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Topic: Has audio development slowed? (Read 6646 times) previous topic - next topic
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Has audio development slowed?

Has audio codec and/or software development slowed?

My perception is that HA used be much more active than it is now.  Am I wrong?

Have all the problems been solved? Will ever faster hardware make neglible the remaining software deficiencies?

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #1 –
Quote from: hellokeith on
Have all the problems been solved? Will ever faster hardware make neglible the remaining software deficiencies?


No, there are many outstanding problems, but the one most people here care about (transmission of high quality stereo audio) is mostly finished.

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #2 –
ToS8 and slowed codec development has simply just turned this place into the premier online discussion site for objective-minded audio geeks. I'm totally okay with that.

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #3 –
I also think the majority of audio profesionals make a habbit of fooling themselfes by not performing simple abx test when purchasing equipment. This prevents faster progress.
Thank fuck we have HA.

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #4 –
If there should really be less activity on HA in terms of audio codec/software development the reason probably is that codecs at their current developmental stage can do already what users are hoping for: transparent compression if lossy, and additionally even lossless compression with the ability to restore the original source file. And already very good software as foobar2000 is developed actively further.

Apart from that: hasn't recently the EBU R128 compliant loudness scanner been developed, discussed intensively here?

However, the boom of music online stores like iTunes, Amazon etc might have reduce the number of questions with regard to codecs and so on: customers don't buy any longer CDs they would have to rip and encode themselves, instead they buy a finished product without the need (from their point of view) to pay attention to some topics HA stands for.

Dirk95100, with your comment you are referring to hardware but OP's thread is about software. And I do wonder what your assessment is based on: none of the professionals I know behaves as you describe, regardless of whether they own a recording studio or are musicians.

Edit: typo
This is HA. Not the Jerry Springer Show.

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #5 –
Everyone who trys to setup a hardware/software solution that enables working 5.1 in a DAW and using the same system to audition 5.1 DVDs (and converting .vob or dts directly into 6 channel audio or vice versa) without losing precious time for creative work... will be bewildered with this topic 

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #6 –
Quote from: Dave Ph on
Everyone who trys to setup a hardware/software solution that enables working 5.1 in a DAW and using the same system to audition 5.1 DVDs (and converting .vob or dts directly into 6 channel audio or vice versa) without losing precious time for creative work... will be bewildered with this topic 



There is no setup that decodes DTS and outputs the 6 channels as PCM to the next application, without an analog step?

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #7 –
It definitely did, but so did the market itself. The most striking example for me is the death birth of the successor of the conventional audio-CD due to
paranoid developers who didn't dare a proper release.

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: hellokeith on
Has audio codec and/or software development slowed? My perception is that HA used be much more active than it is now.
There are Board Statistics on the portal page. But they only display current stats. Any way we (the general membership) can view historical stats and trends?

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #9 –
What's left to accomplish in the field of audio reproduction technology (especially better ways of spatial imaging) is not communicable here in TOS8 compliant manner, based on the equipment an average HA user has got at his disposal at home. Let alone simple speaker comparisons, which would have to be swapped in-place for a proper blind comparison.

Another enthusiast branch, usability and technology aspects of new (especially networked) home A/V systems, is no classic HA topic and mostly discussed elsewhere.

So a large share of traditional HA interest is doomed to follow the development of average storage prices.

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #10 –
I'll admit to having been occupied with very non-audio side projects over the last year or two, so I haven't had nearly enough time to stir up sh*t.

Besides that, I'll echo more or less what Canar has said. Frequency transform lossy codecs as a field of audio engineering have been largely played out, and IIRC, looking at recent JAES papers, the remaining research is relatively esoteric stuff. The MP3 patents will be expiring in only a few years now -- I find it fairly unlikely that any institution will spend anything near the R&D money to develop an "MP3-killer" (or even an AAC- or FLAC-killer!) than has already been plowed into that field over the last 10 years. All that is par for the course for audio engineering, of course.

Besides that, I suspect the big names in The Great (ABX) Debate, on both sides, are just too tired to argue anymore.

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #11 –
Another topic I would point to are that people seem to be increasingly moving away from using a monolithic PC as a home file-server/entertainment playing/media procurement hub.

As people move "to the cloud" with multiple, smaller proprietary devices most of the topics we've traditionally discussed are decisions that are already made for people (or to put it another way: they've already made the decision at purchase time--unwittingly or not).
elevatorladylevitateme

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #12 –
Quote from: googlebot on
What's left to accomplish in the field of audio reproduction technology (especially better ways of spatial imaging) is not communicable here in TOS8 compliant manner, based on the equipment an average HA user has got at his disposal at home. Let alone simple speaker comparisons, which would have to be swapped in-place for a proper blind comparison.

Why is that? I think there is agreement that 2-channel systems cannot in general stimulate the same experience as a blind-folded person might have in a concert hall, church or jazz club. That being the case, I think that there are ample opportunities for research and curiosity in the age-old quest for faithful rendering of acoustic-musical events in the living room.

Sadly, it seems that many listeners, the press, manufacturers etc are more interested in genuinely irrelevant or (at best) marginally relevant stuff like audio cables, >20kHz bandwidth, >90dB SNR, lossy compression etc.

-k
 

Has audio development slowed?

Reply #13 –
Yes, there's vast room for improvement. All I say is that an average consumer cannot create comparative data about those technologies sufficient for discussions in TOS8 compliant manner. The required testing equipment and procedure is above what one can accomplish at home, in contrast to, for example, double blind comparisons of lossy codecs.