They said exactly that 10 years ago about Linux and the desktop, and the Linux desktop user space is still incredibly fragmented and nearly unusable by the average joe.
Ten years ago, I was using RedHat 4.1. I remember spending days editing my.fvwmrc so it would look right and all of my programs would be on the menu. Look how far it had come five years ago. Look how far it's come now.
My dad uses Kubuntu; he's an oil man. He loves all the little games for KDE. But OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird all work just like they do under Windows, for his purposes. Of course, Dell won't support him, so he'd be up the creek when it breaks if it weren't for me.
I think the best you could say is that end user minded distros (i.e. SuSE, *buntu, etc.) may be more aggrevating for power users because there are too many choices and it's difficult to tell if you're really getting the most out of it.
I think some people (don't know about you) get the lack of the same support, software & hardware being available confused with an inferior desktop solution. Is a vanilla Kubuntu setup with all the Kubuntu Approved software installed really that lacking as a desktop environment? Even if all of the commercial packages were available for Linux as well?
Fix and standardize the desktop FIRST, along with tools and guidelines and standards, and THEN when it's usable, worry about the games.
Right... but we're talking about people who don't need standards and can get Linux to work fine on their own. These people have a reason to find get their games to work, because they want to use Linux; they don't need convincing like average Joe might. Thing is, once they figure it out, they tell everyone about it, and then everyone can get it to work.
When most people won't use what you freely give away, there's a real freaking problem there, especially when it's something as potentially feature rich as Linux could be.
That's not fair. They have no choice... it's like you said, they want it to just "work"; and their Dell or their HP already does. With Windows. Always with Windows. Dell and HP (for example) have an incredibly big incentive not to preinstall OSS systems.
Incidentally, I run Kubuntu on my Thinkpad T42 (purchased June/'05), and it starts Kate in less than two seconds on a fresh boot. I dislike the bouncy cursors too; I turned off Launch Feedback to solve this.
I draw a parallel between OSS operating systems and the Internet. First the government started using the Internet; then universities did. Some ten or fifteen years after PCs were infesting offices all over the world, most hardware and software providers eventually started to support the Internet by standard.
Many businesses, government facilities such as airports & motor vehicle departments, universities, etc. are making the switch to 100% OSS. Linux isn't getting any worse; I think (read: in my opinion) Windows will be lucky if Linux and/or other OSS operating systems haven't caught on significantly by the time Vista goes obsolete.
There will be a breakpoint where either running Windows games on Linux is trivial, or game developers will begin porting their games to Linux.
While I see your point, humor me - go tell an engineer they can't design or fix something.
WARNING: Do NOT stand in between this engineer and the task you've delegated them; in doing so, you risk life itself!
The same psychology goes on when FUD like this shows up. Ultimately, this BS leads to good things.
People said this about Linux and servers 10 years ago ("Where does all of this kernel recompiling and software patching leave you, average unimportant IT guy? Windows...")
I wrote that anonymously because the story was still kind of active and I didn't want people to have to read a bunch of off-topic stuff.
That makes perfect sense to me; I (truly) appreciate your condolences for my mom. Wish me luck! I run out of cigarettes next week, and hope to stop cold turkey, though I have nicotine gum & some old patches just in case I need help...
I'm worried sick about my mom having C.O.P.D. and emphysima and dying soon. Is that more comparable to your problems? I hope you don't envy me for that, it's truly the sickest feeling I've ever felt...
More relevant to computer world, I'm worried "sick" (a figure of speech) about having to spend more money that I shouldn't have to... I'm sure it will be fine if I call them, but I've never reactivated XP before, and don't know how it works. I admit that I'm very paranoid about the whole thing.
Incidentally, the reason I'm seriously worried about it is because I discovered that my primary master drive is making noise. I leave it running a lot; one day it wouldn't boot for a few minutes while the drive warmed up & quit having errors. I will need to be replacing it soon, and short of finding an identical drive, I'm sure WinXP won't like being cloned to another type of drive.
So, this is a problem (read: computer problem) I'll be having to face soon, and am not really looking forward to it. At least I have backups of my data (but not my family members unfortunatley). As you point out, it's certainly not that big of a problem in the grand scheme of everything.
Purchased "against my will" == another figure of speech which is used very commonly in dialog, meaning in this context, "reluctantly and/or hesitantly". Sorry to confuse you.
LOL I still own mine. It's easy to throw, you do it like a frisbee.
Landed mine in the fireplace one time (last-second flick of the wrist, realizing that however pissed off I was, I only stand to break the controller if it goes into the fireplace screen... I knew I'd be sorry if it hit the TV or the console...)
And... it lived.
So many games that couldn't save your progress on NES - I had many cracked controllers that had to be replaced. It's probably the reason I'm so patient now... a genuine lesson in how losing your temper now only serves to aggrevate you and cost you money later on. Not to mention angering your siblings who had to wait for Mom or Dad to get another controller.
I agree about the NES Advantage, that thing was some real quality engineering.
So is this thing a console controller or a digital football? If I can't aim & shoot in GTA with it, it's not a console controller. What if you matched it with a data glove like the NES power glove? Remember that thing?!
There are a lot of huge business who buy thousands of bulk licenses, and they are MS' favorite customers.
But worldwide, there are probably millions of small businesses who are subject to the same decision; that will impact MS VERY significantly.
This reminds me of a decade ago when people used AOL instead of local dial-up because "AOL has 8 million customers... your local ISP has about 2000... clearly, they're America's favorite choice" but neglect that adding up the many local dial-up ISPs everywhere constitutes tens of millions of customers.
MS won't change their mind because this one guy is switching his little business to Linux. But when thousands of his competitors, parteners and peers do, they'll start thinking about it.
I don't see why you can't tell Windows "Hey, I'm going to switch hardware now, please deactivate my old license on this (point to HD and folder) installation and switch it to this new hard drive/computer/set of hardware". If Windows phoned home periodically to check its authenticity, like it does when you update it, MS might have to upgrade their WGA servers & whatnot, but it would prevent all this aggrevation. If the deactivated license tries to update (or just phone home on schedule), it locks them out and directs them to MS support.
I feel fucked because people pirate Windows all the time, get to play all their games & whatnot (the only reason I have Windows, plus a few full feature drivers that aren't there under Linux) and know how not to get screwed by malware, but I actually paid for it against my will because it was the right thing to do, and yet I'm worried sick about what happens if my HD dies, or I want to move my install to another disk or something. You can call them once or twice, but if you do it all the time, they get suspicious don't they? I don't want to be flagged as a (potential) pirate. I'm used to reinstalling Windows a couple of times a year (albeit less often with XP), and I'm fine with that.
They sure aren't working very hard to come up with an adequate solution to their problem... I may not be their favorite customer, but I still paid like $150 for an OEM XP Pro, and I feel like what they're doing isn't ethical. That should be reason enough to find a better solution. Yeah I know, nothing's perfect and they don't have to.
First, I'll kindly ask you to leave your haste and arrogance elsewhere the next time you choose to start a mostly fallacious argument. It only makes you more difficult to argue with; I can't tell if you misread what I wrote, or re-wrote it to be a straw man. You've (quite creatively) misread every one of my posts. You may be A) Very hasty and yet wish to argue with anything that moves, B) very stupid, and/or C) you're just trying to aggrevate me and get me to flame you (since I'm trying not to go ad hominem too much here, I'll go with A & C).
Glad to see you're dodging all the demands for real info. Since you'd like me to have the last word, I'll summarize everything I can gather from your nearly identical replies:
You have no personal experience to talk about (nyeh, I'm a studio professional, nyeh, doesn't count - what studio you work for/in/with? What kind of console did they have? The one nobody's heard of, right? Plugging in your DVD player is not professional studio work)
I said you clearly had nothing to do with digital audio before PC's - I never said Creative Labs invented it, nor did I say it didn't exist before PC's. I think that was your 40-something'th misquote (which is making me suspicious).
You are a wise old man who used to work on UNIVAC's, so clearly, my hearing is much better than yours. My audio equipment came from a studio (go look up what a Carver M400 cube is); it's far more than adequate for what I do, complete overkill for low quality audio like the OGG file I described. Still lower end for the HiFi category, though.
You can't figure out that maximum data rate constitutes maximum sample frequency, nor can you read specifications clearly. "6MHz of bandwidth" (your source) refers to bits per second. Digital samples per second DIRECTLY converts into bits per second. If you really are a studio monkey (sorry "professional" studio monkey), then you have a very miserable understanding of digital circuits to say the least. Also, playing a sound out of a digital output on a PC doesn't send encoded AC3 (or DTS); most PC/SPDIF cards require extra equipment to do that (of course, you knew this already).
After several requests you won't tell me about these apparently limited/terrible/spectacular cards you use, which is why I contend that the Creative cards are so much better. They're mid level consumer cards; I know that.
You seem to know something about SCMS. But I'll gladly admit I don't know the first thing about it - only what I saw on Wikipedia. Once again, you don't have to be an angry moron to post stuff about it... whatever their "security" is, that's what I was referring to when I said I couldn't test playing DRM'd stuff into another SPDIF port. Second time I've written that...
Things you can't hear or detect sure seem to bother you a lot. What'd I say about your pet Dolphin?
You actually have no counterpoints to my original post. You keep offering all of these assertions about what does what, but your neglecting that I was only offering my experience and suggestions; I keep looking all this shit up on the fly to find out why it works for me when you claim it's not possible. You're the apparent expert, with your "professional" studio work... unfortunately, you're constantly ready to shove words in my mouth/post and then argue with me like I somehow posted inaccurate information.
FYI, entire sentences are not typos. You weren't paying attention, is what was going on there. Seems to be a thing with you.
And once again (though most likely not for the last time), I don't claim to be an expert.
I'm sorry you've had enough. I know it sucks trying to dodge the bullet (i.e. the "hard" questions). Incidentally, as long as you keep feeding me drivel, I'll gladly keep spitting it back at you. I'm a pool guy in Denver and get a sweet check to do whatever I want in the Winter; it's not like I'm real busy for the next five months.
The overhead for both compression and decompression on my box anyway looks to be about 50k (the size of my/bin/gzip).
No clue whether it requires more code to compress than to decompress, but I would guess your overhead would be less than 30k. On an order of maybe 20MB of compressed data, that's not much.
GZIP is a bad example because it also works with binary data; it's too much. If you only have to worry about encountering 128 possible values, compression can get real interesting, and there are a lot more algorithms out there, though I'm too lazy to find some examples.
In this case, since the data looks to be fixed (this particular 100MB of text, not just any 100MB of text), it seems to me that you could really optimize the bejebus out of it - perhaps there's a large abundance of a particular word or combination of words, etc. If I was going to put some time into this, I'd run some heuristics type algorithms to find out what's unique about this specific piece of data that I could take advantage of.
Unfortunately I am not a compression guru, so I can't really say any of this with certainty... just some thoughts.
I'm talking about people who use iTunes (the STORE) to purchase their DRM music instead of another source, and who are forced to use iTunes (the PLAYER) to play it, and wish to convert it to a non-DRM format like the article & summary are about. I know people who use iTunes to buy music and don't even own an iPod.
I understand iTunes can rip CDs to nonDRM MP3s and put them on your iPod for you. I knew this when I first posted. This is a legit excuse for this software to exist.
I appreciate your response, thank you for giving me some info.
From your source, regarding digital loopback @ 48KHz:
This test should test everything in the loopback path except the converters. The result is actually fairly interesting. All the measures are "excellent," except there is an unexpected wiggle in the frequency response which RMAA 5.2 considers "average." This might raise some concern if one is using the S/PDIF output of the Live! (this result may or may not apply to the Audigy-series cards, whereas all previous results probably do) for serious purposes.
So, you may want to upsample to 24/96 yourself first.
I do agree that resampling changes bits; however, going from 16/44.1 to 24/96 and back isn't going to compromise the sound you hear if you do it only once. According to Creative, their cards upsample everything to 24-bit internally; they claim this makes your MP3's sound better, among other things.
Also, your source mostly discusses the analog functions of the Emu10k1 cards; although I'm surprised to learn that their SPDIF lines aren't as perfect as Creative advertises.
I still contend that average DRM ripping humans wouldn't know the difference, even a well trained ear with expensive studio headphones.
Thanks again for the info. If you have any more you'd care to post, I'm inclined to know more.
I don't use iTunes. I know there are gazillions of MP3 player software packages, and if DRM didn't exist and everyone sold plain unDRM'd MP3s, you wouldn't need the iTunes player, except maybe for getting your MP3s onto your iPod... I really don't know how that works, since I don't own an iAnything.
Clearly, you don't HAVE to use iTunes to rip your music; I was referring to the AAC DRM files that require it to be played (if I understand it correctly).
iTunes doesn't work with Linux because of its DRM, right? iTunes is garbage. Buy non-DRM MP3's from somewhere else, and use an MP3 player that doesn't give a flip, and another of the gazillion CD ripping programs (is roughly what I was trying to get across, if you have absolutely no way to play your DRM files the way you want).
I blame Sony more than iTunes for DRM. But iTunes is where all these teenagers I hire get this DRM junk that doesn't play nice with Linux. So whether it has any legit uses besides interfacing with the iPod, it goes into the useless junk software category for me.
Please note: I don't intend to be offensive to people that use DRM media, or who use iTunes... I'm always on your side, unless you actually agree with DRM and condone it.
It will TRADE that delay for OTHER artifacts. Typically, discarding MUCH more of the audio, and now having the artifacts of both audio codecs.
Decay Viper, decay... before you master flamebaiting, perhaps master reading comprehension first? Incidentally, I just tried it. I played a not-so-perfect OGG file I have of Comfortably Numb/Pink Floyd into a WAV and encoded it as an MP3 with LAME. It sounds as good as the OGG does. Anyone can try this for themselves; you don't have to take my word for it.
I've been doing digital audio back when you were probably still in diapers. It's just a shame you don't know how stupid most all of your claims sound to anyone who knows anything about digital audio, PC soundcards, lossy audio encoding, etc.
Uh huh (flamebait). First, digital audio wasn't at the consumer level when I was in diapers. My first sound card was an 8 bit original SoundBlaster; then I got a Pro Audio Spectrum 16, an SB AWE32, AWE64, SBLive, and SBAudigy. I also had a Diamond card for a while and built a SoundBlaster clone with a buddy. Still own all of them except the Diamond card, and they all still work.
Now, for once. Tell me about your first experiences with digital audio. What was your first card? Did you ever write a DOS driver for SoundBlaster compatible cards? I did; I can send it to you, if you want. I wrote one for a game before Sean Hargreaves wrote Allegro. I realize this is irrelevant to the discussion, but it should demonstrate how long I've been doing this. If you want me (or anyone) to believe you're so much more experienced, you're going to need to cough up some real life examples and anecdotes.
And I don't even claim to be an expert. If I did, quote me.
Second, you clearly don't work with SPDIF much, anyone with a multimedia PC has done these things plenty of times before. For instance, me; I'm just a user. I would have no way of knowing any of this if I hadn't tried it myself. I do this stuff all the time because I'm a musician. Give me your e-mail, I'll send you some of my work. I can even show you a video of this very card recording stuff at amazing quality, if you want. If you're that skeptical. But since you're a troll, I'm sure you'll decline. Are you a musician? Do you record stuff at least once a week on your 48KHz hoopty card? I'd love to hear the things you record...
If you'd quit being a troll, I'd even be willing to send you my old SoundBlaster Live for the cost of shipping plus $15 and you can see for yourself. Comes with a LiveDrive and everything; we can go through whatever payment service you feel comfortable with.
It isn't. It has lost most of the waveform.
(sigh) Reading comprehension thing again. Re-read what I wrote please.
Good enough?
Good enough for obsolesence. Go head over to Creative Labs and tell me how they put 24/96 SPDIF on their card? Better yet, buy one (like the one I offered you) and see for yourself. But go ahead & splain this, expert:
S/PDIF is used to transmit digital signals of a number of formats, the most common being the 48 kHz sample rate format used in DAT, and the 44.1 kHz format used in CD audio. In order to support both systems, as well as others that might be needed, the format has no defined data rate. Instead the data is sent using Biphase Mark Code, which has either one or two transitions for every bit, allowing the original word clock to be extracted from the signal itself.
Think of it this way: either SPDIF doesn't have a predefined sample rate, or Creative's SPDIF goes way above the standard. Meaning either way, you're incorrect. Do some math: your source even says the bandwidth ranges up to 6MHz; that's enough to do 24/bit 5.1 at about 44KHz, or stereo 24-bit at over 200KHz.
Your post is complete flamebait, but it's the wee hours of Sunday morning, so I'll bite. Feel honored; it makes you a masterb.. well, anyway. First off, I'll give you the Q0 thing. Someone corrected me earlier. Blame lame; their numbers are backwards.
Actually, you're wrong there...even with only 2 rounds of encoding/decoding, the number of people who will hear distortions is much, much higher than 0.1%. I'd just guess it would be along the lines of 5% or so.
Okay 95% of everyone won't claim that their garbage MP3 sounds any worse when reencoded on the highest parameters. I wasn't being empirical, but I didn't realize that wasn't obvious...
Of course, I'm sure you're aware that switching lossy formats every time is going to slow this iterative decay down. Think of a lowish quality WMA - export it to a wave & listen to it, take it for what it is. You said yourself a 320/Q0 MP3 from a lossless source is going to be difficult to tell apart. Now consider your output WAV as a lossless source, and think of all the other 320/Q0 MP3's you've witnessed: you're breaking into that top 5% man! That high quality 320/Q0 MP3, like all the others you've seen, will sound no different. Likely, a 320/Q9 MP3 would sound no different.
Since MP3 is not a DRM format and this article doesn't apply to reencoding WMA's as WMA's or AAC's as AAC's, I stand by my original estimate of 99.9%. Either way, even according to your research, 19 out of 20 would agree. Does my point not stand?
soundcards usually require 48KHz, meaning at the very least, the audio is being resampled, which isn't a lossless process.
Upsampling 16/44.1 to 16/48 is a lossy process. Why would I care, I have a 24-bit/96KHz soundcard, and SPDIF has no predefined sample rate. Incidentally, I can record from the ADC on this card at 192KHz.
Low and behold, it records any damn thing I play into it just fine, and has for years.
"Satisfactory" of course, but nowhere near perfect/lossless.
Umm, no. VERY close. It's got a DSP so you have to turn the Bass & Treble to dead center, turn on 2 channel output instead of 5.1 or whatever, etc. You also have to have enough bus bandwidth to get it into your memory on time; if you don't run a bunch of garbage in the background, that's easy, my computer's dealt with it fine and it's four years old. I can play a MIDI track and play guitar into my pedalboard, which hooks up to the SoundBlaster with SPDIF, turn on reverbs & chorus' on the DSP, and use What-U-Hear to record the whole mess. I mean, I do this at least once a week. With SPDIF to SPDIF, you just have to make sure both input & output levels are maxed. Long story short, this means the data all gets multiplied by a whopping 1.0.
Don't take my word for it. I know your $0.26 stock soundcard doesn't do that. Go buy a $10 SBLive and see for yourself.
I'm losing my faith in you, Mr. evilviper.
Files without DRM sound the same on the digital output as files without. This is a nonsense excuse.
See, now clearly, you're not trying to convince me you're an expert. You're just trying to get me to flame you!
Clear your head a little, slow down, don't take on the "I'm gonna rip your post to shreds whether I'm wrong or not" mindset, and think about what I must have meant for a second.
If I play an MP3 and record it with What U Hear, I'm going to get a duplicate of it. But Microsoft or Creative's little DRM smart code might kick in and prevent me from doing this when playing a protected AAC file or WMA file. Similarly, if I play a WMA file and hook up SPDIF-out to mine or another computer's SPDIF-in, the SPDIF "don't copy" flag might be set, and that may not work either. SPDIF does have a "don't copy" flag.
Since I don't own any DRM material, I have no way of testing this do I? I know perfectly freaking well that I can record unDRM'd shit t
Maybe, but I'm hesitant to believe that. I'm a digital circuits guy... individual bits don't just disappear. They either flip or get corrected, or masses and droves of them disappear. It seems weird that their product would randomly and "frequently" flip bits. Please post an article or something outlining more clearly exactly what you're talking about.
Why don't I hear clicking & popping when I play my guitar (got a digital effects processor) or use my PS2? Both connect optically to my Audigy 2 Live Drive... seems you'd hear it if it was "frequently" losing data, although I'm not a hardcore sound guy (and am quite happy not being one) and wouldn't necesarily know what to listen for.
This card has an Emu DSP on it. That same DSP is used on other cards which are very similar to the SoundBlaster but are geared for studio use and come with far superior drivers. I'd use those drivers (supposedly there's a way to make it work) but I'd lose EAX and 3d sound... anyways, the DSP does all the work. Seems unlikely that it doesn't work.
If you're talking about the ADC, then while that wasn't at all what I was talking about, I couldn't agree with you more. That's why the one on this card is 24-bit 192KHz; you'll end up with 96K samples per second of what you want.
If you're talking about the DAC, I'm still suspicious, as it would directly affect what you hear.
If you're talking about this card on a slow computer, the errors are the software dealing with bus bandwidth, not the card.
I'm not purchasing any equipment (in fact I'm not even going to get out of my chair) to prove anything. I've used this chip in some form for four years and have been extremely pleased with it.
So anyway, sorry for being longwinded... please cite a source which explains this phenomenon pertaining to SoundBlaster Live and Audigy products. In the meantime, trust me, this card will work just fine for ripping low quality DRM crap, and I stand by everything I originally said. Just equate "pure digital copy" to "your pet Dolphin couldn't even tell the difference".
The two I'm thinking of both used studio headphones. I've done comparisons with other people who weren't sound engineers just on my computer; I have a Carver M400 cube amp with two Advent towers on my front channels, and decent stuff (but ultimately junk) on my rears. The Advent towers are above average; but the Carver cube is far superior to stuff you find a Best Buy. I would call it a lower end studio amp (not even a volume control on it; you plug it in and it's on, because it's supposed to plug into the power supply of a preamp. I use my SoundBlaster Audigy 2 for a preamp, so it can result in some obnoxious surprises depending on where the card's mixer volume is set). It's your typical guy-pad type setup that no wife would ever approve of or be caught dead with in her living room.:)
One of the studio engineers actually proved that to my ear anyway, LP's on great record players with expensive stylus' & mics actually sound superior to CDs. I'm a believer, too.
If you really want to know (getting tired of saying this) try it for yourself; LAME is free. I wasn't offering scientific research, just my experience.
A percentage of audiophiles are utter morons, deaf as they are clueless.
No, I checked - they're not those kind, it's okay.
I'm sure that still isn't good enough for you, is it.
I agree with you about the classical music, the utterly most pleasing sound I've ever heard was a performance of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this Spring; it featured world reknown (and GORGEOUS) cellist Wendy Werner. She's the Paganini of the cello. I have both CDs and MP3's of classical music; I also have a 5.1 studio on my computer. I stand by my observations.
If you really don't believe me, try it yourself. I'm not here trying to offer empirical evidence... I'm offering my experience. If you have different experience, let's have it already!
Do you suppose he DIDN'T get the idea from the above TEN POSTS?!
Dear GOD, I actually thought the exact same thing as him when I read it too. Like one third of the comments on this story are telling this guy that they intend to party tonight rather than on the 31st.
Did it occur to ANYONE that some people have kids, and those kids are all getting ready for Tuesday? Did it occur to ANYONE that so are their parents? What if, in some parts of the universe, people who have kids all get together, and instead of letting their kids go trick or treating for candy with razors and AIDS in them, that MAYBE they have costume parties and celebrate at home on the actual day?
I'm the fifth reply. I'm going to do you a favor and NOT repeat the above four posters.
I'm sure you'll thank me someday.
As for nerd music, I'm beginning to think I'm not actually a nerd. Decoding the titles of songs on some CD sounds about as fun as watching a swimming pool evaporate.
It's like, why would you do that when you could go read Mt. St. Helens seismographs, or learn about a new species of tarantula, or take apart the code for a cool open source game engine? You know, or build a light with a photoresistor for your computer case or something.
I guess, once you've converted one long integer to hexadecimal, you've converted them all? I'm sure it's one of those things that's a lot more fun when you're with other people... (thinking) maybe not...
Please, PLEASE please. I'm not trying to spoil anyone's fun, I'm just observing how neat it is that we're all different & stuff. Trying to be funny without actually... being funny. You know...
I know a number of audiophiles who detest MP3s. I've tricked them into saying that the actual CD was an MP3 and the MP3 I ripped from that CD was the real CD. They couldn't actually tell a difference and were taking guesses.
If you use LAME, set your Q to 9. A 320kbps MP3 with Q=1 and 320kbps mp3 with Q=9 are WILDLY different, while both the same bitrate and same size. Whatever garbage MP3 files you have, re-encoding them as 320kbps/Q9 files isn't going to make them sound any worse to 99.9% of humans. Of course it takes more time to encode them this way.
Another point, not for you, but for some of your parent posts - think about a soundcard with a digital out. That means, the bits get decoded and sent to the amp - if the amp (or whatever you plug the digital line into) can capture the bits, you've got a perfect/lossless rip - no DAC was involved. Volume controls and DSP's may change the bits somehow, and it will take playing-with to get it right... but it will produce satisfactory results once you do.
I would test this for people, but I own (and will always own) absolutely ZERO DRM content.
I own a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy... I know even a cheap SBLive! can do this... I would try the following to get a pure digital copy, in this order:
1. Play a DRM'd file, set the recording channel to "What U Hear", and record. If that doesn't work... 2. Get a LiveDrive (plugs into SB Live's & Audigy's) cheap on eBay, and an optical cable... then plug optical out into optical in and try to record the optical in. If that doesn't work... 3. Get two computers, one with a digital out and one with a digital in. Try it that way. If that doesn't work... 4. Uninstall iTunes or whichever thing is giving you this unplayable worthless crap to begin with, and tell their distributor to go to hell. Then take your stereo equipment and hurl it at Sony-Poo's nuts, and sing to yourself until a better solution comes along.
I can actually guarantee positive results with that last one.
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My dad uses Kubuntu; he's an oil man. He loves all the little games for KDE. But OpenOffice, Firefox and Thunderbird all work just like they do under Windows, for his purposes. Of course, Dell won't support him, so he'd be up the creek when it breaks if it weren't for me.
I think the best you could say is that end user minded distros (i.e. SuSE, *buntu, etc.) may be more aggrevating for power users because there are too many choices and it's difficult to tell if you're really getting the most out of it.
I think some people (don't know about you) get the lack of the same support, software & hardware being available confused with an inferior desktop solution. Is a vanilla Kubuntu setup with all the Kubuntu Approved software installed really that lacking as a desktop environment? Even if all of the commercial packages were available for Linux as well?
Right... but we're talking about people who don't need standards and can get Linux to work fine on their own. These people have a reason to find get their games to work, because they want to use Linux; they don't need convincing like average Joe might. Thing is, once they figure it out, they tell everyone about it, and then everyone can get it to work.
That's not fair. They have no choice... it's like you said, they want it to just "work"; and their Dell or their HP already does. With Windows. Always with Windows. Dell and HP (for example) have an incredibly big incentive not to preinstall OSS systems.
Incidentally, I run Kubuntu on my Thinkpad T42 (purchased June/'05), and it starts Kate in less than two seconds on a fresh boot. I dislike the bouncy cursors too; I turned off Launch Feedback to solve this.
I draw a parallel between OSS operating systems and the Internet. First the government started using the Internet; then universities did. Some ten or fifteen years after PCs were infesting offices all over the world, most hardware and software providers eventually started to support the Internet by standard.
Many businesses, government facilities such as airports & motor vehicle departments, universities, etc. are making the switch to 100% OSS. Linux isn't getting any worse; I think (read: in my opinion) Windows will be lucky if Linux and/or other OSS operating systems haven't caught on significantly by the time Vista goes obsolete.
There will be a breakpoint where either running Windows games on Linux is trivial, or game developers will begin porting their games to Linux.
While I see your point, humor me - go tell an engineer they can't design or fix something.
WARNING: Do NOT stand in between this engineer and the task you've delegated them; in doing so, you risk life itself!
The same psychology goes on when FUD like this shows up. Ultimately, this BS leads to good things.
People said this about Linux and servers 10 years ago ("Where does all of this kernel recompiling and software patching leave you, average unimportant IT guy? Windows...")
Hey,
I wrote that anonymously because the story was still kind of active and I didn't want people to have to read a bunch of off-topic stuff.
That makes perfect sense to me; I (truly) appreciate your condolences for my mom. Wish me luck! I run out of cigarettes next week, and hope to stop cold turkey, though I have nicotine gum & some old patches just in case I need help...
~ Your friend gameforge
You need to learn the term "figure of speech".
I'm worried sick about my mom having C.O.P.D. and emphysima and dying soon. Is that more comparable to your problems? I hope you don't envy me for that, it's truly the sickest feeling I've ever felt...
More relevant to computer world, I'm worried "sick" (a figure of speech) about having to spend more money that I shouldn't have to... I'm sure it will be fine if I call them, but I've never reactivated XP before, and don't know how it works. I admit that I'm very paranoid about the whole thing.
Incidentally, the reason I'm seriously worried about it is because I discovered that my primary master drive is making noise. I leave it running a lot; one day it wouldn't boot for a few minutes while the drive warmed up & quit having errors. I will need to be replacing it soon, and short of finding an identical drive, I'm sure WinXP won't like being cloned to another type of drive.
So, this is a problem (read: computer problem) I'll be having to face soon, and am not really looking forward to it. At least I have backups of my data (but not my family members unfortunatley). As you point out, it's certainly not that big of a problem in the grand scheme of everything.
Purchased "against my will" == another figure of speech which is used very commonly in dialog, meaning in this context, "reluctantly and/or hesitantly". Sorry to confuse you.
LOL I still own mine. It's easy to throw, you do it like a frisbee.
Landed mine in the fireplace one time (last-second flick of the wrist, realizing that however pissed off I was, I only stand to break the controller if it goes into the fireplace screen... I knew I'd be sorry if it hit the TV or the console...)
And... it lived.
So many games that couldn't save your progress on NES - I had many cracked controllers that had to be replaced. It's probably the reason I'm so patient now... a genuine lesson in how losing your temper now only serves to aggrevate you and cost you money later on. Not to mention angering your siblings who had to wait for Mom or Dad to get another controller.
I agree about the NES Advantage, that thing was some real quality engineering.
So is this thing a console controller or a digital football? If I can't aim & shoot in GTA with it, it's not a console controller. What if you matched it with a data glove like the NES power glove? Remember that thing?!
But you infer that he is alone in his decision.
There are a lot of huge business who buy thousands of bulk licenses, and they are MS' favorite customers.
But worldwide, there are probably millions of small businesses who are subject to the same decision; that will impact MS VERY significantly.
This reminds me of a decade ago when people used AOL instead of local dial-up because "AOL has 8 million customers... your local ISP has about 2000... clearly, they're America's favorite choice" but neglect that adding up the many local dial-up ISPs everywhere constitutes tens of millions of customers.
MS won't change their mind because this one guy is switching his little business to Linux. But when thousands of his competitors, parteners and peers do, they'll start thinking about it.
I don't see why you can't tell Windows "Hey, I'm going to switch hardware now, please deactivate my old license on this (point to HD and folder) installation and switch it to this new hard drive/computer/set of hardware". If Windows phoned home periodically to check its authenticity, like it does when you update it, MS might have to upgrade their WGA servers & whatnot, but it would prevent all this aggrevation. If the deactivated license tries to update (or just phone home on schedule), it locks them out and directs them to MS support.
I feel fucked because people pirate Windows all the time, get to play all their games & whatnot (the only reason I have Windows, plus a few full feature drivers that aren't there under Linux) and know how not to get screwed by malware, but I actually paid for it against my will because it was the right thing to do, and yet I'm worried sick about what happens if my HD dies, or I want to move my install to another disk or something. You can call them once or twice, but if you do it all the time, they get suspicious don't they? I don't want to be flagged as a (potential) pirate. I'm used to reinstalling Windows a couple of times a year (albeit less often with XP), and I'm fine with that.
They sure aren't working very hard to come up with an adequate solution to their problem... I may not be their favorite customer, but I still paid like $150 for an OEM XP Pro, and I feel like what they're doing isn't ethical. That should be reason enough to find a better solution. Yeah I know, nothing's perfect and they don't have to.
I salute MS with my long finger.
Glad to see you're dodging all the demands for real info. Since you'd like me to have the last word, I'll summarize everything I can gather from your nearly identical replies:
I'm sorry you've had enough. I know it sucks trying to dodge the bullet (i.e. the "hard" questions). Incidentally, as long as you keep feeding me drivel, I'll gladly keep spitting it back at you. I'm a pool guy in Denver and get a sweet check to do whatever I want in the Winter; it's not like I'm real busy for the next five months.
The overhead for both compression and decompression on my box anyway looks to be about 50k (the size of my /bin/gzip).
No clue whether it requires more code to compress than to decompress, but I would guess your overhead would be less than 30k. On an order of maybe 20MB of compressed data, that's not much.
GZIP is a bad example because it also works with binary data; it's too much. If you only have to worry about encountering 128 possible values, compression can get real interesting, and there are a lot more algorithms out there, though I'm too lazy to find some examples.
In this case, since the data looks to be fixed (this particular 100MB of text, not just any 100MB of text), it seems to me that you could really optimize the bejebus out of it - perhaps there's a large abundance of a particular word or combination of words, etc. If I was going to put some time into this, I'd run some heuristics type algorithms to find out what's unique about this specific piece of data that I could take advantage of.
Unfortunately I am not a compression guru, so I can't really say any of this with certainty... just some thoughts.
I'm sorry, then my comment doesn't apply to you.
I get it.
I'm talking about people who use iTunes (the STORE) to purchase their DRM music instead of another source, and who are forced to use iTunes (the PLAYER) to play it, and wish to convert it to a non-DRM format like the article & summary are about. I know people who use iTunes to buy music and don't even own an iPod.
I understand iTunes can rip CDs to nonDRM MP3s and put them on your iPod for you. I knew this when I first posted. This is a legit excuse for this software to exist.
Sorry if I confused anyone.
From your source, regarding digital loopback @ 48KHz:
So, you may want to upsample to 24/96 yourself first.
I do agree that resampling changes bits; however, going from 16/44.1 to 24/96 and back isn't going to compromise the sound you hear if you do it only once. According to Creative, their cards upsample everything to 24-bit internally; they claim this makes your MP3's sound better, among other things.
Also, your source mostly discusses the analog functions of the Emu10k1 cards; although I'm surprised to learn that their SPDIF lines aren't as perfect as Creative advertises.
I still contend that average DRM ripping humans wouldn't know the difference, even a well trained ear with expensive studio headphones.
Thanks again for the info. If you have any more you'd care to post, I'm inclined to know more.
I don't use iTunes. I know there are gazillions of MP3 player software packages, and if DRM didn't exist and everyone sold plain unDRM'd MP3s, you wouldn't need the iTunes player, except maybe for getting your MP3s onto your iPod... I really don't know how that works, since I don't own an iAnything.
Clearly, you don't HAVE to use iTunes to rip your music; I was referring to the AAC DRM files that require it to be played (if I understand it correctly).
iTunes doesn't work with Linux because of its DRM, right? iTunes is garbage. Buy non-DRM MP3's from somewhere else, and use an MP3 player that doesn't give a flip, and another of the gazillion CD ripping programs (is roughly what I was trying to get across, if you have absolutely no way to play your DRM files the way you want).
I blame Sony more than iTunes for DRM. But iTunes is where all these teenagers I hire get this DRM junk that doesn't play nice with Linux. So whether it has any legit uses besides interfacing with the iPod, it goes into the useless junk software category for me.
Please note: I don't intend to be offensive to people that use DRM media, or who use iTunes... I'm always on your side, unless you actually agree with DRM and condone it.
Yes, that was pointed out to me twice already.
I always get the numbers backwards... it is -Q 0. You'd think the highest quality would be -Q 9, but no...
De c ay Viper, decay... before you master flamebaiting, perhaps master reading comprehension first? Incidentally, I just tried it. I played a not-so-perfect OGG file I have of Comfortably Numb/Pink Floyd into a WAV and encoded it as an MP3 with LAME. It sounds as good as the OGG does. Anyone can try this for themselves; you don't have to take my word for it.
Uh huh (flamebait). First, digital audio wasn't at the consumer level when I was in diapers. My first sound card was an 8 bit original SoundBlaster; then I got a Pro Audio Spectrum 16, an SB AWE32, AWE64, SBLive, and SBAudigy. I also had a Diamond card for a while and built a SoundBlaster clone with a buddy. Still own all of them except the Diamond card, and they all still work.
Now, for once. Tell me about your first experiences with digital audio. What was your first card? Did you ever write a DOS driver for SoundBlaster compatible cards? I did; I can send it to you, if you want. I wrote one for a game before Sean Hargreaves wrote Allegro. I realize this is irrelevant to the discussion, but it should demonstrate how long I've been doing this. If you want me (or anyone) to believe you're so much more experienced, you're going to need to cough up some real life examples and anecdotes.
And I don't even claim to be an expert. If I did, quote me.
Second, you clearly don't work with SPDIF much, anyone with a multimedia PC has done these things plenty of times before. For instance, me; I'm just a user. I would have no way of knowing any of this if I hadn't tried it myself. I do this stuff all the time because I'm a musician. Give me your e-mail, I'll send you some of my work. I can even show you a video of this very card recording stuff at amazing quality, if you want. If you're that skeptical. But since you're a troll, I'm sure you'll decline. Are you a musician? Do you record stuff at least once a week on your 48KHz hoopty card? I'd love to hear the things you record...
If you'd quit being a troll, I'd even be willing to send you my old SoundBlaster Live for the cost of shipping plus $15 and you can see for yourself. Comes with a LiveDrive and everything; we can go through whatever payment service you feel comfortable with.
(sigh) Reading comprehension thing again. Re-read what I wrote please.
Good enough for obsolesence. Go head over to Creative Labs and tell me how they put 24/96 SPDIF on their card? Better yet, buy one (like the one I offered you) and see for yourself. But go ahead & splain this, expert:
S/PDIF is used to transmit digital signals of a number of formats, the most common being the 48 kHz sample rate format used in DAT, and the 44.1 kHz format used in CD audio. In order to support both systems, as well as others that might be needed, the format has no defined data rate. Instead the data is sent using Biphase Mark Code, which has either one or two transitions for every bit, allowing the original word clock to be extracted from the signal itself.
Think of it this way: either SPDIF doesn't have a predefined sample rate, or Creative's SPDIF goes way above the standard. Meaning either way, you're incorrect. Do some math: your source even says the bandwidth ranges up to 6MHz; that's enough to do 24/bit 5.1 at about 44KHz, or stereo 24-bit at over 200KHz.
Okay 95% of everyone won't claim that their garbage MP3 sounds any worse when reencoded on the highest parameters. I wasn't being empirical, but I didn't realize that wasn't obvious...
Of course, I'm sure you're aware that switching lossy formats every time is going to slow this iterative decay down. Think of a lowish quality WMA - export it to a wave & listen to it, take it for what it is. You said yourself a 320/Q0 MP3 from a lossless source is going to be difficult to tell apart. Now consider your output WAV as a lossless source, and think of all the other 320/Q0 MP3's you've witnessed: you're breaking into that top 5% man! That high quality 320/Q0 MP3, like all the others you've seen, will sound no different. Likely, a 320/Q9 MP3 would sound no different.
Since MP3 is not a DRM format and this article doesn't apply to reencoding WMA's as WMA's or AAC's as AAC's, I stand by my original estimate of 99.9%. Either way, even according to your research, 19 out of 20 would agree. Does my point not stand?
Upsampling 16/44.1 to 16/48 is a lossy process. Why would I care, I have a 24-bit/96KHz soundcard, and SPDIF has no predefined sample rate. Incidentally, I can record from the ADC on this card at 192KHz.
Low and behold, it records any damn thing I play into it just fine, and has for years.
Umm, no. VERY close. It's got a DSP so you have to turn the Bass & Treble to dead center, turn on 2 channel output instead of 5.1 or whatever, etc. You also have to have enough bus bandwidth to get it into your memory on time; if you don't run a bunch of garbage in the background, that's easy, my computer's dealt with it fine and it's four years old. I can play a MIDI track and play guitar into my pedalboard, which hooks up to the SoundBlaster with SPDIF, turn on reverbs & chorus' on the DSP, and use What-U-Hear to record the whole mess. I mean, I do this at least once a week. With SPDIF to SPDIF, you just have to make sure both input & output levels are maxed. Long story short, this means the data all gets multiplied by a whopping 1.0.
Don't take my word for it. I know your $0.26 stock soundcard doesn't do that. Go buy a $10 SBLive and see for yourself.
I'm losing my faith in you, Mr. evilviper.
See, now clearly, you're not trying to convince me you're an expert. You're just trying to get me to flame you!
Clear your head a little, slow down, don't take on the "I'm gonna rip your post to shreds whether I'm wrong or not" mindset, and think about what I must have meant for a second.
If I play an MP3 and record it with What U Hear, I'm going to get a duplicate of it. But Microsoft or Creative's little DRM smart code might kick in and prevent me from doing this when playing a protected AAC file or WMA file. Similarly, if I play a WMA file and hook up SPDIF-out to mine or another computer's SPDIF-in, the SPDIF "don't copy" flag might be set, and that may not work either. SPDIF does have a "don't copy" flag.
Since I don't own any DRM material, I have no way of testing this do I? I know perfectly freaking well that I can record unDRM'd shit t
Maybe, but I'm hesitant to believe that. I'm a digital circuits guy... individual bits don't just disappear. They either flip or get corrected, or masses and droves of them disappear. It seems weird that their product would randomly and "frequently" flip bits. Please post an article or something outlining more clearly exactly what you're talking about.
Why don't I hear clicking & popping when I play my guitar (got a digital effects processor) or use my PS2? Both connect optically to my Audigy 2 Live Drive... seems you'd hear it if it was "frequently" losing data, although I'm not a hardcore sound guy (and am quite happy not being one) and wouldn't necesarily know what to listen for.
This card has an Emu DSP on it. That same DSP is used on other cards which are very similar to the SoundBlaster but are geared for studio use and come with far superior drivers. I'd use those drivers (supposedly there's a way to make it work) but I'd lose EAX and 3d sound... anyways, the DSP does all the work. Seems unlikely that it doesn't work.
If you're talking about the ADC, then while that wasn't at all what I was talking about, I couldn't agree with you more. That's why the one on this card is 24-bit 192KHz; you'll end up with 96K samples per second of what you want.
If you're talking about the DAC, I'm still suspicious, as it would directly affect what you hear.
If you're talking about this card on a slow computer, the errors are the software dealing with bus bandwidth, not the card.
I'm not purchasing any equipment (in fact I'm not even going to get out of my chair) to prove anything. I've used this chip in some form for four years and have been extremely pleased with it.
So anyway, sorry for being longwinded... please cite a source which explains this phenomenon pertaining to SoundBlaster Live and Audigy products. In the meantime, trust me, this card will work just fine for ripping low quality DRM crap, and I stand by everything I originally said. Just equate "pure digital copy" to "your pet Dolphin couldn't even tell the difference".
Why, then, is the OP the only one partying on a weeknight?
What are you talking about? All of my e-mail consists of a giant red X. Those icons are "intuitive".
Is my signature not clear enough? :-)
The two I'm thinking of both used studio headphones. I've done comparisons with other people who weren't sound engineers just on my computer; I have a Carver M400 cube amp with two Advent towers on my front channels, and decent stuff (but ultimately junk) on my rears. The Advent towers are above average; but the Carver cube is far superior to stuff you find a Best Buy. I would call it a lower end studio amp (not even a volume control on it; you plug it in and it's on, because it's supposed to plug into the power supply of a preamp. I use my SoundBlaster Audigy 2 for a preamp, so it can result in some obnoxious surprises depending on where the card's mixer volume is set). It's your typical guy-pad type setup that no wife would ever approve of or be caught dead with in her living room. :)
One of the studio engineers actually proved that to my ear anyway, LP's on great record players with expensive stylus' & mics actually sound superior to CDs. I'm a believer, too.
If you really want to know (getting tired of saying this) try it for yourself; LAME is free. I wasn't offering scientific research, just my experience.
Oops, I got them mixed up again.
:-) Sorry.
Yeah, it's Q=0.
I'm sure that still isn't good enough for you, is it.
I agree with you about the classical music, the utterly most pleasing sound I've ever heard was a performance of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra this Spring; it featured world reknown (and GORGEOUS) cellist Wendy Werner. She's the Paganini of the cello. I have both CDs and MP3's of classical music; I also have a 5.1 studio on my computer. I stand by my observations.
If you really don't believe me, try it yourself. I'm not here trying to offer empirical evidence... I'm offering my experience. If you have different experience, let's have it already!
Do you suppose he DIDN'T get the idea from the above TEN POSTS?!
Dear GOD, I actually thought the exact same thing as him when I read it too. Like one third of the comments on this story are telling this guy that they intend to party tonight rather than on the 31st.
Did it occur to ANYONE that some people have kids, and those kids are all getting ready for Tuesday? Did it occur to ANYONE that so are their parents? What if, in some parts of the universe, people who have kids all get together, and instead of letting their kids go trick or treating for candy with razors and AIDS in them, that MAYBE they have costume parties and celebrate at home on the actual day?
(oh God, I'm getting scared)
What if... maybe that's where THIS guy is from?
AAAAAAAAARRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (runs away screaming)
I'm the fifth reply. I'm going to do you a favor and NOT repeat the above four posters.
I'm sure you'll thank me someday.
As for nerd music, I'm beginning to think I'm not actually a nerd. Decoding the titles of songs on some CD sounds about as fun as watching a swimming pool evaporate.
It's like, why would you do that when you could go read Mt. St. Helens seismographs, or learn about a new species of tarantula, or take apart the code for a cool open source game engine? You know, or build a light with a photoresistor for your computer case or something.
I guess, once you've converted one long integer to hexadecimal, you've converted them all? I'm sure it's one of those things that's a lot more fun when you're with other people... (thinking) maybe not...
Please, PLEASE please. I'm not trying to spoil anyone's fun, I'm just observing how neat it is that we're all different & stuff. Trying to be funny without actually... being funny. You know...
I know a number of audiophiles who detest MP3s. I've tricked them into saying that the actual CD was an MP3 and the MP3 I ripped from that CD was the real CD. They couldn't actually tell a difference and were taking guesses.
If you use LAME, set your Q to 9. A 320kbps MP3 with Q=1 and 320kbps mp3 with Q=9 are WILDLY different, while both the same bitrate and same size. Whatever garbage MP3 files you have, re-encoding them as 320kbps/Q9 files isn't going to make them sound any worse to 99.9% of humans. Of course it takes more time to encode them this way.
Another point, not for you, but for some of your parent posts - think about a soundcard with a digital out. That means, the bits get decoded and sent to the amp - if the amp (or whatever you plug the digital line into) can capture the bits, you've got a perfect/lossless rip - no DAC was involved. Volume controls and DSP's may change the bits somehow, and it will take playing-with to get it right... but it will produce satisfactory results once you do.
I would test this for people, but I own (and will always own) absolutely ZERO DRM content.
I own a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy... I know even a cheap SBLive! can do this... I would try the following to get a pure digital copy, in this order:
1. Play a DRM'd file, set the recording channel to "What U Hear", and record. If that doesn't work...
2. Get a LiveDrive (plugs into SB Live's & Audigy's) cheap on eBay, and an optical cable... then plug optical out into optical in and try to record the optical in. If that doesn't work...
3. Get two computers, one with a digital out and one with a digital in. Try it that way. If that doesn't work...
4. Uninstall iTunes or whichever thing is giving you this unplayable worthless crap to begin with, and tell their distributor to go to hell. Then take your stereo equipment and hurl it at Sony-Poo's nuts, and sing to yourself until a better solution comes along.
I can actually guarantee positive results with that last one.
Anna's Log Hole?
You know what the ants standing on the turd in the toilet were singing? "When the log rolls over we're all gonna die..."
I know. == !(that funny).