Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by singhcr

I appreciate your desire to see things from other people's point of view, but I disagree that engineers have no emotion. I am a mechanical engineer myself. I do think very logically and it does frustrate me that many people base their decisions almost entirely on emotion (i.e. I don't care if you feel that national health care is a bad idea because there's decades of data to show that you get much better care for your money as opposed to a private insurance system), but it doesn't mean that I don't have any emotion.

One thing that I notice with many technical people is that they have very strong ideas of right and wrong and are usually very exacting when it comes to any technical aspect of their hobbies. When it comes to movies, for example, I have little tolerance for lazy projectionists who leave the 3D lens in for a 2D show. While I understand why a person would watch a movie on a smartphone, it does frustrate me a bit because I enjoy movies so much that I want to see them shown as well as possible. Why would someone not want to see it shown correctly? That's what my mind is thinking until I have to remind mysel that people don't always think the same way I do.

When it comes to my work, I am in the medical device industry where we work on implantable devices. I try to be as objective and conservative in my approaches as I can because my morals tell me that lives are on the line if my calculations are screwed up and we ship out bad products that can kill someone. I have had meetings where after showing my data demonstrating the need to spend more money on a part for safety reasons, I yelled at people for trying to cut corners to save money on a device that could kill someone if the cheaper part were used.

It's a bit of a contradiction, in a way. I put my emotions aside because I want to be objective and logical to get things right, because my moral code says that I should. The reason why I bother with spending hours calibrating my turntable is because I enjoy music, and I get more of a emotional high if the system is up to par. However, I'm enough of a nerd that I will also spend hours figuring out how everything works, and will argue with people why vinyl sounds better than CD.

I apologize if this is a bit off topic, but I guess the idea that engineers have no emotion struck a nerve with me.

I totally agree with everything you've stated. I'm an ex-recording engineer and the reason I became an engineer in the first place is because of the emotional effect that music and film had on me.

That's a totally different argument than whether scientific principles can be used to evaluate the quality of a system. I fall in the middle on this issue: while I believe that measurements are definitely not enough to tell us how good a system sounds, blind A-B tests are totally legitimate.

I also believe that emotion does not replace scientific principles. On this and other sites over the years, I've observed a fairly large number of people, who obviously don't have engineering/science knowledge, applying analog theory to digital engineering. That simply doesn't work. Stating something with intensity doesn't make it so.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

We need more of the same. Weekly sales have been on a downward slope for six or seven weeks up until two weeks ago I believe. Some big hitters to come so we should have a good second half of the year.

I never thought I would write these words but "Thank God for 'The Lego Movie'".

But that still only puts us 2.37% ahead of last year in BD units and 0.9% behind in revenue. Last year at this time, BD was 10.7% ahead of 2012 in revenue.

Hopefully, Lego Movie will have a great second week and we can end the first half of the year a bit more ahead. If "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" gets released before the end of the year, that should help things as should the current X-Men movie.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

I never thought I would write these words but "Thank God for 'The Lego Movie'".

But that still only puts us 2.37% ahead of last year in BD units and 0.9% behind in revenue. Last year at this time, BD was 10.7% ahead of 2012 in revenue.

Hopefully, Lego Movie will have a great second week and we can end the first half of the year a bit more ahead. If "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" gets released before the end of the year, that should help things as should the current X-Men movie.

Dawn had better be released this year! I need that bluray in my Christmas stocking!

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by ouflak

Heck, why is even watching it on a phone a problem? A good movie is still a good movie, even if it's on phone screen.

Hardly. Just like reading a book and listening to a book isn't the same experience.

Pro-B

[ouflak]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

Hardly. Just like reading a book and listening to a book isn't the same experience.

Pro-B

They are not the same experience, but they both might be just as satisfying a way to enjoy a good story.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by ouflak

They are not the same experience, but they both might be just as satisfying a way to enjoy a good story.

Maybe to you, not to the rest of us. Its a sub-par experience compared with HT.
if you enjoy squinting I suppose the experience would be stunning?

[Paul H]

Originally Posted by ouflak

They are not the same experience, but they both might be just as satisfying a way to enjoy a good story.

Agreed, it is possible. Satisfaction, an experience relative to the stimulation. No way to measure the phenomena and emotional impact on-line. But the likelihood potential of immersion should be greatest with the increase of audio/video involvement/association. i.e. Enveloping the senses.

Of coarse imagination creativity of the young and young @ heart can resemble a "fixation" thrill feeling via emotional attachment when viewing a movie on an iPhone. Also, good eyesight!

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by singhcr

However, I'm enough of a nerd that I will also spend hours figuring out how everything works, and will argue with people why vinyl sounds better than CD.

Several years ago I saw an excerpt from one of the Hi-Fi rags that had two folks going at it. I thought the folks from the article were arguing digital vs. analog. Later it was revealed the folks were arguing mechanical acoustic (Victrola) vs. the newfangled vacuum tube electronics/electro mechanical speaker music reproduction system. The mechanical acoustic proponent just could not believe had bad the electronic system sounded .

I agree that a majority of CD’s sound bad. However, it is not the fault of the CD but the source of the material. Long story short - way to much processing: EQ, limiters, compressors. Wrong mics, mics too close, levels into clipping, etc.

Just curious, do you know the theoretical minimum distortion a .3 x .7 stylus will have?

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by ouflak

Heck, why is even watching it on a phone a problem? A good movie is still a good movie, even if it's on phone screen.

For one thing, it wasn't designed to be viewed on such a small screen. One of the differences between movies made for theatrical release and shows made for television is that TV relies more upon close-ups, because of the smaller screen and theatrical films rely more upon medium and long shots. Theatrical films are designed to be seen on a large screen (although obviously, consideration is given to what they'll look like on "smaller" screens).

A few weeks ago, I was in an airport and my plane was delayed. I decided to download a movie not realizing that with the airport's cruddy WiFi speeds, it would never fully load before the flight left. But since I paid for it, once it fully downloaded at home, I decided to watch it. I found it impossible. I simply couldn't see enough of what was going on. Maybe it would have worked on a computer or a Pad, but on the phone, it was ridiculous. It's not how it was intended to be seen. I gave up.

Can I watch "The Daily Show" on the phone? Sure. But I can't watch a movie.

Yes, it's still the same film with the same plot and characters. But film tells a story with visuals and sound and if you're not viewing it as the director intended, then you're not really watching it. For some films, even Blu-ray is a compromise.

If you're happy watching a movie on a phone, that's fine - different strokes for different folks. But IMO, watching a movie on a phone is equivalent to listening to music from an AM radio station on a crappy, tiny AM transistor radio from the 1960s with one of those limited bandwidth earplugs. Sure, you can hear the song and the melody and maybe make out the words, but it's nothing like it was intended to sound.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by zoetmb

for one thing, it wasn't designed to be viewed on such a small screen. One of the differences between movies made for theatrical release and shows made for television is that tv relies more upon close-ups, because of the smaller screen and theatrical films rely more upon medium and long shots. Theatrical films are designed to be seen on a large screen (although obviously, consideration is given to what they'll look like on "smaller" screens).

A few weeks ago, i was in an airport and my plane was delayed. I decided to download a movie not realizing that with the airport's cruddy wifi speeds, it would never fully load before the flight left. But since i paid for it, once it fully downloaded at home, i decided to watch it. I found it impossible. I simply couldn't see enough of what was going on. Maybe it would have worked on a computer or a pad, but on the phone, it was ridiculous. It's not how it was intended to be seen. I gave up.

Can i watch "the daily show" on the phone? Sure. But i can't watch a movie.

Yes, it's still the same film with the same plot and characters. But film tells a story with visuals and sound and if you're not viewing it as the director intended, then you're not really watching it. For some films, even blu-ray is a compromise.

If you're happy watching a movie on a phone, that's fine - different strokes for different folks. But imo, watching a movie on a phone is equivalent to listening to music from an am radio station on a crappy, tiny am transistor radio from the 1960s with one of those limited bandwidth earplugs. Sure, you can hear the song and the melody and maybe make out the words, but it's nothing like it was intended to sound.

+ 1000000000000

[KRW1]

Some films are just designed to work on a big screen, and that's it. I never really rated Halloween much, watching it on a 42" telly, and then I saw it projected and realised how well John Carpenter uses the empty space so effectively. It needs space to work.

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by Steedeel

We need more of the same. Weekly sales have been on a downward slope for six or seven weeks up until two weeks ago I believe. Some big hitters to come so we should have a good second half of the year.

Yes, but the big hitters will sell well on DVD, too.

[Steedeel]

Originally Posted by jscoggins

Yes, but the big hitters will sell well on DVD, too.

Not a problem. The big blockbusters will get their fair share.

[partridge]

Originally Posted by Wendell R. Breland

I agree that a majority of CD’s sound bad.

Sorry, but that's utter b*llox

You've listened to the majority of CD's out there have you? And what are you comparing this poor sound to, the original studio session where the music was recorded? No one but the people present will ever hear that, so as well as making a ludicrous sweeping statement you're also insulting the thousands of sound engineers out there who spend their working lives trying to get the end product as close to the orginal as they can.

I've read plenty of pretentious crap on this site over the years, but come on.

[slick1ru2]

The dynamic range being less on CDs vs Vinyl has been a debate filling forums for years. And that includes recording engineers complaining about it.

http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicrange.htm

http://georgegraham.com/compress.html

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by partridge

Sorry, but that's utter b*llox

You've listened to the majority of CD's out there have you? And what are you comparing this poor sound to, the original studio session where the music was recorded? No one but the people present will ever hear that, so as well as making a ludicrous sweeping statement you're also insulting the thousands of sound engineers out there who spend their working lives trying to get the end product as close to the orginal as they can.

I've read plenty of pretentious crap on this site over the years, but come on.

I'm an ex-recording engineer. I agree with you that CDs don't inherently sound bad. I'll even agree that that increased word length or sampling frequency won't improve the sound of most recordings, even though many consumers spend fortunes buying supposedly HD 96/24 files, Blu-ray Audio or SACD editions, etc. (And I've bought a few myself, although with mixed results).

But where I disagree is that most CDs of the last 20 years DO sound bad. It's not because it's a CD or because it's digital, but because even though CDs have the capability of a 96db dynamic range (vs. about 35db on vinyl), most pop CDs actually have less dynamic range than LPs recorded decades ago. The reason for this is because (almost) every group and producer wants their music to sound louder than everyone else's, so they implement severe level compression. Everyone seems to have forgotten the importance of dynamic range (this is true in the film sound industry as well).

Note that I'm not making the claim that LPs sound better than CDs (although some would). The claim that I'm making is that the way the technology is actually implemented by choice, most CDs have less dynamic range than many LPs did.

Another issue (and again, this has nothing to do with the inherent qualities of CD itself) is that today's recording techniques of recording in multiple studios with different mixers and mastering engineers and the use of frequently poor quality virtual sound plug-in enhancement tools tend to kill all the life out of recordings (IMO).

Listen to some jazz recordings of the late 50s-60s (like the Rudy Van Gelder issues) or some of the better Chess blues recordings. Or listen to a good edition of "Blonde on Blonde" with good headphones. They sound far better than anything you hear today. Some of those recordings actually make me sweat or give me chills when I listen to them! No modern recording that I can think of does that.

And a third issue is that due to listening their entire lives at such high volume levels, most musicians, engineers and producers have substantial hearing loss and/or tinnitus. This makes for bad sounding recordings. Another factor is that we've had so many terrible sounding hit recordings over the last few decades that new engineers (both recording and live sound engineers) don't really know what good sound is supposed to sound like. It's a rare occasion when I go to a live show where the house mixer isn't blasting us out of the theatre. I went to a show a few years back where the opening act was a guy playing solo acoustic guitar that was cranked up to heavy metal arena levels. It was ridiculous.

[slick1ru2]

I think a lot dismiss headphones because they haven't heard a good pair or if they did, had a bad source or bad sound card. But I got the headphone bug and have a dozen different pairs from AKG, Sennheiser, Ultrasone, Grado, Yamaha, Sony, etc.. And you hear so much more than detail than with speakers. I read somewhere that you get 10x the quality of headphones for the same price spent on speakers. So $300 headphones quality wise are equivalent to $3000 speakers.

That being said, engineers in the studios are using headphones to make CDs while the average consumer is using crappy (in comparison) ear buds or portable device speakers. That may be why they pump the volume now on so much music being put out, I think the overall quality of what people use for music has declined over the past couple decades.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by partridge

You've listened to the majority of CD's out there have you?

No, have you?

Our sister operation, MPB Radio, had thousands of CD’s. Most were classical but many were jazz, blue grass, new age, etc. I have listened to quite a number of CD’s over the years.

I was very clear that bad sound on CD was not inherent to the CD. On the contrary, it has been shown time and again that a good 16 bit, 44.1 system can be quite transparent. That goes all the way back to the Sony PCM-F1. A very short list of audio items at my work site: Ampex MM-1200, Ampex ATR-104, Harrison Series 10 audio desk with 5.1 monitoring, Sony PCM-F1, Sony PCM-3324, Sonic Solutions DAW, Brüel & Kjær mics, Avid Pro Tools DAW, Studer 950 digital audio mixing desk, Tascam DA-88, many pieces of Dolby equipment, etc.

See the post above by ZoetMB for more details.

[bluearth]

Mr. Peabody and Sherman bluray disc is coming 3 weeks after its available on digital services?!

Just one more reason for me not to support digital.

They want to kill off physical content so they can control everything digitally. Want to watch a movie? Better make sure you have a 10 digit key. What utter crap. Studios can survive just fine with piracy, they just want a cut of that piracy pie at the expense of those who are honest.

[Riddler95]

Originally Posted by bluearth

Mr. Peabody and Sherman bluray disc is coming 3 weeks after its available on digital services?!

Just one more reason for me not to support digital.

They want to kill off physical content so they can control everything digitally. Want to watch a movie? Better make sure you have a 10 digit key. What utter crap. Studios can survive just fine with piracy, they just want a cut of that piracy pie at the expense of those who are honest.

I'll always prefer Physical Media over Digital Copies. I like having the case, cover art, disc, and the Picture & Sound Quality of Physical Media is still superior than a Digital Copy. With a hard copy you know you have got the real thing, not files stored on a Hard Drive.