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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning
off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 ________ Thom |
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#2
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
thomh wrote:
Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 ________ Thom Wow, very impressive. Didn't someone ask what a Hoffmanite is? Here is a definitive example of a post from a Hoffmanite, IMO of course: "For instance, Steve's Elvis 24KT Hits or Nat King Cole DCC CD's. Has there been another companies Vinyl, SACD, or CD that has even come close to Steve's redbook work on these 2 artists? The answer is a definite no. "Steve has stated in the past that it doesn't matter what format is being used that he can still get that quality of sound and I believe him." |
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#3
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
Answer, red book cd. Proposed test, record a record on digital and
compare to see if a difference can be heard. Nevermind, it has been done and nno difference could be heard; which shows the lower resolution of the record is easily captured on the red book cd. I recall the bit rate of a record is in the range of 12 - 14, compared to the 16 red book. Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 ________ Thom |
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#4
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 04:17:22 GMT, "thomh" wrote:
Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 Absolutely hilarious! The real answer to the question - what digital resolution is closest to vinyl - is not 24/192, 24/96 or 16/44, it's actually about 12-13 bits on the best day of vinyl's life, with an effective bandwidth which could be captured by 32k sampling. In the real world, 16/44 is gross overkill for a vinyl comparison, although you could argue that 16/96 or 16/192 would make the filtering a lot easier. It remains the case that more than 16 bits is utterly unnecessary in *any* playback medium. Some of the supposed 'engineers' posting on Hoffman's forum clearly have no understanding of resolution, or of how digital audio actually works. The classic blunders of 'analogue has infinite resolution' and 'digital has stairsteps' are alive and well in Hoffman's little world! -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#5
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
thomh wrote:
Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 It never ends, does it? "With 24 bits you are still limited (as with any n-number of bits) to a finite amount of values to represent the signal within a given period of time (given by the sampling rate)- in this case 16777216 (2^24). Whereas with analog you don't have 'steps' (small as they might be). In the micro-micro-level, there's most likely stuff that still 'slips thru the cracks' (so to speak) on digital that is properly represented on analog, dynamics-wise. " -- -S. "We started to see evidence of the professional groupie in the early 80's. Alarmingly, these girls bore a striking resemblance to Motley Crue." -- David Lee Roth |
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#7
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
"S888Wheel" wrote in message
news:yEHNc.201444$XM6.63631@attbi_s53... From: chung Date: 7/27/2004 4:35 PM Pacific Standard Time Message-id: thomh wrote: Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 ________ Thom Wow, very impressive. Didn't someone ask what a Hoffmanite is? Here is a definitive example of a post from a Hoffmanite, IMO of course: "For instance, Steve's Elvis 24KT Hits or Nat King Cole DCC CD's. Has there been another companies Vinyl, SACD, or CD that has even come close to Steve's redbook work on these 2 artists? The answer is a definite no. "Steve has stated in the past that it doesn't matter what format is being used that he can still get that quality of sound and I believe him." So you think a Hoffmanite is someone who really likes Hoffman's work? Hmmm I wonder whether that makes Steve Sullivan a Hoffmanite. I will stae for the record that Steve Hoffman's vinyl mastering of Elvis 24KT Hits is so much better than any other version I have heard that it is on the verge of wierd. I suggest you compare his mastering of this title with any other version. You might be a Hoffmanite and you don't know it yet. Well, I do like some of his work but I do *not* consider myself a Hoffmanite. Remember that "There is a big difference between kneeling down and bending over."-- Frank Zappa _______ Thom |
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#8
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 04:17:22 GMT, "thomh" wrote: Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 Absolutely hilarious! The real answer to the question - what digital resolution is closest to vinyl - is not 24/192, 24/96 or 16/44, it's actually about 12-13 bits on the best day of vinyl's life, with an hope this isn't a silly question, but how does vinyl have about 12-13 bits of resolution? The classic blunders of 'analogue has infinite resolution' and 'digital has stairsteps' are alive and well in Hoffman's little world! On another topic, when we try to digitise an input signal using a fixed bit resolution, wouldn't having more bits mean that the increments between levels become smaller, i.e. more fine grain? Is 16-bits enough because the human ear can't detect the difference between 1 level out of 65536? So given a 2V peak to peak signal, going up the next level means an increase of 30 micro volts? |
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#9
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
thomh wrote:
Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 ======================================= And here, from yesterday (27JUL04) is an audiophile on a photography forum, relating digital vs. analog in the two different fields. Don't shoot the messenger, it's a quote (and excuse the errors, he is not primarily an English-speaker): I'm sorry to tell, but your ears are for sure contaminated with too much digital quantisized music. I had (and have again time to time in busy times, since i work in a semi-digital studio) the same problem. An instrument with few cents out of tune in orchestra can hear even a non-trained hear. Doing difference between almost identical istruments is just you play them yourself. As a bass player, i do the difference between the same instrument but different magnetic heads indeed. Can even pick up higher than a third harmonics doing difference in tube microphones and condenser type, same with transistor amplifyers, mos amps and tube amplifyers. If you hear a choir lowering or uppering the original note tone few tenths of semitone per 5 minutes, then you got a good hear. And i sure can tell you - the vinyl sounds better almost in every aspect. The quality reduction number 7 for tape and 17 for CD-vinyl is from scientific article, that calculated it based on average human psychoacoustical capabilities. So there's about plus/minus 5-10 error depending on individual level of different trained or not trained ears. Sine you got a Lynn Axis turntable, what needle cartige you have and what amplifyer/speakers? From the turntable rest matters the most. Well yeah, seismic-feedback turntables definately ARE the best (if you have spare 10 000USD to spend), but mosty the cartige matters primarly. Please try to do so: have a team of accoustic specialists to reconfigure your listening room and making a listening hot-spot for you in the room. Buy at least 500+USD hi-fi needle cartige. Use A-class (thermodynamically stabilized ones recommended) tube pre and post amplifyer, professional quality cables and recommended speakers by hear-geniuses. Train your ears with various db levels suited for you few weeks with analogue sound only (large tape or LPs), no digital please! And i'll guarantee you, you'll make a lot difference between the CD (even with a pro 128X oversampling and smoothening DA converter) and vinyl on the same system after that. The human senses need training and have quite long delays on adapting, and when contaminating them with lower quality information carriers, it needs time to get the levels up again, because when being on the same environment for too long, it all seems normal for you (same with the digital/analogue photography). For me, i work on a studio with 24bit dynamic depth and 96kHz samplerates a typical working environment, and even those resolutions contaminate my ears when working long time. I need at least one day rest and retraining with analogue to adapt my original capabilities again. (Too loud [and musically non-professional indeed] music on clubs and partyes is the most violent ear-killers indeed. People go with the flow, i use professional ear-drops if i really have to be on some of those nasty events). When i finish the work in digital, i play final mix via high end system and rerecord via selected air room with directional tube microphone on the large tape recorder. And that's the result satisfying me - removing the gaps between the samples with electromagnetic interference. And then puting it into the vinyl for respected quality recordcompanyes that still prefer 12"/10"/7" vinyls more than anything else. Convert all the text into the photography, and hope i can deliver my point of view on this topic too. So please understand, film isn't dead, just like 12" are not. Not for another 10 year for sure. And those, who say the digital is better in quality, i get very mad on. Every thing has it's place - digital too. But i'm fully certain that the analogue's place is TOO too underestimated nowadays... (btw: i'm a young guy indeed in these words, wide open to all the innovative technologys, not oldie-oriented) |
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#10
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
I seem to remember a link to Christine Tham's analysis of CD vs DVD-A vs
SACD here a few months ago. Anyway, here is her Spectral and Dynamics Comparisons of LPs vs digital formats. http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/...DsDynamics.php ________ Thom |
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#11
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
S888Wheel wrote:
From: chung Date: 7/27/2004 4:35 PM Pacific Standard Time Message-id: thomh wrote: Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 ________ Thom Wow, very impressive. Didn't someone ask what a Hoffmanite is? Here is a definitive example of a post from a Hoffmanite, IMO of course: "For instance, Steve's Elvis 24KT Hits or Nat King Cole DCC CD's. Has there been another companies Vinyl, SACD, or CD that has even come close to Steve's redbook work on these 2 artists? The answer is a definite no. "Steve has stated in the past that it doesn't matter what format is being used that he can still get that quality of sound and I believe him." So you think a Hoffmanite is someone who really likes Hoffman's work? Hmmm I wonder whether that makes Steve Sullivan a Hoffmanite. I will stae for the record that Steve Hoffman's vinyl mastering of Elvis 24KT Hits is so much better than any other version I have heard that it is on the verge of wierd. I suggest you compare his mastering of this title with any other version. You might be a Hoffmanite and you don't know it yet. I believe that a Hoffmanite, the way Steven Sullivan uses that term, is a very devoted fan of Steve Hoffman, and one who agrees with everything Hoffman says. I would also say that a Hoffmanite believes that Hoffman is the ultimate authority on all audio matters, but certainly Mr. Sullivan may or may not agree with that qualification. No thanks, I don't think I would ever be a Hoffmanite, since I don't agree with his views. You are probably a good candidate, though. |
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#12
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On 28 Jul 2004 23:35:51 GMT, Tat Chan
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 04:17:22 GMT, "thomh" wrote: Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 Absolutely hilarious! The real answer to the question - what digital resolution is closest to vinyl - is not 24/192, 24/96 or 16/44, it's actually about 12-13 bits on the best day of vinyl's life, with an hope this isn't a silly question, but how does vinyl have about 12-13 bits of resolution? 13 bits is the equivalent of 78dB dynamic range, which is more than you'll find on even the best direct-cut virgin vinyl. Resolution is implicitly tied to dynamic range, system resolution being taken as the value of the noise floor and commonly expressed as xdB below peak level. The classic blunders of 'analogue has infinite resolution' and 'digital has stairsteps' are alive and well in Hoffman's little world! On another topic, when we try to digitise an input signal using a fixed bit resolution, wouldn't having more bits mean that the increments between levels become smaller, i.e. more fine grain? Yes. Consider however that there exist no *master* tapes with a dynamic range of more than 85dB, and you'll see that the 93dB range of properly dithered 16 bit digital is all you'll ever need. High sampling rates are another and more complex argument, having nothing to do with actual signal bandwidth, for which 25kHz will always be more than enough. Is 16-bits enough because the human ear can't detect the difference between 1 level out of 65536? So given a 2V peak to peak signal, going up the next level means an increase of 30 micro volts? You need to understand that dither makes this distinction untrue, as it randomises the absolute levels, in the same way that the noise floor randomises low-level analog signals. As a result, you can hear tones well below the LSB value in digital, just as you can in analog below the noise floor. I have recorded and replayed a 3kHz signal at -105dB on a CD-R, and it was perfectly audible below the smooth -93dB noise floor that is characteristic of properly made CD. The 'stair steps' claim is an intuitive urban myth, with no existence in reality. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#13
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On 28 Jul 2004 23:42:04 GMT, Gene Poon wrote:
thomh wrote: Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 ======================================= And here, from yesterday (27JUL04) is an audiophile on a photography forum, relating digital vs. analog in the two different fields. Don't shoot the messenger, it's a quote (and excuse the errors, he is not primarily an English-speaker): There is however one vital difference he the resolution of fine-grain film still far exceeds that possible with even the best digital cameras. Basic 'Red Book' CD however far exceeds the resolution of even the best analogue *master* tapes, never mind the crippled child that is LP. Apples and oranges. As a case in point, listen to any JVC XRCD. These are all made from top-quality analogue master tapes, and if you turn up the volume in the quieter passages, you can quite clearly hear the distinctive 'whoosh' of the analogue tape noise floor. Try that on an LP of the same recording! -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#14
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
"thomh" wrote in message
news:a7%Nc.45975$8_6.7528@attbi_s04... I seem to remember a link to Christine Tham's analysis of CD vs DVD-A vs SACD here a few months ago. Anyway, here is her Spectral and Dynamics Comparisons of LPs vs digital formats. http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/...DsDynamics.php I, along with a lot of other people, feel that our own CD-Rs made from LPs sound as good or even better than does the LP source itself. If this be true, is "red book" CD lacking in any "audible" way? |
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#15
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
"Stewart Pinkerton" wrote in message
news:yBHNc.175276$IQ4.100998@attbi_s02... On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 04:17:22 GMT, "thomh" wrote: Some of the supposed 'engineers' posting on Hoffman's forum clearly have no understanding of resolution, or of how digital audio actually works. The classic blunders of 'analogue has infinite resolution' and 'digital has stairsteps' are alive and well in Hoffman's little world! -- Yes, and it seems that Hoffman keeps it alive for one or two reasons: 1) It is good for his business and/or 2) He really is ignorant of digital technology. In an old thread on that forum I found this from him: [quote] Remember, a vinyl groove is a TRUE analog, whereas digital is a sample of the analog. There is a difference. One occurs in nature and one is "recreating" nature by reconstructing a sound wave, piece by piece. To the human ear, they are very close. But, at least for the OUTER groove area, an LP can sound more lifelike than most digital sources. How much more is of course is up to the resolving power of your playback system. IMO of course. [UNQUOTE] ________ Thom |
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#16
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On 7/28/04 7:35 PM, in article , "Tat Chan"
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 04:17:22 GMT, "thomh" wrote: Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 Absolutely hilarious! The real answer to the question - what digital resolution is closest to vinyl - is not 24/192, 24/96 or 16/44, it's actually about 12-13 bits on the best day of vinyl's life, with an hope this isn't a silly question, but how does vinyl have about 12-13 bits of resolution? I think they are talking about dynamic range and the old 6dB per bit rule. There is a bit more to it IMHO, but who knows! The classic blunders of 'analogue has infinite resolution' and 'digital has stairsteps' are alive and well in Hoffman's little world! On another topic, when we try to digitise an input signal using a fixed bit resolution, wouldn't having more bits mean that the increments between levels become smaller, i.e. more fine grain? Is 16-bits enough because the human ear can't detect the difference between 1 level out of 65536? So given a 2V peak to peak signal, going up the next level means an increase of 30 micro volts? |
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#17
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
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#18
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
Stewart Pinkerton wrote:
On 28 Jul 2004 23:35:51 GMT, Tat Chan wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 04:17:22 GMT, "thomh" wrote: Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 Absolutely hilarious! The real answer to the question - what digital resolution is closest to vinyl - is not 24/192, 24/96 or 16/44, it's actually about 12-13 bits on the best day of vinyl's life, with an hope this isn't a silly question, but how does vinyl have about 12-13 bits of resolution? 13 bits is the equivalent of 78dB dynamic range, which is more than you'll find on even the best direct-cut virgin vinyl. Resolution is implicitly tied to dynamic range, system resolution being taken as the value of the noise floor and commonly expressed as xdB below peak level. and sure enbouhg, in Christine Tham's comparison of LPs to various digital versions, the LPs never even come *close* to 75 dB dynamic range whereas the digital versions do so handily. She goes to great lengths, however, to find ways to argue that LP still bests CD, concluding that LP 'consistenly have higher relative dynamics over digital formats'. After reading the page, I'm *still* unclear as to what 'relative dynamics' really means to her, other than a form a special pleading for her preferred format. On another topic, when we try to digitise an input signal using a fixed bit resolution, wouldn't having more bits mean that the increments between levels become smaller, i.e. more fine grain? -- -S. "We started to see evidence of the professional groupie in the early 80's. Alarmingly, these girls bore a striking resemblance to Motley Crue." -- David Lee Roth |
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#19
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
chung wrote:
S888Wheel wrote: From: chung Date: 7/27/2004 4:35 PM Pacific Standard Time Message-id: thomh wrote: Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 ________ Thom Wow, very impressive. Didn't someone ask what a Hoffmanite is? Here is a definitive example of a post from a Hoffmanite, IMO of course: "For instance, Steve's Elvis 24KT Hits or Nat King Cole DCC CD's. Has there been another companies Vinyl, SACD, or CD that has even come close to Steve's redbook work on these 2 artists? The answer is a definite no. "Steve has stated in the past that it doesn't matter what format is being used that he can still get that quality of sound and I believe him." So you think a Hoffmanite is someone who really likes Hoffman's work? Hmmm I wonder whether that makes Steve Sullivan a Hoffmanite. I will stae for the record that Steve Hoffman's vinyl mastering of Elvis 24KT Hits is so much better than any other version I have heard that it is on the verge of wierd. I suggest you compare his mastering of this title with any other version. You might be a Hoffmanite and you don't know it yet. I believe that a Hoffmanite, the way Steven Sullivan uses that term, is a very devoted fan of Steve Hoffman, and one who agrees with everything Hoffman says. I would also say that a Hoffmanite believes that Hoffman is the ultimate authority on all audio matters, but certainly Mr. Sullivan may or may not agree with that qualification. Somehwat like thomh, I like what I've heard of his work (on CD), but I'm not moved to the gushing excess of praise and hero-worship that Hoffmanites are. Nor do I consider him even remotely near a final than a few recording/mastering engineers, he's perfectly capable of using superstitious practices in his work, without acknowledging them as such. The beauty part of superstitious practice is that in cases where there are likely no real sonic differences (e.g., cables), his belief is utterly harmless to the resulting product. Odf course, if you ask him to provide evidence that his belief *isn't* superstitious, you might find yourself unwelcome at his party...basically his stance is classic subjectivist: I believe I hear it, therefore it is likely to be real. Which conclusion of course flies in the face of a large body of research into the psychology of hearing. -- -S. "We started to see evidence of the professional groupie in the early 80's. Alarmingly, these girls bore a striking resemblance to Motley Crue." -- David Lee Roth |
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#20
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
From: chung
Date: 7/28/2004 9:35 PM Pacific Standard Time Message-id: H8%Nc.45985$8_6.8900@attbi_s04 S888Wheel wrote: From: chung Date: 7/27/2004 4:35 PM Pacific Standard Time Message-id: thomh wrote: Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 ________ Thom Wow, very impressive. Didn't someone ask what a Hoffmanite is? Here is a definitive example of a post from a Hoffmanite, IMO of course: "For instance, Steve's Elvis 24KT Hits or Nat King Cole DCC CD's. Has there been another companies Vinyl, SACD, or CD that has even come close to Steve's redbook work on these 2 artists? The answer is a definite no. "Steve has stated in the past that it doesn't matter what format is being used that he can still get that quality of sound and I believe him." So you think a Hoffmanite is someone who really likes Hoffman's work? Hmmm I wonder whether that makes Steve Sullivan a Hoffmanite. I will stae for the record that Steve Hoffman's vinyl mastering of Elvis 24KT Hits is so much better than any other version I have heard that it is on the verge of wierd. I suggest you compare his mastering of this title with any other version. You might be a Hoffmanite and you don't know it yet. I believe that a Hoffmanite, the way Steven Sullivan uses that term, is a very devoted fan of Steve Hoffman, and one who agrees with everything Hoffman says. I would also say that a Hoffmanite believes that Hoffman is the ultimate authority on all audio matters, When you find such a person please let me know. but certainly Mr. Sullivan may or may not agree with that qualification. No thanks, I don't think I would ever be a Hoffmanite, since I don't agree with his views. You are probably a good candidate, though. As usual you have me figured wrong. I am a fan of his work as well as being a fan of the work of several other mastering engineers. I don't see him or anybody else as an ultimate authority on all things audio. Steve Hoffman clearly does not see himself as such an authority. If you know of any particular mastering engineers that do better work please point them out. I am always intersted in better versions of my favorite music. |
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#21
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 04:15:57 GMT, B&D wrote:
On 7/29/04 8:02 PM, in article , "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote: There is however one vital difference he the resolution of fine-grain film still far exceeds that possible with even the best digital cameras. Actually, that is not true. The current 4+ megapixel cameras equal to exceed high quality (low speed) 35mm film. In fact, at the 6+ megapixel range, it approaches or equals medium format film. That's utter rubbish. Most of my film archive is shot on Kodachrome 25, and even a scan at 2400dpi does not capture all the detail. That's the equivalent of an 8.64 megapixel camera. To capture the grain structure of that film (or Ektar 25), I need to scan at 4800 dpi, the equivalent of 35 megapixels! The only problem with the digital cameras is color reproduction and contrast. And that is right now equal to most common films. I find no problem with contrast in my digital images, and the colour reproduction seems to be as good as most film. Basic 'Red Book' CD however far exceeds the resolution of even the best analogue *master* tapes, never mind the crippled child that is LP. Apples and oranges. Editorial comments aside - using "resolution" as your only metric is not measuring it in all ways if you are to use your digital camera example. I'm not the one who was attempting to use resolution as a comparison, I simply pointed out that it was inappropriate. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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#22
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
Tat Chan wrote:
Stewart Pinkerton wrote: Absolutely hilarious! The real answer to the question - what digital resolution is closest to vinyl - is not 24/192, 24/96 or 16/44, it's actually about 12-13 bits on the best day of vinyl's life, with an hope this isn't a silly question, but how does vinyl have about 12-13 bits of resolution? Aside from doing some math you can easily do some tests on your own if you have a quality soundcard in your PC. Record a LP with music of your choice at the highest quality your soundcard is able to. You are free to select the sample rate. Save the recording to a file. Next get some good audio editor - some of them are freeware - and reduce the word length to 15 bits using dithering. Save the result to another file. Re-read the original file, reduce the word length to 14 bits. Save again. You may proceed to less bits per word. Then compare the results. To help you find out the differences you may look at Arny Krueger' site http://www.pcabx.com/ Norbert |
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#23
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
Steven Sullivan wrote:
chung wrote: S888Wheel wrote: From: chung Date: 7/27/2004 4:35 PM Pacific Standard Time Message-id: thomh wrote: Nothing like "audiophiles" discussing vinyl vs. digital to get the morning off to a good start...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/sh...ad.php?t=37118 ________ Thom Wow, very impressive. Didn't someone ask what a Hoffmanite is? Here is a definitive example of a post from a Hoffmanite, IMO of course: "For instance, Steve's Elvis 24KT Hits or Nat King Cole DCC CD's. Has there been another companies Vinyl, SACD, or CD that has even come close to Steve's redbook work on these 2 artists? The answer is a definite no. "Steve has stated in the past that it doesn't matter what format is being used that he can still get that quality of sound and I believe him." So you think a Hoffmanite is someone who really likes Hoffman's work? Hmmm I wonder whether that makes Steve Sullivan a Hoffmanite. I will stae for the record that Steve Hoffman's vinyl mastering of Elvis 24KT Hits is so much better than any other version I have heard that it is on the verge of wierd. I suggest you compare his mastering of this title with any other version. You might be a Hoffmanite and you don't know it yet. I believe that a Hoffmanite, the way Steven Sullivan uses that term, is a very devoted fan of Steve Hoffman, and one who agrees with everything Hoffman says. I would also say that a Hoffmanite believes that Hoffman is the ultimate authority on all audio matters, but certainly Mr. Sullivan may or may not agree with that qualification. Somehwat like thomh, I like what I've heard of his work (on CD), but I'm not moved to the gushing excess of praise and hero-worship that Hoffmanites are. Nor do I consider him even remotely near a final a line got snipped accidentally by me here -- it's supposed to read: 'a final authority on matters of audio, or even mastering' Like more...' than a few recording/mastering engineers, he's perfectly capable of using superstitious practices in his work, without acknowledging them as such. The beauty part of superstitious practice is that in cases where there are likely no real sonic differences (e.g., cables), his belief is utterly harmless to the resulting product. Odf course, if you ask him to provide evidence that his belief *isn't* superstitious, you might find yourself unwelcome at his party...basically his stance is classic subjectivist: I believe I hear it, therefore it is likely to be real. Which conclusion of course flies in the face of a large body of research into the psychology of hearing. -- -S. "We started to see evidence of the professional groupie in the early 80's. Alarmingly, these girls bore a striking resemblance to Motley Crue." -- David Lee Roth |
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#24
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
thanks for the informative reply. Comments embedded below.
Stewart Pinkerton wrote: On 28 Jul 2004 23:35:51 GMT, Tat Chan wrote: hope this isn't a silly question, but how does vinyl have about 12-13 bits of resolution? 13 bits is the equivalent of 78dB dynamic range, which is more than you'll find on even the best direct-cut virgin vinyl. Resolution is implicitly tied to dynamic range, system resolution being taken as the value of the noise floor and commonly expressed as xdB below peak level. Ah, I wasn't considering dynamic range. It has been a while since I looked at a signal processing text book, but I don't recall dynamic range and dither being mentioned when ADCs/DACs were discussed (perhaps they are application specific?). Ah, Flash ADCs and counter ADCs ... those were the days! High sampling rates are another and more complex argument, having nothing to do with actual signal bandwidth, for which 25kHz will always be more than enough. not wanting to open a can of worms here, but I thought sampling rates that are at least twice the highest frequency in the input signal would always be good enough to reproduce the signal in its entirety? You need to understand that dither makes this distinction untrue, as it randomises the absolute levels, in the same way that the noise floor randomises low-level analog signals. As a result, you can hear tones well below the LSB value in digital, just as you can in analog below the noise floor. I have recorded and replayed a 3kHz signal at -105dB on a CD-R, and it was perfectly audible below the smooth -93dB noise floor that is characteristic of properly made CD. I need to read up on dither. I'm sure they didn't teach this in class! The 'stair steps' claim is an intuitive urban myth, with no existence in reality. well, you tend to get those diagrams in signal pro text books. Now, where did I put mine ... |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On 7/30/04 1:44 PM, in article , "Stewart
Pinkerton" wrote: On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 04:15:57 GMT, B&D wrote: On 7/29/04 8:02 PM, in article , "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote: There is however one vital difference he the resolution of fine-grain film still far exceeds that possible with even the best digital cameras. Actually, that is not true. The current 4+ megapixel cameras equal to exceed high quality (low speed) 35mm film. In fact, at the 6+ megapixel range, it approaches or equals medium format film. That's utter rubbish. Most of my film archive is shot on Kodachrome 25, and even a scan at 2400dpi does not capture all the detail. That's the equivalent of an 8.64 megapixel camera. To capture the grain structure of that film (or Ektar 25), I need to scan at 4800 dpi, the equivalent of 35 megapixels! Here is a useful website - parity is achieved at 4-6 MP for most films. Mind you that is PRINTS, not slide film. http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...digital.1.html It is a pretty good site overall - but the native resolution, scanning and so one are addressed. For 35mm film, only some very slow films exceed the 4-8MP top tier commercial cameras. The only problem with the digital cameras is color reproduction and contrast. And that is right now equal to most common films. I find no problem with contrast in my digital images, and the colour reproduction seems to be as good as most film. Color reproduction is precisely where digital has the most trouble - contrast and saturation. Resolution is not the issue. Most film play tricks or heavy expansion/compression in order to "make up for" the loss of color shading. Kind of like expansion and compression with a fixed number of bits. This is a surmountable problems as 99% of the issues can be "fixed" with a good program like Photoshop. |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
Tat Chan wrote:
You need to understand that dither makes this distinction untrue, as it randomises the absolute levels, in the same way that the noise floor randomises low-level analog signals. As a result, you can hear tones well below the LSB value in digital, just as you can in analog below the noise floor. I have recorded and replayed a 3kHz signal at -105dB on a CD-R, and it was perfectly audible below the smooth -93dB noise floor that is characteristic of properly made CD. I need to read up on dither. I'm sure they didn't teach this in class! The 'stair steps' claim is an intuitive urban myth, with no existence in reality. well, you tend to get those diagrams in signal pro text books. Now, where did I put mine ... All these books show only the principle of the D/A stage, not the analog output to the amplifier. There is at least a second order lowpass in between, which completely eliminates these steps. In fact the sampling theorem tells us the original input and output are *identical* if we use the proper filters before the A/D and after the D/A converters. Part of the input filtering can be done digitally if we oversample. We can also correct certain erroneous filter characteristics (like gain peaking). If you have the program Audition or any other wave editor, you can zoom in and look at the actual waveforms and the sampling points, and there is no step but a smooth curve that connects them. That curve is amazingly detailed despite the few sampling points. There are certain rules, of what order and characteristic those anti aliasing filters have to be and when you observe this, the output waveform is identical to the input. But this input waveform is not the original feed, it is band limited. So all comes down to the filters used for this process. With oversampling the filters have become more simple and the phase accuracy for high frequencies has increased. There will always be a measurable difference, but our abilities to store the analog waveform are worse, we have only analog tape machines, which BTW have at the end also a stepped waveform, because the magnetisation is also quantized as single gross magnetic particles in the tape are toggled. This is the reason that from a certain point say 48kHz/18bit the digital storage is actually more precise and undistinguishable from a life feed. -- ciao Ban Bordighera, Italy |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 03:31:51 GMT, Tat Chan
wrote: Stewart Pinkerton wrote: High sampling rates are another and more complex argument, having nothing to do with actual signal bandwidth, for which 25kHz will always be more than enough. not wanting to open a can of worms here, but I thought sampling rates that are at least twice the highest frequency in the input signal would always be good enough to reproduce the signal in its entirety? In a perfect world, that would be true, but there are issues with the deleterious effects of real-world 'brick wall' filtering, which are greatly eased by maintaining the same 20-25kHz bandwidth but increasing the sampling rate. You need to understand that dither makes this distinction untrue, as it randomises the absolute levels, in the same way that the noise floor randomises low-level analog signals. As a result, you can hear tones well below the LSB value in digital, just as you can in analog below the noise floor. I have recorded and replayed a 3kHz signal at -105dB on a CD-R, and it was perfectly audible below the smooth -93dB noise floor that is characteristic of properly made CD. I need to read up on dither. I'm sure they didn't teach this in class! They should have! You'll find it (and lots more!) in Ken Pohlmann's seminal text on the matter - Principles of Digital Audio The 'stair steps' claim is an intuitive urban myth, with no existence in reality. well, you tend to get those diagrams in signal pro text books. Now, where did I put mine ... Yep, that diagram goes right before the reconstruction filter, which removes the HF components which cause the stair steps............ At the output of a properly designed DAC (I put this rider because Peter Qvortrup simply didn't include a reconstruction filter in his ludicrous Audio Note devices!), the output is a pure analogue signal band-limited to 22kHz, with no sign of stairsteps. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 03:59:56 GMT, B&D wrote:
On 7/30/04 1:44 PM, in article , "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote: On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 04:15:57 GMT, B&D wrote: On 7/29/04 8:02 PM, in article , "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote: There is however one vital difference he the resolution of fine-grain film still far exceeds that possible with even the best digital cameras. Actually, that is not true. The current 4+ megapixel cameras equal to exceed high quality (low speed) 35mm film. In fact, at the 6+ megapixel range, it approaches or equals medium format film. That's utter rubbish. Most of my film archive is shot on Kodachrome 25, and even a scan at 2400dpi does not capture all the detail. That's the equivalent of an 8.64 megapixel camera. To capture the grain structure of that film (or Ektar 25), I need to scan at 4800 dpi, the equivalent of 35 megapixels! Here is a useful website - parity is achieved at 4-6 MP for most films. Not 'most' films, only 200 ASA and up - and note what happens to a digital camera image when you up the effective speed. Mind you that is PRINTS, not slide film. http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...digital.1.html It is a pretty good site overall - but the native resolution, scanning and so one are addressed. For 35mm film, only some very slow films exceed the 4-8MP top tier commercial cameras. You seem to have very selective vision here - Kodachrome 64 is not a slow film by many photographers standards, and is certainly not a 'very slow' film by any standard. More than 90% of my 7,000 or so film archive are either Kodachrome 25 or Ektar 25 - *those* are slow films, and still greatly exceed the capability of even the Canon 1DS. The only problem with the digital cameras is color reproduction and contrast. And that is right now equal to most common films. I find no problem with contrast in my digital images, and the colour reproduction seems to be as good as most film. Color reproduction is precisely where digital has the most trouble - contrast and saturation. Resolution is not the issue. Resolution remains the primary issue if you are a serious photographer, and need to produce immaculate 20x16s (or A2) on a regular basis. Most film play tricks or heavy expansion/compression in order to "make up for" the loss of color shading. Kind of like expansion and compression with a fixed number of bits. This is a surmountable problems as 99% of the issues can be "fixed" with a good program like Photoshop. Quite so. Photoshop has made life a *lot* easier for technically competent photographers - although it's still no substitute for getting the exposure right in the first place! -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On 7/30/04 11:31 PM, in article HoEOc.61650$eM2.28670@attbi_s51, "Tat Chan"
wrote: You need to understand that dither makes this distinction untrue, as it randomises the absolute levels, in the same way that the noise floor randomises low-level analog signals. As a result, you can hear tones well below the LSB value in digital, just as you can in analog below the noise floor. I have recorded and replayed a 3kHz signal at -105dB on a CD-R, and it was perfectly audible below the smooth -93dB noise floor that is characteristic of properly made CD. I need to read up on dither. I'm sure they didn't teach this in class! Periodic signals can be noticeable below noise floor - I am specifically thinking about audibility of morse code below the noise floor in a communications application. I don't know how far below the noise floor it is audible, but I do know below 0dB SNR is audible. From this, I will speculate that noise of this nature might be audible or nearly so in a quiet passage in very good playback gear with a low inherent noise floor. I always wondered how some jazz singers use the brush on the cybals when they sing, but I am wondering if it is to "mask" background noise? |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On 7/31/04 10:59 AM, in article , "Stewart
Pinkerton" wrote: On Sat, 31 Jul 2004 03:59:56 GMT, B&D wrote: On 7/30/04 1:44 PM, in article , "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote: On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 04:15:57 GMT, B&D wrote: On 7/29/04 8:02 PM, in article , "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote: There is however one vital difference he the resolution of fine-grain film still far exceeds that possible with even the best digital cameras. Actually, that is not true. The current 4+ megapixel cameras equal to exceed high quality (low speed) 35mm film. In fact, at the 6+ megapixel range, it approaches or equals medium format film. That's utter rubbish. Most of my film archive is shot on Kodachrome 25, and even a scan at 2400dpi does not capture all the detail. That's the equivalent of an 8.64 megapixel camera. To capture the grain structure of that film (or Ektar 25), I need to scan at 4800 dpi, the equivalent of 35 megapixels! Here is a useful website - parity is achieved at 4-6 MP for most films. Not 'most' films, only 200 ASA and up - and note what happens to a digital camera image when you up the effective speed. That is the majority of films sold today (100, 200, 400 ASA with mostly 200 and 400). However, we have agreement - on slower films the MP rating goes up nearly exponentially - depending upon the type of film, of course. 8MP is available on top rated consumer (not even pro-sumer) gear now - price point ~US$1k or so. That is about the same as the Kodachrome 64 in resolution according to the charts. Keep in mind that the processing of Kodachrome is rare enough that most have to resort to mailing the film to be processed. It is a great film (being a resident of Rochester, I sure wish film were so much better than digital, actually, the gap has been closed, though for just about every common film!). I believe that most consumers buy 100, 200, 400 ASA films, and most 100 ASA films are not nearly as resolved as Kodachrome. Also you have to keep in mind that Kodachrome does not have a neutral color balance either - it is reversal film as well so it is harder to get prints from it. Digital cameras, though, don't capture images nearly as fast as film - I didn't mention this before because it was not the direct topic, but that is one area where film is better still, and unquestionably so. Mind you that is PRINTS, not slide film. http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...digital.1.html It is a pretty good site overall - but the native resolution, scanning and so one are addressed. For 35mm film, only some very slow films exceed the 4-8MP top tier commercial cameras. You seem to have very selective vision here - Kodachrome 64 is not a slow film by many photographers standards, Yes it is! ASA 100 is a slow film by every important satndard - ASA standards for instance. Do you have a standard such as ISO that would make 100 ASA Kodachrome a "fast" film? (It *is* faster than Daguerrotype I will admit! :-) ) and is certainly not a 'very slow' film by any standard. No, not VERY slow, but SLOW. More than 90% of my 7,000 or so film archive are either Kodachrome 25 or Ektar 25 - *those* are slow films, and still greatly exceed the capability of even the Canon 1DS. You bet - there are a lot of films that are slower and have higher resolution than commonly available digital cameras. I figure, from your film selection, that you do a lot of outdoor photography? Kodachrome and Ektachrome would require a lot of large lights indoors, that is for sure! Color reproduction is precisely where digital has the most trouble - contrast and saturation. Resolution is not the issue. Resolution remains the primary issue if you are a serious photographer, and need to produce immaculate 20x16s (or A2) on a regular basis. It sure it a primary issue, but the point I was making is that the weakness of digital is more in color balance and depth than in resolution per-se. I would hone your photoshop skills, though, as we have found that a lot of the shops that developed our Medium format films have shuttered or only do digital. The price curve is coming down, and 25MP camera backs are not as expensive as a small car anymore - you might consider one of those eventually as I believe that traditional film's days are numbered, at least for professionals. This is a surmountable problems as 99% of the issues can be "fixed" with a good program like Photoshop. Quite so. Photoshop has made life a *lot* easier for technically competent photographers - although it's still no substitute for getting the exposure right in the first place! Agreed - nothing like good source materials! Everytime you "touch" something in photoshop, you are losing some of the original information for a better overall effect (one hopes!) I think this brings us right back to audiophile stuff - |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On 31 Jul 2004 21:23:31 GMT, B&D wrote:
8MP is available on top rated consumer (not even pro-sumer) gear now - price point ~US$1k or so. That is about the same as the Kodachrome 64 in resolution according to the charts. Keep in mind that the processing of Kodachrome is rare enough that most have to resort to mailing the film to be processed. It is a great film (being a resident of Rochester, I sure wish film were so much better than digital, actually, the gap has been closed, though for just about every common film!). I believe that most consumers buy 100, 200, 400 ASA films, and most 100 ASA films are not nearly as resolved as Kodachrome. Since 'most consumers' don't give a rat's about exhibition quality prints, the comparison is hardly relevant. I concede that a good digital camera is better than a happy snapper using 200 ASA film. Also you have to keep in mind that Kodachrome does not have a neutral color balance either I find it very good - but I never used K64, which does *not* have the same balance as K25. - it is reversal film as well so it is harder to get prints from it. Not with Photoshop! Digital cameras, though, don't capture images nearly as fast as film - I didn't mention this before because it was not the direct topic, but that is one area where film is better still, and unquestionably so. Mind you that is PRINTS, not slide film. http://www.clarkvision.com/imagedeta...digital.1.html It is a pretty good site overall - but the native resolution, scanning and so one are addressed. For 35mm film, only some very slow films exceed the 4-8MP top tier commercial cameras. You seem to have very selective vision here - Kodachrome 64 is not a slow film by many photographers standards, Yes it is! ASA 100 is a slow film by every important satndard - ASA standards for instance. Do you have a standard such as ISO that would make 100 ASA Kodachrome a "fast" film? (It *is* faster than Daguerrotype I will admit! :-) ) I have always considered 100 ASA to be the norm for a 'general purpose' film (and so, it appears, does the ASA), hence 25 ASA is slow and 400 ASA is fast. Do you know anyone who does *not* consider 400 ASA to be a fast film? and is certainly not a 'very slow' film by any standard. No, not VERY slow, but SLOW. More than 90% of my 7,000 or so film archive are either Kodachrome 25 or Ektar 25 - *those* are slow films, and still greatly exceed the capability of even the Canon 1DS. You bet - there are a lot of films that are slower and have higher resolution than commonly available digital cameras. I figure, from your film selection, that you do a lot of outdoor photography? Kodachrome and Ektachrome would require a lot of large lights indoors, that is for sure! They do, but they're still perfectly useable, even with tungsten rather than flash lighting. Flash is better for female portraits of course, due to maintaining pupil dilation - although there's always good ol' Photoshop for that wide-eyed look! What I don't do a lot of is hand-held photography - for sports work I do always shoot on 200-400 ASA film, and for that I concede that a Canon 1DS would give equal or superior results. Color reproduction is precisely where digital has the most trouble - contrast and saturation. Resolution is not the issue. Resolution remains the primary issue if you are a serious photographer, and need to produce immaculate 20x16s (or A2) on a regular basis. It sure it a primary issue, but the point I was making is that the weakness of digital is more in color balance and depth than in resolution per-se. Only because you're trying to skate away from your initial poor analogy between digital audio and digital photography. I would hone your photoshop skills, though, as we have found that a lot of the shops that developed our Medium format films have shuttered or only do digital. Sadly, this is true in the UK also, I believe there are only a couple of top-class professional printers left that do 'wet work'. The price curve is coming down, and 25MP camera backs are not as expensive as a small car anymore - you might consider one of those eventually as I believe that traditional film's days are numbered, at least for professionals. Nah, I'll keep waiting for Nikon to make a decent 16MP body - those Nikkors are too expensive to chop in! OTOH, you have a point. For the kind of photography I mostly do, something like a Hasselblad would be just as convenient, if I had the cash! I won't argue that a 25MP sensor would give me all the image quality I'll ever need. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On 31 Jul 2004 14:53:25 GMT, B&D wrote:
On 7/30/04 1:44 PM, in article , "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote: Basic 'Red Book' CD however far exceeds the resolution of even the best analogue *master* tapes, never mind the crippled child that is LP. Apples and oranges. Editorial comments aside - using "resolution" as your only metric is not measuring it in all ways if you are to use your digital camera example. I'm not the one who was attempting to use resolution as a comparison, I simply pointed out that it was inappropriate. Well the above interchange illustrates that the senses fool - the absolute accuracy of digital is more with resolution than color accuracy and/or color depth. Yet the senses might be much more forgiving of the color depth than resoution. I have no idea what the above is supposed to mean. Do you? It is possible that your film is being saved as a JPG - which will have artifacting. Using a lossless storage such as a TIFF might get you better results. I get excellent results - at 4800 dpi from Kodachrome 25, which is *way* above what any digital camera can currently provide. Naturally, I don't save as jpegs. -- Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
Hi,
In message 1YjOc.178583$a24.9390@attbi_s03, B&D writes On 7/29/04 8:02 PM, in article , "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote: There is however one vital difference he the resolution of fine-grain film still far exceeds that possible with even the best digital cameras. Actually, that is not true. The current 4+ megapixel cameras equal to exceed high quality (low speed) 35mm film. In fact, at the 6+ megapixel range, it approaches or equals medium format film. I think Stewart is correct. It's common practice to scan 35mm film to 4000 lines with telecine, which puts it way higher than 6 megapixels. The guys at Quantel reckon on upwards of 25 million samples per frame, at a minimum of 36 bits of colour information, more for processing. The dynamic range of film is pretty awesome too, especially near black. I've been involved on the periphery of some digital cinema developments lately that are using 4x1080p24 systems (i.e. four times the vertical resolution of 1080 line HDTV, for over 4000 lines). We showed these guys a playout display system running at 3840*2400, and they had to scale the images down significantly to display them. You need ultra-wide SCSI 320 just to play this stuff back at full frame rate. By those measures, even 10+ megapixel SLRs have a way to go. -- Regards, Glenn Booth |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
Hi,
In message , B&D writes I find it funny that I am an old technology curmudgeon with sound, and while I use digital am painfully aware of its weaknesses, and in photography we are the other way around! Ha! :-) We seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. I'm firmly in the digital camp with audio (though I have a half-decent vinyl setup), but when it comes to my day job (video and graphics) I'll still take a good ole' big Eizo CRT over any of the digital displays I have seen, even counting the 9.2 Megapixel Viewsonic 2290. The gamma curves on the current crop of high end DVI panels still don't match a good analogue display, IME, but it's getting close. There are downsides to the CRTs too though. The DVI displays don't need recalibrating every time you breathe on them (just like a turntable now I think about it, and for similar reasons). You also don't need a massive desk for a 22 inch DVI panel, and you won't get a hernia moving one around. -- Regards, Glenn Booth |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
On 8/1/04 5:28 PM, in article TfdPc.229386$XM6.147515@attbi_s53, "Glenn
Booth" wrote: Hi, In message 1YjOc.178583$a24.9390@attbi_s03, B&D writes On 7/29/04 8:02 PM, in article , "Stewart Pinkerton" wrote: There is however one vital difference he the resolution of fine-grain film still far exceeds that possible with even the best digital cameras. Actually, that is not true. The current 4+ megapixel cameras equal to exceed high quality (low speed) 35mm film. In fact, at the 6+ megapixel range, it approaches or equals medium format film. I think Stewart is correct. It's common practice to scan 35mm film to 4000 lines with telecine, which puts it way higher than 6 megapixels. The guys at Quantel reckon on upwards of 25 million samples per frame, at a minimum of 36 bits of colour information, more for processing. The dynamic range of film is pretty awesome too, especially near black. Film has greater contrast and color depth than digital - no argument form me since it is absolutely true and verifiable. 6-8MP has every bit as much resolution as most 35mm films - though you would have to get closer to 10-12 to have all but the most exotic and slow films if resolution was your only goal (and according the Stewart, this is his main goal and metric). Scanning film - you have to achieve nyquist and all kinds of other considerations. You certainly would want to scan at much higher the raw film rate to make sure everything is there - but also a lot of scanners interpolate so its native resolution may not be the resolution you claim. I've been involved on the periphery of some digital cinema developments lately that are using 4x1080p24 systems (i.e. four times the vertical resolution of 1080 line HDTV, for over 4000 lines). We showed these guys a playout display system running at 3840*2400, and they had to scale the images down significantly to display them. You need ultra-wide SCSI 320 just to play this stuff back at full frame rate. By those measures, even 10+ megapixel SLRs have a way to go. Except the measures are not correct. If resolution is your only metric, 35mm film has been matched in almost every film commonly used. The slower ebd of the spectrum is not yet matched - but it is close. Here are some websites that are worht looking at: http://www.dlcphotography.net/Digital%20vs%20Film.htm http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,4351,00.asp Anmd it isn't completely black-and-white either. But if CD is a good reproduction of sound - then digital is a good reproduction of vision. |
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Comparing quality on vinyl with Digital
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