last time I tested, I got about 2 hours better on mp3 than I did on vorbis, specifically because vorbis couldn't use the internal mp3 decoder hardware... so if they figured out how to get FLAC to use that, it doesn't surprise me that it gets good battery life now. That said, they must buffer a lot of flac, because it used to spin up and spin down the HD a whole lot (thus the source of the bad battery life hit with flac, as it needed to spin up and spin down more often).
I think a more accurate version would be "the mixing engineer's ears are lossy".
If I buy my nephew a guitar, and he leaves it out of tune and plays nothing but a buzzy D chord, I don't blame the guitar. Similarly, you can't blame CDs for the crap work of the mixing engineers.
I too had this same question awhile back. Why doesn't HA test commonly used codecs at, say, 192kbps or 256kbps?
The answer? the tests fail because nobody can tell the difference. they make for very boring results.
they run the test at 96kbps because they get usable results. people over a wide range of sound systems and hearing conditions can provide usable responses.
What would you do with that data? hard to say. you can't really extrapolate that, say, if codec A is better than codec B at 96kbps, the same will hold true at 192kbps. In fact, I've seen the direct opposite of that in past HA tests, where various codecs trade the lead depending on bitrate.
So "who is 96kbps for?" I don't know. but "why test 96kbps?" that's easy.
originally the argument was battery life on portables mostly, although I don't know that it matters nearly as much in the age of large flash-based storage. It mattered a few years ago because the only players large enough to store more than two dozen FLACs had hard drives, not flash storage.
But on a home pc? I agree that there is no reason not to use FLACs, if only for future transcoding purposes.
In my experience, almost nobody in the "I can hear the difference between Mp3 at 320kbps and source" people will ever EVER get around to doing an ABX test.
In fact, I can only remember one... and amazingly enough, that guy actually was able to produce something like a 13/16 test result on 320kbps mp3 he made himself using the latest release of LAME. of course that was only on one sample, and when I asked him to explain what differences he heard between the mp3 and the source, he couldn't.
I'd like to know what the MPG on the 6-speed manual version is."
Probably no better. This isn't 1981. Today's 6 and 7 speed automatic transmissions are efficient. They usually equal, and occasionally beat the manuals in some cases. Check out the current mustang for example, the auto and manual get the same mileage in city, and the auto gets 2mpg more than the manual on the hwy. On the V8 version, the manual pulls ahead slightly on the hwy, but the automatic beats it in the city. on the new premium model Boss 302, the automatic beats the manual on both city and hwy by several mpg.
So, really, manuals are just "for fun" now. for people who "want to feel like they're really driving the car". Basically, for people who learned on a manual and have a superiority complex about it.
What is the point of a password at a home machine anyway? If you must keep people from accessing it while you are around, you are doing something wrong.
or you have both porn and kids.
That said, I expect that by the time my (theoretical) kids are teenagers, they should be able to crack into anything on the home network, and if they can't, I haven't raised them right!
I don't care so much if FB knows that crap. most of it is outdated, and what they do have that is still relevant doesn't matter to me since I have a good spam blocker in my email and a good adblocker in my browser. It is the internet at large I don't want to know that crap.
I've let loose enough details on the internet that anybody random nobody who cares to google me can figure out the basics like what states I've lived in, what my hobbies are, etc. I just don't want them to be able to connect my forum name to my real name to my real phone to my real address and FB is the worst offender for making that crap public without asking you.
I don't need some 15yo forum troll I offended by pointing out how retarded he is, trying to ruin my life. I read ED (before it died). I know what they're about.
Facebook, on the other hand, has privacy controls deeply buried, which often reset themselves, and up to very recently at least (don't use Facebook apps anymore) didn't work properly with Facebook apps. I'll go with G+, TYVM.
This "feature" drives me nuts. More than once, out of the blue, facebook will start emailing me when someone replies to my status or sends me a friend request, even though I've disable that several times. I then have to go through every god damn setting to make sure they haven't randomly changed something else, like "show my posts to the whole fucking world" despite me setting them to "Friends only" very much on purpose.
I've had to remove every damn bit of information on myself possible just on the off chance that they screw up again, I don't my "dox" public. Facebook no longer has any idea where I live, have lived, what high school I went to, what college I went to, hell I'm not even sure it knows what year I was born. I had to get rid of all of that a long time ago (although in retrospect, I'm think I would have anyway and am glad I did). Anybody who wants to find me on the network better already know somebody else who is a friend of mine.
As for apps, I years ago uninstalled all the stupid "what transformer are you?" bullshit and haven't installed a single app since I found out just what the hell they had access to. Frightening.
"Xbox compatible" graphics processor is called an Nvidia GTS 8800. Actually, the 8800 is faster than the 360 by a good margin. Really the 360 is sporting something more like a 7900 with the unified shaders of the 8x00 series.
Why ban anything just because it's inefficient? If you want to ban it cause it's toxic, that's one thing, but if you want to ban it just because it is a waste of money, isn't that what market forces are for?
btw, try a fluorescent bulb in anything with a dimming mechanism and you'll go right back to incandescent for that socket... my god the seizure-inducing horror.
Traditionally, MS has released a new retail OS every year to two years. the huge gap between XP and Vista was the oddity, not the rule.
Windows 3.0 was 1990 3.1 was 1992 3.11 and NT 3.1 were both in 1993 NT 3.5 was 1994 95 was... 1995. NT 4.0 was 1996 98 was 1998 98se was 1999 ME and 2000 were both in 2000 XP was 2001... Vista was 2006 Windows 7 was 2009
seems to me that they're right on schedule for windows 8.
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Nice writeup.
The last time I read on the subject, which admittedly was a couple years, rockbox's own wiki refered to ipods as having custom mp3 decoding hardware.
I can't be blamed for being misinformed from the source.
I concur. on normal music (i.e. non-"known problem samples"), I have problems ABXing LAME even at VBR ~128kbps (v6 i think?) nowadays.
last time I tested, I got about 2 hours better on mp3 than I did on vorbis, specifically because vorbis couldn't use the internal mp3 decoder hardware... so if they figured out how to get FLAC to use that, it doesn't surprise me that it gets good battery life now. That said, they must buffer a lot of flac, because it used to spin up and spin down the HD a whole lot (thus the source of the bad battery life hit with flac, as it needed to spin up and spin down more often).
CDs are also lossy.
I think a more accurate version would be "the mixing engineer's ears are lossy".
If I buy my nephew a guitar, and he leaves it out of tune and plays nothing but a buzzy D chord, I don't blame the guitar. Similarly, you can't blame CDs for the crap work of the mixing engineers.
I too had this same question awhile back. Why doesn't HA test commonly used codecs at, say, 192kbps or 256kbps?
The answer? the tests fail because nobody can tell the difference. they make for very boring results.
they run the test at 96kbps because they get usable results. people over a wide range of sound systems and hearing conditions can provide usable responses.
What would you do with that data? hard to say. you can't really extrapolate that, say, if codec A is better than codec B at 96kbps, the same will hold true at 192kbps. In fact, I've seen the direct opposite of that in past HA tests, where various codecs trade the lead depending on bitrate.
So "who is 96kbps for?" I don't know. but "why test 96kbps?" that's easy.
in my experience, the equipment attached to your skull is more important than the equipment you purchased.
I've seen people with complete CRAP gear ABX at higher bitrates than I can, and I've got a pretty stout rig.
originally the argument was battery life on portables mostly, although I don't know that it matters nearly as much in the age of large flash-based storage. It mattered a few years ago because the only players large enough to store more than two dozen FLACs had hard drives, not flash storage.
But on a home pc? I agree that there is no reason not to use FLACs, if only for future transcoding purposes.
I wish you luck.
In my experience, almost nobody in the "I can hear the difference between Mp3 at 320kbps and source" people will ever EVER get around to doing an ABX test.
In fact, I can only remember one... and amazingly enough, that guy actually was able to produce something like a 13/16 test result on 320kbps mp3 he made himself using the latest release of LAME. of course that was only on one sample, and when I asked him to explain what differences he heard between the mp3 and the source, he couldn't.
Why? Hydrogen Audio has run many many tests in the past that include LAME MP3. go reference some of em.
Oh, and before someone says "gasoline performance car, different market segment, not applicable"
check out the EPA ratings for the diesel commuter we already have in this country, the VW Jetta TDI.
M6 and A6 both come in at 30/42 city/hwy.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2011_Volkswagen_Jetta.shtml
I'd like to know what the MPG on the 6-speed manual version is."
Probably no better. This isn't 1981. Today's 6 and 7 speed automatic transmissions are efficient. They usually equal, and occasionally beat the manuals in some cases. Check out the current mustang for example, the auto and manual get the same mileage in city, and the auto gets 2mpg more than the manual on the hwy. On the V8 version, the manual pulls ahead slightly on the hwy, but the automatic beats it in the city. on the new premium model Boss 302, the automatic beats the manual on both city and hwy by several mpg.
So, really, manuals are just "for fun" now. for people who "want to feel like they're really driving the car". Basically, for people who learned on a manual and have a superiority complex about it.
source: http://mustangs.about.com/od/fuelmileagestatistics/a/2012-Ford-Mustang-Epa-Gas-Mileage-Estimates.htm
What is the point of a password at a home machine anyway? If you must keep people from accessing it while you are around, you are doing something wrong.
or you have both porn and kids.
That said, I expect that by the time my (theoretical) kids are teenagers, they should be able to crack into anything on the home network, and if they can't, I haven't raised them right!
I'm guessing you have a penis? I hear that the place isn't quite as nice if you have a vagina.
I don't care so much if FB knows that crap. most of it is outdated, and what they do have that is still relevant doesn't matter to me since I have a good spam blocker in my email and a good adblocker in my browser. It is the internet at large I don't want to know that crap.
I've let loose enough details on the internet that anybody random nobody who cares to google me can figure out the basics like what states I've lived in, what my hobbies are, etc. I just don't want them to be able to connect my forum name to my real name to my real phone to my real address and FB is the worst offender for making that crap public without asking you.
I don't need some 15yo forum troll I offended by pointing out how retarded he is, trying to ruin my life. I read ED (before it died). I know what they're about.
Facebook, on the other hand, has privacy controls deeply buried, which often reset themselves, and up to very recently at least (don't use Facebook apps anymore) didn't work properly with Facebook apps. I'll go with G+, TYVM.
This "feature" drives me nuts. More than once, out of the blue, facebook will start emailing me when someone replies to my status or sends me a friend request, even though I've disable that several times. I then have to go through every god damn setting to make sure they haven't randomly changed something else, like "show my posts to the whole fucking world" despite me setting them to "Friends only" very much on purpose.
I've had to remove every damn bit of information on myself possible just on the off chance that they screw up again, I don't my "dox" public. Facebook no longer has any idea where I live, have lived, what high school I went to, what college I went to, hell I'm not even sure it knows what year I was born. I had to get rid of all of that a long time ago (although in retrospect, I'm think I would have anyway and am glad I did). Anybody who wants to find me on the network better already know somebody else who is a friend of mine.
As for apps, I years ago uninstalled all the stupid "what transformer are you?" bullshit and haven't installed a single app since I found out just what the hell they had access to. Frightening.
That's because Server 2003 was built off of the XP codebase. under the hood they're the same OS.
They did the same thing with vista & server 2008, and windows 7 & server 2008 r2.
The classic shell is still in windows 7, I'm pretty sure. I know it was in vista and server 2008 uses it by default.
I like the windows7 interface personally. It is pretty ugly with aero off, but with aero on it's pretty snazzy.
I've got more gpu horsepower than I know what to do with anyway, so why not?
Actually, in all honesty, the business-class moble gpu on my work laptop handles aero without any problems. it's really not that intensive.
"Xbox compatible" graphics processor is called an Nvidia GTS 8800.
Actually, the 8800 is faster than the 360 by a good margin. Really the 360 is sporting something more like a 7900 with the unified shaders of the 8x00 series.
Why ban anything just because it's inefficient? If you want to ban it cause it's toxic, that's one thing, but if you want to ban it just because it is a waste of money, isn't that what market forces are for?
btw, try a fluorescent bulb in anything with a dimming mechanism and you'll go right back to incandescent for that socket... my god the seizure-inducing horror.
Netbooks run Windows 7. What on earth did you upgrade to?
A: "i3" and "Pentium3" are part of the same model line, right?
you mean like the huge speed loss going from vista to windows 7?
oh... wait...
I guess anything electronic inside a beige box (well, black nowadays) is magic, and the people who make it are wizards. They can do it!
XP was just a theme for windows 2000, and look how well it did.
Hell 7 isn't much more than a theme/ui upgrade for a bugfixed vista, and everybody loves it nonetheless.
Traditionally, MS has released a new retail OS every year to two years. the huge gap between XP and Vista was the oddity, not the rule.
Windows 3.0 was 1990 ...
3.1 was 1992
3.11 and NT 3.1 were both in 1993
NT 3.5 was 1994
95 was... 1995.
NT 4.0 was 1996
98 was 1998
98se was 1999
ME and 2000 were both in 2000
XP was 2001
Vista was 2006
Windows 7 was 2009
seems to me that they're right on schedule for windows 8.