Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
> In article <h514i6$9gc$1@news.albasani.net>,
> Nigel Cliffe <invalid@2mm.org.uk> wrote:
>>> I worked for the BBC TV in the sound department in the '70s and
>>> that's the first I've heard of that one. Apart from anything else do
>>> you know the cost of employing a 16 piece orchestra?
>>>
>>> If it had happened it would soon have been reported throughout the
>>> industry.
>
>
>> It sounds to me like a tale which grew with each re-telling, but may
>> have truth in the origins. The real beginning could have been one of
>> the demonstrations of Quad Electrostatic speakers from (I think) the
>> 1950's, with an A-B comparison from live to recording and speakers.
>> I'm pretty sure that happened, though I can't put my hand on any
>> documentation.
>
> The 16 piece orchestra would have had to play *very* quietly if a
> single Quad '57 were to match it. Plus the fact that anyone could
> have told by the spread of sound that one was a mono source.
It may have been a solo instrument. As I said, I won't be able to find the
documentation on this, though suspect its in an article of about 25 years
ago. Around that time I had an extensive tour of Quad's facilities in
Huntingdon with a few other students interested in achoustics from Cambridge
University (I was studying perception of audio at the time).
I'm also quite prepared to be shown to have a faulty memory on it. I was
only putting it forward as a possible source for an urban myth.
> If you make it a single instrument, things change. I remember being
> impressed with just how close a sax sounded when recorded on a 4038
> and played back on an LUS10 - both '50s technology.
>
> IMHO, speech is the real giveaway.
I agree on both counts, good single instruments are hard to tell apart,
speech seems surprisingly easy. I suspect that is in part internal
psycho-achoustics, people have massive perceptual resources devoted to
speech processing.
> On Sat, 01 Aug 2009 05:26:35 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
> <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Its also been a revelation to look at the broadcast pictures..sky news
>> is absolute rubbish quality.
>
> Interesting, that, since Sky News is one of the highest bitrate
> channels on Freeview......
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
se.
>
> Having a full screen telly on this 1280 x 1024 screen has been a bit of
> a revelation. F1 coverage is rather poor, picture wise. Then cut back to
> the studio, and its suddenly much higher definition.
Yes, but if the studio picture isn't very 'busy' it will look better than lots
of movement and detail on the F1 track. Detail and movement is bad news for
MPEG coding, random movement such as running water or smoke a disaster.
> I've just stuck SKY Sports news on
>
> the reported codec/resolutin is
>
> 25 frames a second MPEG audio, 720x576pixels.
>
> None of the other channels report the resolution.
I don't understand that. Are you saying that your receiver can only report the
resolution on SSN, and no other channel ? There's nothing in the channel's
data stream that can inhibit a receiver to report such detail.
FWIW BBC 1, 2, 3, 4, ITV 1, C4, and 5 were all at either 720x576 or 704x576 on
DTT last time I looked.
--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.
Mark Carver wrote:
> The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> se.
>>
>> Having a full screen telly on this 1280 x 1024 screen has been a bit
>> of a revelation. F1 coverage is rather poor, picture wise. Then cut
>> back to the studio, and its suddenly much higher definition.
>
> Yes, but if the studio picture isn't very 'busy' it will look better
> than lots of movement and detail on the F1 track. Detail and movement is
> bad news for MPEG coding, random movement such as running water or smoke
> a disaster.
>
>> I've just stuck SKY Sports news on
>>
>> the reported codec/resolutin is
>>
>> 25 frames a second MPEG audio, 720x576pixels.
>>
>> None of the other channels report the resolution.
>
> I don't understand that. Are you saying that your receiver can only
> report the resolution on SSN, and no other channel ? There's nothing in
> the channel's data stream that can inhibit a receiver to report such
> detail.
>
> FWIW BBC 1, 2, 3, 4, ITV 1, C4, and 5 were all at either 720x576 or
> 704x576 on DTT last time I looked.
>
Probably software then.
Its pretty basic on this machine. Totem-Xine.
On Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:14:35 +0100, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
> In article <P_qdnR-lXLRYqOnXnZ2dnUVZ8kZi4p2d@brightview.co.uk>,
> Anahata <anahata@treewind.co.uk> wrote:
>>> Apart from anything else do you know
>>> the cost of employing a 16 piece orchestra?
>
>> The BBC employ several orchestras already. It wouldn't have been hard to
>> borrow 16 players from the radio orchestra for example (which is a
>> recordings-only 9-5 job) for a stunt like this.
>
> You obviously never worked for the BBC if you think TV could easily borrow
> things from radio...
>
A friend who was also a senior sound engineer for BBC TV lent one of his
chaps to R3. The chap came back rather shaken at the lax attitude towards
times - 2 sec. on TV would be poor; 2 min. on R3 is normal.
--
Peter.
The head of a pin will hold more angels if
it's been flattened with an angel-grinder.
On Sat, 01 Aug 2009 16:12:20 +0200, J G Miller wrote:
> On Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:39:59 +0000, Zero Tolerance wrote:
>
> > Interesting, that, since Sky News is one of the highest bitrate channels
> > on Freeview......
>
> Maybe he was referring to the program content or presentation.
>
> And just because a station is transmitted with high bitrate, does not mean
> that the audio/video quality of the feed which goes to the high bitrate
> transmission is of the finest quality.
This was very noticeable during le Tour on ITV4: motorbikes adequate when
in the clear, helicopter good on scenery, then a bit better for the
commentators. The feed from the 'bikes was from lightweight cameras and had
many stages to pass through.
--
Peter.
The head of a pin will hold more angels if
it's been flattened with an angel-grinder.
In article <7dj4vjF2ckbrpU1@mid.individual.net>, Mark Carver
<mark.carver@invalid.invalid> writes
>
>I don't understand that. Are you saying that your receiver can only
>report the resolution on SSN, and no other channel ? There's nothing in
>the channel's data stream that can inhibit a receiver to report such
>detail.
>
>FWIW BBC 1, 2, 3, 4, ITV 1, C4, and 5 were all at either 720x576 or
>704x576 on DTT last time I looked.
>
That is only the intended final display format. It says nothing at all
about the compression/corruption prior to transmission at any stage of
the link.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)
In article <h51h7e$qu1$1@news.albasani.net>, The Natural Philosopher
<tnp@invalid.invalid> writes
>
>Hvae never actualklly heard a DAB set.,
>
>FreeView radio channels: sound quality probably on a par or better,
>> convenience arguable.
>
>Brilliant. Have yet to wire it up to a decent set of speakers.
>
On the subject of noise, stop adding.
Nuff said!
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)
In message <pvwu42b17x9.1vpu3jjydjhkh.dlg@40tude.net>, PeterC
<giraffenos.pam@homecall.co.uk> writes:
[]
>A friend who was also a senior sound engineer for BBC TV lent one of his
>chaps to R3. The chap came back rather shaken at the lax attitude towards
>times - 2 sec. on TV would be poor; 2 min. on R3 is normal.
Ah, those were the days ... several minutes out (usually late, and with
trailers left in to ad to the insult) is now far from unusual in TV; if
anything, radio's probably _better_ (though I admit I'm not much of an
R3 listener).
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **
"I hate the guys that criticize the enterprise of other guys whose enterprise
has made them rise above the guys who criticize!" (W9BRD, former editor of
"How's DX?" column in "QST")
In message <h51h7e$qu1$1@news.albasani.net>, The Natural Philosopher
<tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
[]
>>>> - Good digital is better than FM
>> Hmm. This is like the old "Cd vs. vinyl" debate. I suspect that, if
>>the FM has adequate signal and is properly set up, digital can't be
>>_better_, but can equal; and, in _most_ circumstances, it _will_ be
>>better.
>Nope. FM is limited to at best 16-17Khz because of the pilot tone.
>S/N is at best about 70dB. Both those can be bettered with digital,
>given adequate bit rates.
>
True, I'd forgotten about the pilot cutoff (and I don't think anyone
broadcasts mono any more).
>
>(In the case of vinyl, the signal-to-noise combined with the
>> dynamic range probably _do_ give CD the edge.) In both cases (CD and
>>digital), the convenience and ease of setup of course work in favour
>>of the digital media, but I think the premise of this discussion is
>>sound quality.
>>
>The thing about digital is that you can always incerase sampling
>frequency and/or number of bits to make sure that once digital, there
>is both no more degradation with a decent error correcting channel, and
>that such degaradation as the digitisation process introduces is
>infinitesimal compared with the original recording noise and distortion.
>
Very true. I'd say I have mid-range ears, neither golden nor cloth, and
don't think I've ever heard _good_ digital where I could hear the
distortions; even NICAM I'm happy with (I used to notice the hiss on the
Newsnight theme music before they cut it down to three clings and a
clang in duration).
[]
>I'm listening to radio 5 live sports extra right now on terrestrial TV
>channel Its FULL of compression, other digital material at very low
>bandwidth, and so on, but heck, its a lot better than AM ;-)
>
I suspect that part of that is that the AM transmitter network for it is
somewhat half-hearted, but you're probably right. (The compression, of
course, is not the fault of the digital medium.)
[]
>FreeView radio channels: sound quality probably on a par or better,
>> convenience arguable.
>
>For me now, its more convenient than anything else, thanks to a USB TV
>adaptor. Brilliant. Have yet to wire it up to a decent set of speakers.
You must be one of those people whose PC is on all the time, and you
have one in every room - and can take it into the shower (-: [or out
jogging, with a gimbal-balanced aerial ...] Oh, you said _for you_, from
which I take out you don't jog. [I don't either (-;!]
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **
"I hate the guys that criticize the enterprise of other guys whose enterprise
has made them rise above the guys who criticize!" (W9BRD, former editor of
"How's DX?" column in "QST")
On Sat, 01 Aug 2009 14:53:56 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
<tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>It looks to me like its sent precompressed down to a satellite channel..;-)
>
>You notice it when e.g. sky sports clips of cricket pop up in BBC news
>24. Way lower quality.
That's because News 24 record Sky Sports off-air from a digibox. (And
then for some inexplicable reason subject the footage to a series of
unnecessary aspect ratio conversions - or at least they used to...)
Nonetheless neither of those things would explain an alleged poor
picture quality on Sky News itself.
--
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> In message <h51h7e$qu1$1@news.albasani.net>, The Natural Philosopher
> <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
>
>>
>> For me now, its more convenient than anything else, thanks to a USB TV
>> adaptor. Brilliant. Have yet to wire it up to a decent set of speakers.
>
> You must be one of those people whose PC is on all the time, and you
> have one in every room - and can take it into the shower (-: [or out
> jogging, with a gimbal-balanced aerial ...] Oh, you said _for you_, from
> which I take out you don't jog. [I don't either (-;!]
> []
No, I don't need to do jogging. Dogs get at least a mile a day walk, and
doing gardening and D-I-Y is more than enough. Id cycle down the shops
if I could be arsed, but its uphill all the way back..
Computers are such work as there is, so always in front of one.
"The Natural Philosopher" <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:h54quc$9v4$1@news.albasani.net...
> J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> I'd cycle down the shops if I could be arsed, but its uphill all the way
> back..
"Bill Wright" <insertmybusinessname@f2s.com> wrote in message
news:H_qdndBDlPKts-vXnZ2dnUVZ8qCdnZ2d@pipex.net...
>
> "The Natural Philosopher" <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:h54quc$9v4$1@news.albasani.net...
>> J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>> I'd cycle down the shops if I could be arsed, but its uphill all the way
>> back..
>
> Can't you set off from somewhere else?
> Bill
>
Routemasters were great for that, one hand on the bikes handlebars
and one on the buses grab handle
Re: Petition to stop FM being switched off 
Linear Mode
