Xiph Episode 2: Digital Show & Tell

An anonymous reader writes "Continuing a firehose tradition of maximum information density, Xiph.Org's second video on digital media explores multiple facets of digital audio signals and how they really behave in the real world. Demonstrations of sampling, quantization, bit-depth, and dither explore digital audio behavior on real audio equipment using both modern digital analysis and vintage analog bench equipment... just in case we can't trust those newfangled digital gizmos. You can also download the source code for each demo and try it all for yourself!" Plus you get to look at Monty's beard and hear his soothing voice. There's a handy wiki page with further information and a summary of the video if text is your thing.

Comments

Using real world audio waveforms?

[Anonymous Coward]

While Monty's presentation is excellent, what we have to remember is we are not listening to pure sine waves. What he should be using is a true audio wave which requires so much more resolution to recreate accurately. When he says he can reel to reel in x number of buts, I was surprised. He doesn't say what sort of speed of tape and source of recording he was using. Having done both reel and digital recordings for two decades, I've yet to come across a 16bit digital system being able to beat reel to reel, let along anything lesser.