Video players

[Hartmut Noack]

Am 05.06.2013 11:34, schrieb edmund:
> On Wed, 05 Jun 2013 01:21:19 +0200
> Hartmut Noack <zettberlin at linuxuse.de> wrote:
> 
>> Am 04.06.2013 02:43, schrieb Len Ovens:
>>>
>>> On Mon, June 3, 2013 8:02 am, edmund wrote:
>>>
>>>> What are you calling "uncommon" sample rates? Ubuntu Studio is for
>>>> multi media and in my case High res audio. Here we use 96 kHz and
>>>> 192 kHz sample rates.
>> Of course I have recorded in these samplerates also and in very few
>> cases it really makes a difference. Most notably to me was, that Alsa
>> Modular Synths sounds quite different at 96KHz.
>>
>>>> VLC player,
>>
>> Is made to play the audio, that is relevant out there, where people
>> listen to music that is mixed and mastered and that is: 48KHz Video,
>> 44.1KHz Audio and that is it.
>>
>>> seems to play these formats too but it doesn't!
>>>> When I play a 80 kHz sine it is audible
>>
>> audible, you say hmmm....
>>
>> But maybe here we misunderstand: you mean, a, say: 1KHz sine with
>> 80KHz samplerate right?
> 
> 
> No I mean playing a 80 kHz sine (with a 192kHz sample rate)
> I made a number of sines with audacity and played them with VLC among
> other players, VLC  produces ghost sounds with sine waves above a
> certain frequency.
> 
> So paying music with VLC in that format makes you hear things you never
> heard before, great! Pity that the difference is fake and distortion
> rather then more music information.
>>
> r a player, that is made to play
>> distributed audio....
>>
>>> as - something very different.
>>>> It is far below 20 kHz and clearly audible on 10 Euro loudspeakers,
>>>> so it is definitely not 80 kHz.
>>>> I would say ditch it or use it for things that doesn't matter but
>>>> not for playing high res or quality audio.
>>
>> Quality audio is 16/44.1 CDDA, carefully mastered and dithered from
>> recordings, that may or may not be recorded at higher rates.
> 
> Whether it is required or not to use higher sample rates for "perfect"
> audio reproduction is another discussion. But at the moment there is no
> such thing as a perfect audio system. So claims as 44.1 kHz or MP3 is
> enough holds no water.

MP3 or OGG is not enough at all. The difference is clearly audible when
you compare it with a uncompressed stream of original recordings.
Commercially matered material is stripped down often anyway so the
compression does not make great differences but it is perfectly feasable
to record, mix and distribute audio in a way, that uncompressed PCM does
sound quite different than MP3 or OGG of the same material.

But 16/44.1 is hard to beat and 16/48 is not.

>>
>> I, BTW, have ditched the 96KHz experiments and use 48KHz with all
>> great results and 9 out of 10 professional Studios do the same.
> 
> The dutch concert hall records in SACD format....
Interesting,
so they do not use PCM but Delta-Sigma-Modulation in the first place or
do they use 24/192 PCM and interpolate later?

Anyway: one fine day when more than 0.1% of the listeners out there own
a SACD-drive or when anyone out there is eager to play DSM-streams on a
computer, I guess VLC will adopt.

>>
>>>> Oh and yes it does so under windows too.
>>>
>>> Whatever rate you use, the input and the output of any of the audio
>>> interfaces people have tested has been 20-20000Hz. 
>>
>> I experienced, that it does make a difference, when a lowpass at 20KHz
>> is applied but 48KHz deliver 24KHz and anything beyond that is indeed
>> irrelevant.
>>
>> Distortion and noise have a real impact when HiFi is concerned,
>> frequencies, that are beyond the double of human hearing do not.
> 
> Well it is no so simple to determine what the human hearing is
> capable of in the first place and show me the first audio set on
> which I cannot hear the difference between a real cymbal and a cymbal 
> played on that audio set.

The effect is even more apalling when you compare a distorted Guitar
from a Marshallstack with a recording of it.
And the reason is physics: any speaker is just a simulation, it can
create soundwaves, that have more or less the very same characteristics
as the original, very very complex soundwave made by an instrument in a
room. But they cannot be the same: 8x12 inch of speakermembranes that
have no other obligation but creating a blast of metalguitars cannot be
perfectly mimicked by a pair of 8"-Speakers, that has to produce Bass,
drums and singer also...

So there may be more to do to bring more of the real thing to the homes
of the audiophiles. But I doubt, that higher frequency-ranges will help.

In my experience Ardour works perfectly well with PCM of any samplerate.
And I would not bother to play such recordings using a player, that is
made for average distributed media.

On the contrary! I am happy to have a player like VLC, that will reveal
whether I did something wrong when rendering a file for end-user
distribution.

best regards

HZN

> 
> Edmund
> 
>