The more common term for this type of audio processing is referred to as AGC or Automatic Gain Control. A good number of camcorders have this built in already. It sounds like the issue with the youtube implementation is that the max gain allowed is just too much and the attack rate (for gaining up) is way too fast. Artistically they should allow you to turn it off or adjust the parameters, otherwise they just made all new music on the site sound bad.
Classic compression, on the other hand, is when the loud stuff is made quieter but the quiet stuff stays quiet. If you plot an input level vs output level you get a 'knee' where the threshold for compression begins. The angle of the knee is determined by the ratio of compression.
AGC is like someone has the volume knob and cranks it up so that you can always hear something regardless of the content. Usually there are minimum thresholds and max gain settings to go along with this to adjust issues such as these.
Normalizing is yet another technique which requires non-realtime analysis of the entire piece to determine and set a single gain setting for the entire file; a sort of best fit gain.
And from the more complex end, there's Dolby Volume which incorporates several of the above features with their own 'special sauce' in an attempt to provide uniform listening levels between sources and content. I haven't heard it yet to know if it is any good.
You obviously have a fairly large budget. Contract a larger company to build a special data recorder that suits your needs (unless that is what your customer is looking for).
example: D-6 which is uncompressed HDTV records 128MB/sec to tape with each tape holding around 450GB. Philips has had this for a year and it's called 'Philips VooDoo Media Recorder'. There's no reason why the tape mechanism from this couldn't be adapted for what you are trying to do. That is, after all, if you have the budget to have someone like Philips as one of YOUR customers.
Sometimes it better to design a system from the ground up, rather than using bits a pieces that 'kinda' do the job.
I don't know what you are using for your MP3 decode, but if you wanted a really easy solution try using the Cirrus Logic EP9312 ARM9. It has built in EIDE, USB, LCD interface logic, kepad scanner, etc and can run embedded Linux. Of course this might be to easy of a solution for you (almost everything on one chip).
The question i have for you is, what source on your computer is going to generate 5.1 mutlichannel digital data? Most likely some sort of DVD movie or game right? well it's up to the software decoder to do something with the digital surround tracks, and it wouldn't be that hard (theoretically) to have that multi-channel data sent to something like a sound blaster live with digital out.
ok, after checking out the Turtle Beach website, their new Santa Cruz card can be had for $100 and mentions the capability of outputing Dolby Digital on their 'versajack' digital output connector. No optical, but i could give you a fairly simple circuit that would to the the conversion from electrical to optical (if you don't have RCA digital inputs on your stereo). I'm sure other manufacturers will probably have support for mutlichannel digital output soon. Of course this assumes that you are running Windows in order to use thier drivers.
I agree with the people that suggest buying used. I bought a decent pair of speakers, a receiver, sub and sub amp for $500 that would have retailed for over $2000 brand new. I would suggest putting more money into the speakers than into the reciever. Be sure that the reciever can do the popular digital DVD formats, at least Dolby digital and DTS (you will probably have to buy the reciever new). As for the speakers i would go used here, and try to get a decent pair of speakers for L and R, and go a little smaller for center and surrounds (but don't get the tiny little things). And go for a decent sub and let the dealer know the size of your room (larger sub for larger volumes of room space). I have a 12" and it is probably to big for my space, but i got a deal on it.
It's a shame that they got a TV that's capable of 480progressive inputs and they didn't get a DVD player that can ouput it. I would have suggested spending the extra few hundred bucks to get a DVD player that supports progressive scan output and also could handle the new DVD-Audio discs (just incase they make it big). The JVC XVD723GD can handle both of these and can be had under $600 here and also at Crutchfield. If you don't know what progressive scan is, think the difference between the oldschool computer monitors that were interlaced, and the newer mutlisync ones (progressive scan). You can definitely see a difference.
I was at CES this past weekend and there were some really great home theater demo setups. Almost all of them either had projecters (with 100+" screens) or one of those plasma TV's. I'm personaly holding out to get a decent projector that i could also run my computer through (nothing like a 100" monitor that can do 1920 by 1080;) On those setups you really start to see the limitations of DVD 480i compared to HDTV 1080i (even when the DVD was line quadrupled to HDTV resolution). I'll be spoiled forever after seeing those demos (the equipment at the DTS home theater demo added up to over 1M$)... oh well, i can dream can't I.
You bring up some good points, i'd mod you up if i had the power. You missed one of the key point in the forbes article, where they mention one of the hurdles of the technology:
"consumers must possess a little ring that adjusts the optical device in their standard CD, CD-Rom and DVD machines; it's sort of like the plastic gizmo that snaps into a 45-rpm record"
I'd like to see more info on this ring (heck on the technology itself for that matter), maybe they're using the ring for rigidity and optical refraction, and the floppy stuff would just be the top layer with the data on it.
They'll probably rely on AOL to send out the first wave of floppy CD's plus the ring, and then everything following would just be the top layer (assuming most of the human race would have one by then).
Seriously... Starcraft is one of the main reasons while i still boot to windoze. I ran VMware for a while going the other direction: linux over windows, but it'd much prefer to be able to run windows over linux and still be able to play SC.
I imagine there are a few slashdot readers in the work force that would love to convert their desktops to linux, but are hindered at the moment because their day to day operation for requires them to use MS Outlook and other apps that only run on windows, and until the wine project can catch up, virtual machines seem like the best solution.
VMware was my excuse for getting the second 128 MB DIMM. Now that RAM prices have dropped significantly it should help the virtual machine users out by giving some more breathing room by making ram more affordable.
i had forgoten about those memory stick adapters. I did a quick search to learn a bit about them. First off you can't get them for less than $50. Secondly, thier transfer rate is "up to 240 Kb/s". 240 Kbits/sec is FAR different from 10Mbits/sec (even after accounting for overhead). It also appears that it takes propriatary software in order to get the host system to recognize the disk. This goes along with your comment of how to write the interface for the aformentioned ask slashdot question. Yes, it would be a pain to develop if only to use occassionly on a few systems. I guess we need a little more info from Mikey as to why he needs to be transfering files with these computers, what applications is he using, etc.
I highly doubt that something like this has been made, but i'm not saying it couldn't. The throughput rate of floppies is VERY slow. The amount of effort it would take to get a complementery read/write head to mate up to the internal heads, while still thin enough to fit through the disk slot would be a pain.
You'd be much better of doing the ole Laplink via the parallel (or serial) port. Or you could always just get a stack of floppies.
I think that the only thing wrong with.kids and.xxx are people who would abuse them (making a pron site in.kids for example). If ICANN would heavily police the domain to be sure the content was correct for the TLD then it might work.
i wonder how many bad pixels they are allowing on this thing. Having 9+ million pixels they have to let a few bad pixels pass in order to get the thing out the door. I wonder if they will let that number increase compared to other lower reolution flat panel displays because of the increased pixel count. Then again, each bad pixel will be smaller so it wouldn't be as noticable. Here's an excerpt from one of their current mass produced high resolution displays
The LCD monitor has about three million sub-pixel transistors laid over an area of about 328 square inches. Cost effective manufacturing processes produce a small number of defective sub-pixel transistors. The monitor may have up to 10 bright or 15 dark sub-pixels with no adjacent pair of dark sub-pixels, not more than four clusters of two bright sub-pixels and not more than three bright or 15 dark sub-pixels in any circle of 10mm in diameter.
If they use the same standards as for the T86D you would have up to 68 bright pixels or 102 dark pixels... ouch! i hope they improved thier manufacturing yields by the time this thing hits consumers.
I'm in austin also, after chatting around work (a local semiconductor manufacturer) a little bit i found there were a few other people that read slashdot. I probably made friends with a few that i would not otherwise have much in common with. I've also been meening to go to the 2600 meetings that are the first friday of the month at the dobie foodcort. I moved here mid summer and am still haven't got around getting into all the local things like i wanted to.
most major networks are now broadcasting in HDTV for most of the popular shows. HBO and a few other pay channels are also currently broadcasting. I'm not sure what the format is, i believe its a cable converter box, but it might be satelite too. there's a guy where i work that has HDTV at home and picked up a digital VCR that's capable of recording those shows (i think he had to mod it somehow). that same guy also has a nice projector for the viewing pleasure.
you don't find too many HDTV's smaller than 40" for the same reason you don't find monitors larger than 21". The problem arrives at getting accuracy at the edges of the screen. Most of the HDTV's use rear projection technoligies which produce much larger sets, but when you try to go to CRT the angles from the CRT to the edge of the screen make it real tough to get a good image across the screen.
The Wega TV's are just that... televisions, they are NOT HDTV's. They are nice with their flat faces. Sony came out with these at the same time they did the FD Trinitron monitors.
It's easy, just go to a local thrift store... i did the same thismorning before work and picked up two winter coats and... yep you've got it, i nice clickity clack keyboard, all three items for $17. The keyboard interested me though... it was the loud clicky key type, but it was small profile: the perimiter of the keyboard was no bigger than the layout of the keys (no boarders in otherwords). It also uses a PS/2 connector. I'll have to clean it up a bit before i can use it, it got grubby from laying around the thrift store.
I was kinda pissed. I had figured out which candidate that nearest fit my views, which was Dr. Hagelin. I go to the polls here in Austin, TX to find that i can't even write him in because Buchanan took the independant slot (in otherwords if i had written him it really would be throwing the vote away because they wouldn't even keep track). So i voted for my second choice Gore, though it doesn't mean a damn thing here in republican central... aka TEXAS
For those who don't know, the position of Governer here in Texas has less to do with control of the local Govt compared to position of Lt. Govn. (Rick Perry) which does all the decision making.
I think part of the problem is that a lot of the dotcoms really don't have any services to provide. They're either portals or some other similar piece of crap. The websites which actaully have hard/soft(ware) services behind them (i.e. something to sell) are the ones that typlically survive.
Also, has anybody stopped and checked to see how many regular business startups have flopped in the same amount of time? That'd be an intersting comparison to see if regular business startups flop more/less than dot coms.
askslashdot is a strange category (as you put it) because you get 12 posts if it isn't posted on the front page, and 500+ if it is (actually more like 100+, but still...)
Actually Sony does get it. Thats why they are selling the thing almost at cost, and charging $25,000 to obtain a license to make the games (hence the software).
Slashdot Mirror
The more common term for this type of audio processing is referred to as AGC or Automatic Gain Control. A good number of camcorders have this built in already. It sounds like the issue with the youtube implementation is that the max gain allowed is just too much and the attack rate (for gaining up) is way too fast. Artistically they should allow you to turn it off or adjust the parameters, otherwise they just made all new music on the site sound bad.
Classic compression, on the other hand, is when the loud stuff is made quieter but the quiet stuff stays quiet. If you plot an input level vs output level you get a 'knee' where the threshold for compression begins. The angle of the knee is determined by the ratio of compression.
AGC is like someone has the volume knob and cranks it up so that you can always hear something regardless of the content. Usually there are minimum thresholds and max gain settings to go along with this to adjust issues such as these.
Normalizing is yet another technique which requires non-realtime analysis of the entire piece to determine and set a single gain setting for the entire file; a sort of best fit gain.
And from the more complex end, there's Dolby Volume which incorporates several of the above features with their own 'special sauce' in an attempt to provide uniform listening levels between sources and content. I haven't heard it yet to know if it is any good.
-david
You obviously have a fairly large budget. Contract a larger company to build a special data recorder that suits your needs (unless that is what your customer is looking for).
example: D-6 which is uncompressed HDTV records 128MB/sec to tape with each tape holding around 450GB. Philips has had this for a year and it's called 'Philips VooDoo Media Recorder'. There's no reason why the tape mechanism from this couldn't be adapted for what you are trying to do. That is, after all, if you have the budget to have someone like Philips as one of YOUR customers.
Sometimes it better to design a system from the ground up, rather than using bits a pieces that 'kinda' do the job.
Think about it... increment each letter of H A L by 1 and you get I B M...
I don't know what you are using for your MP3 decode, but if you wanted a really easy solution try using the Cirrus Logic EP9312 ARM9. It has built in EIDE, USB, LCD interface logic, kepad scanner, etc and can run embedded Linux. Of course this might be to easy of a solution for you (almost everything on one chip).
That's about all i have to add.
The question i have for you is, what source on your computer is going to generate 5.1 mutlichannel digital data? Most likely some sort of DVD movie or game right? well it's up to the software decoder to do something with the digital surround tracks, and it wouldn't be that hard (theoretically) to have that multi-channel data sent to something like a sound blaster live with digital out.
ok, after checking out the Turtle Beach website, their new Santa Cruz card can be had for $100 and mentions the capability of outputing Dolby Digital on their 'versajack' digital output connector. No optical, but i could give you a fairly simple circuit that would to the the conversion from electrical to optical (if you don't have RCA digital inputs on your stereo). I'm sure other manufacturers will probably have support for mutlichannel digital output soon. Of course this assumes that you are running Windows in order to use thier drivers.
I agree with the people that suggest buying used. I bought a decent pair of speakers, a receiver, sub and sub amp for $500 that would have retailed for over $2000 brand new. I would suggest putting more money into the speakers than into the reciever. Be sure that the reciever can do the popular digital DVD formats, at least Dolby digital and DTS (you will probably have to buy the reciever new). As for the speakers i would go used here, and try to get a decent pair of speakers for L and R, and go a little smaller for center and surrounds (but don't get the tiny little things). And go for a decent sub and let the dealer know the size of your room (larger sub for larger volumes of room space). I have a 12" and it is probably to big for my space, but i got a deal on it.
;) On those setups you really start to see the limitations of DVD 480i compared to HDTV 1080i (even when the DVD was line quadrupled to HDTV resolution). I'll be spoiled forever after seeing those demos (the equipment at the DTS home theater demo added up to over 1M$)... oh well, i can dream can't I.
It's a shame that they got a TV that's capable of 480progressive inputs and they didn't get a DVD player that can ouput it. I would have suggested spending the extra few hundred bucks to get a DVD player that supports progressive scan output and also could handle the new DVD-Audio discs (just incase they make it big). The JVC XVD723GD can handle both of these and can be had under $600 here and also at Crutchfield. If you don't know what progressive scan is, think the difference between the oldschool computer monitors that were interlaced, and the newer mutlisync ones (progressive scan). You can definitely see a difference.
I was at CES this past weekend and there were some really great home theater demo setups. Almost all of them either had projecters (with 100+" screens) or one of those plasma TV's. I'm personaly holding out to get a decent projector that i could also run my computer through (nothing like a 100" monitor that can do 1920 by 1080
have fun shopping...
You bring up some good points, i'd mod you up if i had the power. You missed one of the key point in the forbes article, where they mention one of the hurdles of the technology:
"consumers must possess a little ring that adjusts the optical device in their standard CD, CD-Rom and DVD machines; it's sort of like the plastic gizmo that snaps into a 45-rpm record"
I'd like to see more info on this ring (heck on the technology itself for that matter), maybe they're using the ring for rigidity and optical refraction, and the floppy stuff would just be the top layer with the data on it.
They'll probably rely on AOL to send out the first wave of floppy CD's plus the ring, and then everything following would just be the top layer (assuming most of the human race would have one by then).
Seriously... Starcraft is one of the main reasons while i still boot to windoze. I ran VMware for a while going the other direction: linux over windows, but it'd much prefer to be able to run windows over linux and still be able to play SC.
I imagine there are a few slashdot readers in the work force that would love to convert their desktops to linux, but are hindered at the moment because their day to day operation for requires them to use MS Outlook and other apps that only run on windows, and until the wine project can catch up, virtual machines seem like the best solution.
VMware was my excuse for getting the second 128 MB DIMM. Now that RAM prices have dropped significantly it should help the virtual machine users out by giving some more breathing room by making ram more affordable.
that one customer.
"We've already got one customer connected," Mr Stokes-McKeon said.
imagine that you had that whole pipe to yourself.
i had forgoten about those memory stick adapters. I did a quick search to learn a bit about them. First off you can't get them for less than $50. Secondly, thier transfer rate is "up to 240 Kb/s". 240 Kbits/sec is FAR different from 10Mbits/sec (even after accounting for overhead). It also appears that it takes propriatary software in order to get the host system to recognize the disk. This goes along with your comment of how to write the interface for the aformentioned ask slashdot question. Yes, it would be a pain to develop if only to use occassionly on a few systems. I guess we need a little more info from Mikey as to why he needs to be transfering files with these computers, what applications is he using, etc.
although the popular term "sneaker-net" implies feet.
I highly doubt that something like this has been made, but i'm not saying it couldn't. The throughput rate of floppies is VERY slow. The amount of effort it would take to get a complementery read/write head to mate up to the internal heads, while still thin enough to fit through the disk slot would be a pain.
You'd be much better of doing the ole Laplink via the parallel (or serial) port. Or you could always just get a stack of floppies.
I think that the only thing wrong with .kids and .xxx are people who would abuse them (making a pron site in .kids for example). If ICANN would heavily police the domain to be sure the content was correct for the TLD then it might work.
did they somehow use the ditributed computing power of trolls to come up with this new OS for PDA's?
If they use the same standards as for the T86D you would have up to 68 bright pixels or 102 dark pixels... ouch! i hope they improved thier manufacturing yields by the time this thing hits consumers.
I'm in austin also, after chatting around work (a local semiconductor manufacturer) a little bit i found there were a few other people that read slashdot. I probably made friends with a few that i would not otherwise have much in common with. I've also been meening to go to the 2600 meetings that are the first friday of the month at the dobie foodcort. I moved here mid summer and am still haven't got around getting into all the local things like i wanted to.
most major networks are now broadcasting in HDTV for most of the popular shows. HBO and a few other pay channels are also currently broadcasting. I'm not sure what the format is, i believe its a cable converter box, but it might be satelite too. there's a guy where i work that has HDTV at home and picked up a digital VCR that's capable of recording those shows (i think he had to mod it somehow). that same guy also has a nice projector for the viewing pleasure.
you don't find too many HDTV's smaller than 40" for the same reason you don't find monitors larger than 21". The problem arrives at getting accuracy at the edges of the screen. Most of the HDTV's use rear projection technoligies which produce much larger sets, but when you try to go to CRT the angles from the CRT to the edge of the screen make it real tough to get a good image across the screen.
The Wega TV's are just that... televisions, they are NOT HDTV's. They are nice with their flat faces. Sony came out with these at the same time they did the FD Trinitron monitors.
It's easy, just go to a local thrift store... i did the same thismorning before work and picked up two winter coats and... yep you've got it, i nice clickity clack keyboard, all three items for $17. The keyboard interested me though... it was the loud clicky key type, but it was small profile: the perimiter of the keyboard was no bigger than the layout of the keys (no boarders in otherwords). It also uses a PS/2 connector. I'll have to clean it up a bit before i can use it, it got grubby from laying around the thrift store.
Good luck!
NT is for no text! not windoze
I was kinda pissed. I had figured out which candidate that nearest fit my views, which was Dr. Hagelin. I go to the polls here in Austin, TX to find that i can't even write him in because Buchanan took the independant slot (in otherwords if i had written him it really would be throwing the vote away because they wouldn't even keep track). So i voted for my second choice Gore, though it doesn't mean a damn thing here in republican central... aka TEXAS
For those who don't know, the position of Governer here in Texas has less to do with control of the local Govt compared to position of Lt. Govn. (Rick Perry) which does all the decision making.
/end rant
Where's the cowboyneal option? I guess that would be a write-in but there wasn't a write-in form box.
I think part of the problem is that a lot of the dotcoms really don't have any services to provide. They're either portals or some other similar piece of crap. The websites which actaully have hard/soft(ware) services behind them (i.e. something to sell) are the ones that typlically survive.
Also, has anybody stopped and checked to see how many regular business startups have flopped in the same amount of time? That'd be an intersting comparison to see if regular business startups flop more/less than dot coms.
askslashdot is a strange category (as you put it) because you get 12 posts if it isn't posted on the front page, and 500+ if it is (actually more like 100+, but still...)
Actually Sony does get it. Thats why they are selling the thing almost at cost, and charging $25,000 to obtain a license to make the games (hence the software).