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Topic: Can MP3 or other lossy codecs... (Read 21622 times) previous topic - next topic
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Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Would you please read
carefully this document
and tell me if you think
it's serious ?

It was a shock when
I read it, can someone tell
me if it can be taken seriously or not ?

I'm really worried...

Thanks.

Here is the document :


http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windl...r/MP3-risk.html

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #1
Remember they also say that cellphones cause cancer?

It is only natural (but silly an non-justified) to mistrust new technologies.

On this subject: what you can hear, you hear, the ear does not need "perpetual calibration". This is aload of bull.

Believe me, I'm a medical doctor.
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com


Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #3
Not at all. You don't have to be afraid.

Hearing can only damaged by loud noise, bad speakers (like bose...) or bad music (Modern Talking...).

FLAC --> MP3 (Lame 3.96.1: V5 --athaa-sensitivity 1)

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #4
Assuming that is at all true - it's just saying that, the part of your ear that gets used, when hearing uncompressed noise, doesn't get used as much when listening to lossy compressed audio.

Again, assuming that article is true, I think we hear enough noises a day so that we use that filtering mechanism in our ears, enough to keep it working.

This man is insanely paranoid.

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #5
Well, I didn't see that this subject had already been
discussed on another topic...more than one year ago .
I feel much better now !  I was almost ready to
throw away all my MP3 collection...

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #6
This document is wrong.

I am not sure if we should spent time explaining why. (perhaps you just want to know if it is true or no).

Even the conclusion is wrong and very incoherent. Recommending the use of analog radio and tv because they are not digital: every radio and tv station is using digital storage/transmission, and using lossy processes.
So even when watching analogic tv you are watching mpeg.

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #7
Maybe the only way to escape this evil digital technology and malicious lossy codecs is to
go back to 1970 ? Full analogue era !
Oh, by the way... when I watch Hertzian TV, do I really watch Mpeg stuff ?
There doesn't seem to ba any artefact... The material must be much less
compressed than on DVD or Satellite tv ?

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #8
Quote
I am not sure if we should spent time explaining why. (perhaps you just want to know if it is true or no).

Please do. If you (and the others) just say the document is wrong, you are making a undocumented claim.

The Internet consists mostly of undocumented claims, propaganda and socalled reviews. I personally don't believe anything I read on the Internes unless it has been thoughly documented and scientifically proven. True that no proof exists that lossy music is harmful, but no proof exists that is is harmless either.

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #9
Subliminal DRM messages.   

Speaking of "subliminal", the author has a sense of humor he's not even aware of.

I've never claimed to be an expert in psychoacoustic audio compression, but if I had to choose between this person's "theories" and thousands of people's facts concerning the effects involved, I'd put my money on the latter.

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #10

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #11
I take it that by using some false logic we can conclude that viewing
lossy images will make us go blind? OMG, JPEG induced retinal degeneration!!!!! 
you will make mp3's for compatibility reasons.

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #12
Quote
On this subject: what you can hear, you hear, the ear does not need "perpetual calibration". This is aload of bull.

Believe me, I'm a medical doctor.


Yes, but you've been sighted in the past sitting on a giant cabbage, so there is no telling whether you can be trusted 

The link is pretty funny, and the author appears to have incorporated many official looking pictures into his "explanation". I enjoyed this particular segment the most:
Quote
I personally own mainly cheap CDs and phono records, but almost no downloaded MP3 musics. I have however some computer games with MP3 music, but I don't play them excessively. Despite I generally listen to music only quietly, I have repeatedly tinitus; this happens particularly often when I fall asleep while watching TV, even when the sleep only lasts few minutes. I thus also suspect the data reduction in radio and TV broadcasts as a cause, not least because the hearing uses particularly the sleep for calibrating itself, during that the presence of neuroacoustically datareduced tones thus should be particularly harmful.


      Blaming tinitus on data reduction is pretty novel I must say.

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #13
Folks, if you follow the link at the bottom of this page you'll find out, that the author of this article is Cyberyogi, the founder and teachmaster of Logologie - the first cyberage-religion!


From the authors other sites:
Quote
I (a 19 year old pupil of a in Germany "Gymnasium" called sort of low level high school) had got the cosmic mission to build a completely new kind of high tech multimedia superlearning school to teach this mankind in sovereignous holistical thinking to prevent it from self- destruction.
     

So I would take this warnings serious if I was you!
Don't miss to follow these links!!!:

Warning: Pink can be dangerous for health!
http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windl...ogologieFAQ.htm
http://www.informatik.fh-hamburg.de/~windl...English%20texts

By the way my microwave is channeling Elvis and his latest songs.
My problem is my microwave encodes all songs with Xing 96 cbr ....!   
Has anyone experience to tune in lossless ?? - Help highly appreciated !

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #14
Quote
Oh, by the way... when I watch Hertzian TV, do I really watch Mpeg stuff ?
There doesn't seem to ba any artefact... The material must be much less
compressed than on DVD or Satellite tv ?

In Germany, many TV stations already use so-called "Tapeless Broadcasting", especially the news stations. The broadcast isn't stored on video tapes anymore, but instead on servers with a few Terabyte capacity. They are working with full resolution video streams of 50 MBit/sec. That's more than 10 times the datarate of an average DVD. During a broadcast, two servers play the same content parallel, frame-exact, in case one server has a malfunction. Often, they also have a conventional video tape running, in case both servers go down.

Tapeless digital broadcasting will soon become the standard. Many stations only still use analog equipment because of the big investment costs they had for it.

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #15
This actually reminds me of that thread where Spoon wondered if lossy coding would evolutionally affect us and we would lose hability to hear high frequencies

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #16
Quote
Quote
On this subject: what you can hear, you hear, the ear does not need "perpetual calibration". This is aload of bull.

Believe me, I'm a medical doctor.


Yes, but you've been sighted in the past sitting on a giant cabbage, so there is no telling whether you can be trusted 

That was my parents fault! 

Seriously, that cabbage was real. We used to live in a small town about 50 kilometers from the one I currently live in. That town was in the late seventies kind of a "hotspot" for UFO activity (they have 7 non-active volcanoes that supposedly attracted UFOs) and there was this farmer that had learned and further developed vegetable-growing techniques from Asia, IIRC; but he said that the aliens told him how to do it, to get a publicity boost. The picture was taked in the Town's Fair where he was showing his super-sized vegetables. They needed something to show scale, and since I was the only baby around...

The whole giant vegetable thing fell apart because, my father tells me, it was actually more expensive to grow one giant cabbage than its weight's worth of regular cabbages, and it did not taste the same.

It is one cool story, IMHO.

On topic, it is kinda hard to actually explain why is this incorrect, but I might give it a try, if somebody is interested. But, really, I don't see a point.
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #17
Quote
Remember they also say that cellphones cause cancer?

No, no, no, it is not cell phones which cause cancer.  It is liesure suits.  A know fact.  Yeah, right.   
Nov schmoz kapop.

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #18
Quote
Folks, if you follow the link at the bottom of this page you'll find out, that the author of this article is Cyberyogi, the founder and teachmaster of Logologie - the first cyberage-religion!

I thought the author sounded like someone who believes in the 'incredible powers of attuned Quartz crystals'.

Quote
This actually reminds me of that thread where edit:Spase wondered if lossy coding would evolutionally affect us and we would lose hability to hear high frequencies


ROFLMAO!
So then there is selective pressure towards listening to compressed music which results in audio compression freaks having a much higher fecundity than the rest of the population? 

"Greenwich, UK 1/1/05 -  In a disturbing find, scientists have discovered that men who do not listen to digitally compressed music have dramatically reduced sperm counts. Researchers suggest men compressing CDs to Wavpack and listening at least twice a day can increase their  fertility by several orders of magnitude.
  Women of child bearing age wishing to concieve are recommended to do the same, with OptimFROG showing the greatest gains in fertility.
  In an interesting exception, Xing (mp3) users are rendered sterile after only a few listens." 

edit:
Quote
Seriously, that cabbage was real.

I don't doubt it, though it looks sort of like a green, mutant, miniature, dead elephant in the low res. avatar picture

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #19
Quote
"Greenwich, UK 1/1/05 -  In a disturbing find, scientists have discovered that men who do not listen to digitally compressed music have dramatically reduced sperm counts. Researchers suggest men compressing CDs to Wavpack and listening at least twice a day can increase their  fertility by several orders of magnitude.
  Women of child bearing age wishing to concieve are recommended to do the same, with OptimFROG showing the greatest gains in fertility.
  In an interesting exception, Xing (mp3) users are rendered sterile after only a few listens."  

Fine with me.
I don't care for having children (yeah, I am kind of selfish)
So I am fine with my lossy codecs (which nowadays is pretty much all the music I listen to)

Quote
edit:
Quote
Seriously, that cabbage was real.

I don't doubt it, though it looks sort of like a green, mutant, miniature, dead elephant in the low res. avatar picture

ROFLMAO!
What do you want for less than 8k?
 
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

 

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #20
I've actually had kind of the same teory as this guy, but without all the details... I have a mild case of tinnitus (only notice it when all is quiet). Also, when I'm exposed to louder music (for instance at a bar) it does not take long before my hearing gets bad; sometimes I can't even identify the song playing!

I'm not saying it certainly IS a connection between music compression and tinnitus, but without research -- who knows for sure? 

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #21
Quote
Quote
This actually reminds me of that thread where Spoon wondered if lossy coding would evolutionally affect us and we would lose hability to hear high frequencies


ROFLMAO!
So then there is selective pressure towards listening to compressed music which results in audio compression freaks having a much higher fecundity than the rest of the population? 

It was Spase. My bad.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=2159

And yes, I posted there (first reply) that his idea would (maybe) make sense if evolution was based on lamarckist concepts, not darwinist ones.

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #22
Quote
Also, when I'm exposed to louder music (for instance at a bar) it does not take long before my hearing gets bad; sometimes I can't even identify the song playing!

I'm not saying it certainly IS a connection between music compression and tinnitus, but without research -- who knows for sure? 

Have you tried going to an ears-nose-and-throat doctor? Your tinnitus sounds like it might be bad.

Quote
I'm not saying it certainly IS a connection between music compression and tinnitus, but without research -- who knows for sure? 

There is no need for research. There is simply nothing in compressed music that could be harmful to human ears (other than the volume it's played at  )
"Psychoaccustic" means just that: it sounds the same to your brain. It has the same "effect" as normal music. It does not have to cover any "full spectrum" or "calibrate itself" or anything. The added noise of lossy compression is not like subliminal messages, that you are unconsciously hearing, it is meant to be inaudible. That is, below the threshold of hearing. To your brain, it is not there.
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #23
Quote
Have you tried going to an ears-nose-and-throat doctor? Your tinnitus sounds like it might be bad.


No, I have never had my ears checked. Now you've got me a bit worried, hehe.

Can MP3 or other lossy codecs...

Reply #24
Try to avoid too loud music and noise!
This can irreversibly damage your hearing!

If you have tinitus that is a "signal" that you was exposed too long to loud music.
If you have problems to recognize the music you really should see a doctor as AtaqueEG recommended!

Sometimes the music in bars or discos is much louder than allowed by law in working areas.