.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

Well Ken, you might try that small app too just for kicks!  (Ear Test)

Join the crowd.   :-)

That ear test program sucks. Why does it only go to 16 KHZ and does not give an option to sound on BOTH channels? For those of us with headphones, it is really unpleasant and annoying to only hear from one speaker.

Also, there is a click sound before the samples so this destroys the objectiveness of the test altogether.

If I were you, I'd generate a sine sweep from 0 to 22.05 kHz and make it exactly 22.05 seconds long. Open it in an audio player and pause when you stop being able to hear.

If you guys cannot hear past 12 kHz then you must be really fucking old. I can hear to 16.5-17.

Oh, He double hockey sticks, it would just tell me something I already
know!    LOL  Too much time in the Navy around Curtis Wright R3350's
without proper ear protection.

I have always been different when hearing sounds.  When shopping for my
main speakers, the salesman said "Listen, you can hear the guitar picks
on the strings."  I'd listen and listen, and try as I might, could not
hear them.  Bought the speakers anyway, and got a copy of the music.
Sitting at home, relaxed and "zoned" out, I noticed the picks
immediately!!!!

Nothing has changed, if I have got a piece of music that is relatively new,
and I am just completely relaxed and immersed in the music, I will
sometimes hear something new now and again I had not heard before.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

From a technical standpoint, the Monster Cable debate is valid.  The
bigger the wire, the smaller the degradation of an electrical current
over a given distance.  But, that does not mean the average human ear can
hear it.  Note the operative word, "average".

That same idea of the bigger wire is why most fire departments now use
large diameter fire hoses.


Add in the fact that much of that "source" material is already run
through electronic equipment before you have something to play back, and
you have already colored that question.


True.  And most people go about shopping for a sound system in the wrong
way.  They start by reading specs, looking at the equipment and price,
then listening to the music available at the store.  Most never ask the
salesman about what the settings are on the equipment, or ask if the
volume for each pair of speakers can be individually adjusted.

So, they do the in store testing completely wrong, and probably end up
with something for X dollars that if proper procedures had been
followed, they would have ended up with a system they would have liked
much more for the dollars spent.


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

We started talking about video because it is an even better example of toxic=
marketing and shitty products. When you take a picture at the max advertis=
ed resolution on the camera and it looks like shit, they will say its your fa=
ult for not being an engineer, just like you guys accused me.

But when you are watching a movie that has been extracted, converted, proces=
sed and marketed by professionals and it does not even look 1080p despite th=
e resolution, it proves my point. I am talking about movies in the 21st cent=
ury btw, although it does not really matter. 35mm resolution is roughly 4000=
p and they have been shooting movies on 35mm film since the 1940s.

=20

That's the real beauty of digital media and the only reason it survived in =
this moronic capitalist system, it forced you to buy replacements on a regu=
lar basis.

However, the other disadvantage is that analog has infinite resolution whil=
e digital is fixed, so this necessitates exaggerating the filesizes of vide=
o and audio to preserve it properly.

You would think HDDs are just like vinyl records, both are spinning disks. =
You think because of the density that they would be more efficient but thin=
k about uncompressed video, even if not in high-definition. A few hours alr=
eady fills up a 2TB HDD which probably will not spin fast enough to playback i=
n real-time anyway.

Nothing has really changed IMO, a movie still requires one whole disc if it=
hopes to match analog quality. Again, the sum is zero.

=20
=20
=20

Yes, very few people seem to be aware of this but super-HD film has been ou=
t for over 70 years. These "drastic" increases in quality people have been =
following since the 240p VHS days to the now "high-definition" 1080p are fu=
cking pathetic compared to the 4000p 35mm film that has been out since fore=
ver. I have no idea how the hell they were able to get people to switch fro=
m watching the original theater-quality 4000p films to garbage 240p videota=
pes and then slowly start releasing "better quality" mediums. Pretty awesom=
e scam.

he

I have no posters on my walls. My room is as white as a psyche ward. I gues=
s I am pretty damn open-minded.


-.-

s=20
,=20

You mean like how M3A and M3V made MP3? Please... let us voluntarily use som=
e consistency if those stupid fucks at ISO cannot.

explain:
The ONLY thing that would be different is the wire resistance (the
inductance and capacitance of the line is inconsequential at these
frequencies).

What that *could* mean (but generally will not in practice) is some small loss
in power to the loudspeakers.  That would be due to the (normally
negligible) IR drops (power) "lost" in the line (converted to heat).

Normally negligible,  unless you are using very thin gauge or really long
connecting wires in the first place, and are really pushing the amp. (I am an
EE; there is no such thing as "degradation of electric current", per se.


Due to the loss in the volume of water per sec you can get out of it, which
is  analogous in principle.   Except that the losses in normal speaker wires
are negligible.  You cannot really compare this to, say, using a 1/2"
diameter hose VS the mains line from a fire hydrant, for example.  (Now if
you were using really thin wire to connect your loudspeakers to your amp,
well, maybe. :-)


And just as an add-on note for any potential audiophiles out there, the
single most important link in the audio chain, and the one that should get a
LARGE chunk of the budget, is the loudspeakers.   (which is often left as an
afterthought, by many people)   But unlike some other components in the
audio chain, this one needs a listening test - specs are not enough.  And
what is worse is that the way it sounds in the showroom likely will not be the
way it sounds in your home, due to all the sound reflections off the walls,
carpet, etc.

Personally, I like (and am still using), some good old, Acoustic Research,
AR3s.  (But I am not spending $2000+ on a pair of loudspeakers, either.  :-)

Bad choice of words on my part, apologies.  How about degradation of the
signal?   LOL



Which was quite common when I bought my speakers.  Still have them too.



Speakers are *THE* most important part of the system.  Good equipment
matched with poor speakers will show the limits of the speakers.  Good
speakers with poor equipment will show the limitations of the speakers.

Never, never, ever, ever look at the speakers when listening to them.
Tell the salesman which pairs you would like to hear, then turn your
back while he plays *your* choice in music.  Make sure the volume is
always the same between speakers, the salesman should *never* have to
adjust the equipment, just switch speakers.  All controls on the
equipment should be set to neutral.  Pick the speakers you like based on
what you hear, do not get in a hurry.  Once picked, start selecting
equipment of equivalent quality.  You should be home free.


Old ESS AMT 4's here, with the Heil Air Motion Transformers.  Had to
have the woofers repaired, the foam surrounds finally deteriorated.
Back in the day, I almost spent $1200 on a pair of Tandberg speakers.
Damn, were they good!


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 14.0.1
Thunderbird 14.0
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

Reasonably valid because (a) if you can hear above that there is not
_much_ wrong with your hearing, (b) equipment (especially speakers, but
even a lot of headphones) starts to roll off around there: I am not
saying it cannot reproduce it (though some cannot), just it is far from
flat up there.

(Having said all that, I'd have preferred it to go to 20k too.)


Strange, I'd wanted the both option for use with speakers. A proper
hearing test (which, granted, this stresses that it is not) _does_ test
your ears individually, through headphones; ears deteriorate
differently, or at least can.

Yes, I noticed that. it is almost inevitable with most such software,
unfortunately; you would  need a raised-cosine type envelope to get round it,
which is certainly doable, but rarely done.

If it were me, I'd produce random pips (with enveloping to avoid the
click problem), at random amplitudes, to random ears, and with random
spacing (to avoid prediction), still with the press-if-you-can-hear
button - from what I remember, that is what a professional hearing test
involves (well, that was about 40 years ago and had the audiologist
doing it, though still with the button). The simple test prog. we are
discussing also does not seem to have any "save" option. But hey, it is
free, and serves the purpose for trivial testing, so what are we
complaining about - do we want blood (-:?

Swearing does not make you look clever. I presume you are in your teens or
twenties?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Why not buy a ready-made meal? "Absolutely, if you do not like cooking. I am
happy
to get takeaways if they are good." Nigella Lawson in Radio Times, 1-7 September
2007

(You sent this as an email as well; please say so if you are doing that.)


I will not (unless it _is_ obvious you have not focused it properly or
something, if it has such controls); I will say the lens system is not up
to the resolution. (I have one such somewhere - an early
sold-as-video-camera type, you know the sort, more or less
pistol-shaped; it had stills capability of a claimed about 3 megapixels,
but produced results worse than my 0.8 megapixel at the time.)

No, it might be roughly 4000 resolution; not 4000p, the p is an order
not a resolution matter.


Indeed; Casablanca, for example, is excellent resolution. (Being B/W
probably helps it a bit there.)

No. You can copy a digital file from one copy to another, and then after
some years if you are afraid it is about to deteriorate beyond where
error-correction can restore it, copy it again, where the copy _will_ be
pristine again. No purchasing involved, other than the cost of the blank
medium (negligible compared to the original purchase price, especially
if it is a hard disc or even flash memory), and - provided you do the
copying in time - perfect indefinitely, or at least identical to the
first time it is created, if you are going to bring up the matter of
degradation caused by the initial digitisation. This just is not the
case with an analog recording, whether tape, vinyl, shellac, or wire:
_every_ copying stage _will_ introduce _some_ degradation, though it can
be very small with good equipment.

If, of course, you are complaining about the same thing being released on
different _types_ of medium as technology develops, then you are not
complaining about the same thing. In addition, if when you say you are
marketed by professionals and it does not even look 1080p despite the
resolution", then _either_ they had a duff copy, or they or their
equipment is hopeless: as you say, good 35mm film is well above 1080
(not p) resolution. If done properly, a Bluray transfer will be better
than an SD transfer which will be better than a VHS copy; however,
no-one's forcing you to buy again - you only have to do so if you want
the improvement. The SD copy is unlikely to actually _deteriorate_, at
least for many years: it just will not get better all on its own. (If you
do buy a bluray and it _is not_ any better than the SD version, then get
your money back, as it is not been done properly.)

Not infinite - film grain (or dye molecule) size for images, and ambient
noise and (master) tape hiss or surface noise for audio, do provide a
limit. Modern digitising equipment exceeds this for _most_ audio
material, though has some way yo go yet for much video. (HD video
exceeds what is achievable with much 16mm, I have read, though not yet
35mm.)


Not quite sure what you mean by "exaggerating".

Not quite sure what point you are trying to make: the original movie
is not on a disc.

I was talking about audio, in the above paragraph.


VHS was not p, it was i. (If working properly, which it often was not -
and/or the TV displaying it was not.)


Different situations. The added convenience (and lower cost, given
repeatability!) of being able to watch at home is what people paid for;
I do not think the majority of even non-technically-minded people thought
picture quality from a video tape was anything like what they'd get in
the cinema (theater).


Re-releasing back catalogue on progressively higher-quality mediums is
certainly keeping a lot of the movie industry in business, but it has not
been entirely a scam: the better quality mediums just were not available
(to them or us) initially. If by putting "better quality" in quotes
means you are buying (say) bluray copies and finding they are genuinely no
better than DVD copies, then more fool you (-:! I do not have a bluray
player (nor a 1080 TV, for that matter - I have a small 720 one, but
that is not connected to my disc player), but if I did, I'd expect
anything I bought in that format to be better than the same thing bought
in plain DVD format, and would return it if not: I'd not expect it to be
up to the quality of the original film, however, assuming the movie in
question was actually made on film.

No comment (-:


There is that mouth again.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Why not buy a ready-made meal? "Absolutely, if you do not like cooking. I am happy
to get takeaways if they are good." Nigella Lawson in Radio Times, 1-7 September
2007

You should not be using speakers to test your hearing. Headphones are way be=
tter. Hearing something at full volume on one ear and nothing on the other =
is really annoying. Idiots do it on Youtube all the time. To date I have neve=
r watched one of those longer than 3 seconds.

=20

Shows how serious they really were about their program.


Unnecessary, but you can easily do that with an audio ABXer. You will have =
to produce your own samples though. Make the original sample silent and ABX=
it with high-freq sines.

=20

Oh but a genius does not need to look clever, mang. it is only the useless an=
d incapable who have something to prove.


Mistake. I am not too fond of this new GG interface.


Film is inherently progressive is it not? Interlacing is only added to make=
it look like its going twice the framerate for TVs.

=20
=20
=20

Bingo, the cost of the new medium, again again and again. I have probably 1=
10 GB of irreplaceable stuff and 500GB if you include the stuff technically=
replaceable but a real time-consuming bitch to do so shall I ever lose it =
in a crash.

500GB is not trivial to store, it would cost over $100 for an HDD to fit it=
on, and it takes hours to do regular backups since HDDs transfer speed has=
not increased at the same rate as its storage. An SDD or flash drive of th=
at size (if it even exists) would cost even more, and transfering to an onl=
ine backup site would take months on most affordable connection speeds.

You call this practical?

=20

That's one of the factors. All the stuff you backed up on old CDs and flopp=
ies would not be compatible with modern PCs, so you would have to re-transf=
er to more modern media. But this is an asinine observation as the media wo=
uld decay in time anyway so transfering to more modern media or identical m=
edia is inevitable.
=20
=20

Not as good as it could be. Blu-ray copies lack the prominent quilting/band=
ing artifacts common with MPEG-2 on DVDs, and many are better quality for t=
hat reason alone. BPP of 0.500 was really pushing the limits of the encoder=
at the time DVDs were out, they originally meant DVDs to have capacities o=
f 5 GB not 4.37.

=20

They do not exceed it with better efficiency. A 35mm film roll would be a lo=
t smaller than a digital transfer of the same resolution and quality. The o=
nly immediate advantage as you put it is flexibility and no gradual degrada=
tion.


Video codecs quality does not scale linearly with bitrate, especially with =
the most advanced ones. With x264, 720p at 2Mb/s is really good quality, at=
1Mb/s it sucks, at 4Mb/s its only a little better quality than 2Mb/s and m=
ost people encode at this bitrate for good insurance, at 10Mb/s the quality=
appears perfect but close-inspection can still uncover some degradation on=
some of the scenes, so it is necessary to encode a couple times higher than=
that rate to have a 99.99% perfect, long-term archive-quality.

Let's not forget this is for YV12 colorspace and archive-quality would requ=
ire the full RGB quality which would mean another doubling of the bitrate.


it is on a film roll, close enough.

=20
=20

Did we not have those portable home movie projectors in the past that usual=
ly used 16mm and smaller prints? It had to better quality than VHS.

=20
=20
=20
=20
=20

Not all of them suck that bad, and not all are worse in terms of resolution=
but other things like brightness not being properly adjusted, false colors=
and saturations and sometimes artifacts from automated software algorithms=
to remove dirt/noise which I might even accept if it was not being done to =
movies produced digitally and never should have been sourced from a film ma=
ster in the first place (South Park the Movie being one.)

Incompetence at those studios is amazing. I could do twice the better job w=
ith my freeware equipment.

=20

...which speaks the truth.

(Industrial's post came to me as an email as well. I gather it has
something to do with Google Groups; can anyone help it stop happening
for him?)


I know; I just wanted a quick way of trying out the prog. (and do not
have headphones to hand).


It may be annoying, but it is how to go about testing your hearing
seriously.


For goodness' sake, it is a free prog.!

ABX?
[]

Who mentioned film? Film is instantaneous, neither i nor p. And that
was not the reason for interlacing.

What, a few pennies for a blank CD?


I think your original point was that analog recordings last better than
digital ones. I questioned that. But now you have wandered off: I
seriously doubt you have the equivalent of 110 GB on LPs or tapes, so
the point is now moot.

Hmm? granted floppies are a bit old hat, though you can still get USB
floppy drives (which AFAIK work on 7), but as for CDs, I do not see why
they would not be "compatible".

[]

Hm? Even assuming 30 to 50 megabytes per frame (a discussion I was part
of in another 'group decided about 14 megapixels is about the same
resolution as a 35mm slide/negative using about 40 ASA film), that is 10
to 15 images on a CD, a lot more on a DVD, yet more on a bluray or hard
disc. If you are talking of a movie film, a 35mm print of that needs a
huge can to keep it in.
[]

I had 8mm ones (still better than VHS mind!); a 16mm projector is still
quite a beast, though obviously smaller than a 35mm one. Yes, some real
(reel!) enthusiasts with their own cinemas (movie theaters) had them,
but pretty rare. (I used to operate the 16mm projector at [boarding]
school, and they did indeed hire prints of feature films.)

But people will pay a lot (in terms of accepting poor quality) for
convenience. There is no way I'd describe any size of film projector as
convenient to use (fast wind, variable speed playback, ability to record
[without having to wait for the film to be processed!] and re-use).
[]

But seems unable to do so without profanity that does not actually
contribute anything.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it is much
more *interesting* to live not knowing than to have answers which might be
wrong. - Richard Feynman, in 1981 Horizon interview

LOL.   Surely he can figure that one out!   (???)
More below.




Actually, this is an interesting subject.  I hate to say it, but I think
analog may have an edge on that one, due to the medium used.  I have not
heard of a record going bad due to aging of the medium, but I sure have for
CDs and DVDs, which, unfortunately, do not last forever.

To give an example, we still have records dating back to over 70 years ago!
I'd be very surprised if any recordable CDs or DVDs or hard drives or flash
drives will last that long.

I have already witnessed a few DVDs bite the dust (due to apparent aging of
the dyes), and those were not even 10 years old.   (Of course, more recent
and better brand name media, like Verbatim, are a step up in that regard,
but even at that, they too will not last forever.   Commercial DVDs have an
advantage (due to the different processes used in their making, and not
relying on color dyes), but I'd bet in 50 years they, too, will have
problems.

Magnetic tape might also hold up, but I do not think as well.   Given enough
time, I think the oxide will get a bit brittle and start coming off.  Even
with the best mylar tape.   (Which just reminded me of the old acetate vs
mylar reel to reel tape debate, for anyone old enough here to remember.
Well, at least when acetate tape broke, it broke cleanly and did not stretch,
LOL.   But I'd still stay with mylar.   :-)

Hey.  What about paper tape, with hole punches?   Or index cards?  Or stones
with etching?   :-)

I spend hours post-processing, encoding and uploading rips for free, but I =
do it because I know I do it right unlike 95% of the basement-dwelling dege=
nerates that make the BitTorrent network always what it never ceased to be:=
a cesspool of elephant shit.

Do it right or dont bother is the point.


A program that plays back clip A and B randomly and you hit A or B, whichev=
er you think it is. A is the original recording, B is processed. If you can=
hear a difference, you will have no problem guessing it right 20x in a row f=
or a good confidence rating. If you cannot tell them apart, the processed cl=
ip is transparent. This is how audiophiles do double-blind tests and judge =
the quality of codecs and what bitrate to use.

Its not designed for our purpose but it will work just as objectively, and th=
is way you do it fast without needing to be a coder.

=20

Look up...


Anything that does not have every other line chopped out is progressive.


Yes it was. Video wasnt smooth enough at 30 fps, but TV cable didnt have ba=
ndwidth for 60p so they invented 60i.
=20

No shop sells a single CD, and most packs of CDs cost $10+. Either way, who=
the hell still uses CDs?

=20

My point was that nothing changed. The sum is zero. Digital media at least =
provided the choice to copy without degradation and I will give it that much =
credit.
=20

Who thinks about those old photos they put on a floppy/CD 20 years ago fool=
ishly thinking it would be preserved because it was 1s and 0s? 20 years lat=
er you find those irreplacable memories worth a hell of a lot more now than=
it did the day you recorded them, in a dusty drawer realizing no computer =
has floppy drives anymore.

=20
=20
=20

50 MB per frame is 1.2 GB/s at 24fps, no HDD can read that fast and that is =
not even enough to store half an hour.

=20
=20

Being not a spawn of the dark ages, I dont recall if those were significant=
ly more costly than VHS setups, but I am not convinced there is cost-effecti=
veness when quality is taken into account.

8mm projectors had to be cheap (people used them before VHS was available) =
so I am puzzled how people were duped into accepting such pathetic quality. =
Maybe I suffer from false consensus effect.
=20
=20

Film cant be re-used? Videotape doesnt deteriorate quality when making copi=
es?


Buddy you ain't no videophile, you did not deal with retard codec fanboys wh=
o type while dipping their dongs in toasters. You'd know where i'm coming f=
rom if you did.