about youtube, mp3s, analog TV vs. digital TV

Started by japanesebaby, January 23, 2008, 00:04:26

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japanesebaby

*EDIT (after topic split):
the conversation originally started here:
http://curefans.com/index.php/topic,4229.0.html


Quote from: lordsquidy13 on January 21, 2008, 21:01:41
You can just see them on Youtube.

seriously, i've thought youtube is ok for watching bands you absolutely hate because everything looks/sounds so totally hopelessly bad there (because of the utter shit quality, both image and sound wise) that all these miserable silly stupid useless artists look even more miserable silly stupid and useless. but to watch something that you like on youtube... come on that qualifies as torture.
so maybe if you absolutely hate cure videos....

Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

crowbi_wan

Quote from: japanesebaby on January 23, 2008, 00:04:26
Quote from: lordsquidy13 on January 21, 2008, 21:01:41
You can just see them on Youtube.

seriously, i've thought youtube is ok for watching bands you absolutely hate because everything looks/sounds so totally hopelessly bad there (because of the utter shit quality, both image and sound wise) that all these miserable silly stupid useless artists look even more miserable silly stupid and useless. but to watch something that you like on youtube... come on that qualifies as torture.
so maybe if you absolutely hate cure videos....




Hey, Youtube is a good resource.  Not all of us have huge video collection you know  ;)  Just today I discovered a video of Doing the Unstuck from 1997.  I never even knew they played it after '92 (not counting the recent Mexico show).  Nice performance here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QYxlghUEo&feature=related

Sure, the quality could be better, but it's still nice to give a listen to.  Though discovering this does piss me off because they could have been playing this song more during the late 90s til now.  :roll:

japanesebaby

ok perhaps i'd better to add that i only talk for myself, i'm not trying to make people to agree with me or not trying to be intentionally a******-ish here. yet i was just stating my honest opinion.
and yes it's a huge resource for sure - but it's really hard to really enjoy anything there, quality wise. every time i find something really interesting in there i soon get pissed about the crap quality and i wish i could watch it somewhere in decent/enjoyable  quality and i realize i can't and it pisses me off in the end. so to me youtube's ok for checking up things you're going to be able dig up somewhere else later anyway/will go buy an official release later/etc., but if i have to realize that it's my only source for something, then i just find it hopeless and annoying.
but like i said, nobody needs to agree with me...

Quote from: crowbi_wan on January 23, 2008, 00:19:55
ust today I discovered a video of Doing the Unstuck from 1997.  I never even knew they played it after '92 (not counting the recent Mexico show).  Nice performance here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QYxlghUEo&feature=related

i guess that's from jack docherty show december 1997(?).
it's actually a good example of what i meant: when i watch it i find myself thinking that i'd really like to find that in good quality and i wish i'd found someone who taped it... sorry i can't help it that macroblocks and thin compressed sound just drive me crazy - sometimes i just hate this digital age... because it gave us shitty macroblocky videos and crushed-to-death audio.
ok i'm ranting - but i'm still just stating my honest opinion... if i may.
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

crowbi_wan

Quote from: japanesebaby on January 23, 2008, 00:33:02
ok perhaps i'd better to add that i only talk for myself, i'm not trying to make people to agree with me or not trying to be intentionally a******-ish here. yet i was just stating my honest opinion.
and yes it's a huge resource for sure - but it's really hard to really enjoy anything there, quality wise. every time i find something really interesting in there i soon get pissed about the crap quality and i wish i could watch it somewhere in decent/enjoyable  quality and i realize i can't and it pisses me off in the end. so to me youtube's ok for checking up things you're going to be able dig up somewhere else later anyway/will go buy an official release later/etc., but if i have to realize that it's my only source for something, then i just find it hopeless and annoying.
but like i said, nobody needs to agree with me...

Quote from: crowbi_wan on January 23, 2008, 00:19:55
ust today I discovered a video of Doing the Unstuck from 1997.  I never even knew they played it after '92 (not counting the recent Mexico show).  Nice performance here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QYxlghUEo&feature=related

i guess that's from jack doherty show december 1997(?).
it's actually a good example of what i meant: when i watch it i find myself thinking that i'd really like to find that in good quality and i wish i'd found someone who taped it... sorry i can't help it that macroblocks and thin compressed sound just drive me crazy - sometimes i just hate this digital age... because it gave us shitty macroblocky videos and crushed-to-death audio.
ok i'm ranting - but i'm still just stating my honest opinion... if i may.

you may.  And I understand your point clompletely.  Macroblocks don't bother me as much as the line at the bottom of the screen.  The more shit transfers I see the more this stands out and drives me mad.   

And yes, that video is from Jack Doherty's show in 1997.  The music was mimed with Robert doing live vocals.  An interesting choice for a promotional gig.

japanesebaby

Quote from: crowbi_wan on January 23, 2008, 00:44:28
Macroblocks don't bother me as much as the line at the bottom of the screen.  The more shit transfers I see the more this stands out and drives me mad.   

really? i find macroblocking hugely more disturbing, since analog lines only appear with vhs transfers but macroblocks can (and does!) occur in digital too. so i wasn't referring to some nth gen video tapes there, it's not only about some video transfers:
the saddest thing of all is that after moving to digital broadcasting, some channels have decided to save money and broadcast with this really crappy narrow bandwidth which means you have macroblocks already in the original digital broadcast(!) - or grab a few tv shows shared on dime etc. as "pure digital stream" and watch it carefully: you'll notice they are totally ruined sometimes - AND not because someone even re-encoded it, they were ruined from the start.
so it's not just about shit transfer anymore, it's about everything is getting macroblocky right from the start. and that's a HUGE downgrade in quality. :!:

so even the people who decide about the broadcasting bitrates there in the HQs on all thse digital station can't either see the whole problem anymore - or they just don't care. whichever way it was, it's a terrible problem. sometimes i think people have surely watched too much youtube because they don't even pay attention tot his problem anymore. because it's impossible to have clean non-macroblocked masters from tv anymore... that's nuts!

besides, another totally ridiculous thing is that most (if soon not all of them?) digital channels broadcast in lossy audio ONLY and in completely ridiculous bitrates like 128 kb/s - with ananlog broadcasts you always had the lossless audio. again, i tend to think all those channel executives have watched too much youtube because they can't even hear the awful artifacting this produces -
- so today, we have these "so-called perfect" digital masters from digital broadcasts which can be complete shit, both picture and  audio wise.
so what was the point of this whole digitalizing of the broadcast system? it was supposed to make things better and remove the quality problems found on analog - and yet it just brought even WORSE problems!
i really hate this development, it ruins tv and i'm afraid it will ruin movies too, soon.

i REALLY hate to watch tv and notice macroblocks on the actual broadcast - i mean, i'm supposed to wtahc the best possible source of something and already it's completely ruined? that makes  no sense.
and to me, that's a lot more disturbing to me than all the problems with vhs transfers (which are disturbing too, no doubt about it). because it means the problem has spread everywhere and there's nothing you can do about it. i'm just waiting to start seeing in on movie screen too - i bet that day isn't very far away, sadly.

finland is moving to all-digital tv from the beginning of march. so after that you can't watch any tv unless you buy this "digi-box" receiver. i still haven't got one and i'm seriously considering boycotting the whole tv from now on. after all, what's there to watch? maybe it's not necessary to have it? and especially, i don't need this stupid macroblock tv, i can live without it if it comes to that! at least i'm not going to pay forsome stupid tv license if they feed me that lossy crap!
the great thing about analog is/was that you could decided how and with which to encode it. :!: now you can't, it's all been done for you and too often it's been done all wrong.  :evil:

and well, analog lines aren't great either, but at least they can be masked out in several ways. one easy solution is to watch the stuff on an old-fashioned tv and not on your computer and you won't see the lines as they are left outside the view.
anyway, i have to find them a lot less serious problem that this macroblock/lossy audio catastrophy that has hit us since we "happily" moved to the era of digital broadcasting.


Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

lostflower4

Quote from: japanesebaby on January 23, 2008, 10:36:08and well, analog lines aren't great either, but at least they can be masked out in several ways. one easy solution is to watch the stuff on an old-fashioned tv and not on your computer and you won't see the lines as they are left outside the view.
anyway, i have to find them a lot less serious problem that this macroblock/lossy audio catastrophy that has hit us since we "happily" moved to the era of digital broadcasting.

Yeah, I've never seen a TV that shows analog lines (even newer HDTVs). They always chop off a tiny bit of the top, bottom, left, and right of the picture.

And all VHS sourced stuff has these lines, even official release movies. I never knew these existed during the entire '80s and most of the '90s when digital transfers of VHS simply didn't exist â€" because my TVs couldn't "see" them.

Yeah, it's annoying on a computer â€" but as Marika said there are ways around this. Heck, I've even seen professional transfers of analog stuff that have these lines. Check the bonus material on a DVD movies or concert, and you're bound to find something that's VHS-sourced in there.

And I have to agree that this whole digital TV revolution is a bit sad. Yes, higher resolution video does look clearer, but it can be instantly ruined by poor encoding. My only hope is that the technology to transmit higher bitrates won't be as expensive in the future, so maybe all digital TV will be near-perfect in a few years. But I'm not counting on it...

Right now the best way to have a good picture is with official release DVDs. Those are (usually) encoded quite beautifully. You can tell people spent some time getting that stuff right. I'm sure Blu-Ray is excellent too, but I've never seen it yet. Actually, I think Blu-Ray movies are using lossless PCM audio more often than DVD currently is, so it seems like a very promising format.

japanesebaby

Quote from: lostflower4 on January 23, 2008, 11:21:28
And I have to agree that this whole digital TV revolution is a bit sad. Yes, higher resolution video does look clearer, but it can be instantly ruined by poor encoding. My only hope is that the technology to transmit higher bitrates won't be as expensive in the future, so maybe all digital TV will be near-perfect in a few years. But I'm not counting on it...

i really do fear that "the plan" is that people are expected to get so used to all this macroblock/low bitrate stuff that the channels  won't have to bother starting to transmit in higher bitrates anymore soon - and that after a few years everyone's just supposed to accept that macroblock belong to all TV. which is complete crap f course...but people can have such a short memory and the channel executives might just be counting on that.

i also really hope the price of blu-ray would start going down. it would be nice to check it out, yes.
but then again, perhaps blu-ray can only save the day for official releases/movies at its best. because in the worst scenario TV will become more and more like youtube so everything there will be low-bitrate crap. and intentionally so. because it'll help the studios to sell more official dvds/blu-rays if they intentionally make sure that the quality of the TV broadcasts stays on a shitty level. so i'm not counting on the quality of this so-called "perfect" digital TV ever getting very high. actually i'm afraid it'll actually stay below the old analog standards. because the idea of TV that the studios/channels have has changed a lot: for instance, people are not expected to tape/record TV shows from Tv anymore - people are expected to go and by these flashy dvd box-sets for their favorite tv shows: series 1, series 2, series 3... etc. and it's big money. so why make the TV broadcasts too goodlooking when they can keep it on a shitty/lossy level?  :?


Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

lostflower4

Quote from: japanesebaby on January 23, 2008, 11:36:09because in the worst scenario TV will become more and more like youtube so everything there will be low-bitrate crap. and intentionally so. because it'll help the studios to sell more official dvds/blu-rays if they intentionally make sure that the quality of the TV broadcasts stays on a shitty level. so i'm not counting on the quality of this so-called "perfect" digital TV ever getting very high. actually i'm afraid it'll actually stay below the old analog standards.

Yeah, I think that YouTube and the whole mp3/iTunes/iPod culture is really dumbing people down. I mean, all you hear is mp3, mp3, mp3 these days when it comes to audio.

While I find YouTube entertaining, I can only watch it for so long because the quality is just so awful. Not to mention how 75% of the stuff on there has audio/video synch issues. And I really don't understand how people can get interested in watching full length movies on their iPod or some other tiny little video screen.

And don't get me started on the loudness war in audio, which has ruined pretty much all music released in the last 12 years or so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Wild Mood Swings was the first album to be destroyed by this plague. I think that could be one of many reasons why so many people don't like it.

I think I could make a very good argument that technology was at its peak in the very early '90s. Just listen to any CD released around that time. Most of them sounded incredible, much better than what is being put out today. And the technology for movies was pretty advanced by then too, even if you had to use a VCR to watch them at home. At least there weren't any macroblocks! Ah, the good old days. :?

japanesebaby

Quote from: lostflower4 on January 23, 2008, 11:49:17
Yeah, I think that YouTube and the whole mp3/iTunes/iPod culture is really dumbing people down. I mean, all you hear is mp3, mp3, mp3 these days when it comes to audio.

i was reading some radiohead interviews some time ago, and it really struck me how they were pretty ignorant and don'tbother-ish when asked about the low quality of the downloadable version of their 'in rainbows' album. they were basically just saying "so what? it's just a downloadable version anyway, we didn't even want anything in high quality". i was pretty stunned to read that from guys like radiohead. i mean that's a really poor excuse to say, that it was "just" a downlodable version. because it doesn't explain why they couldn't put up a downloadable flac version too - because it's easy to mention some bands who do this on their web stores: you can download an album if you prefer that over buying the actual cd BUT you can also choose to download a real version and not some shitty mp3s.
i was really disappoitned to read these comments from the radiohead guys because i've always kind of thought they are "on the bright side" what comes to these quality issues, that they want to offer their fans good stuff in good quality. but obviously no.. they seened to be just as retarded (sorry to use that word) as most everyone else in this respect.
i was really disappointed.
and besides, it only proved that the download idea was at least partially just a marketing trick after all: because i think i can say with full certainty that a lot of radiohead fans really do want a good quality version of this album anyway. so if they already paid something for the mp3 version (because they couldn't wait to give it a listen right away AND because being long-term fans they maybe had some shame and decided to pay something for it too and not just leech away for free), they are bound to pay for it for a second time now that the cd version is out. and to me, that just sucks.
and all this hype about how the way this album is being distributed in the web is going to "change things forever and make the record companies to reconsider their ways" etc. ect. - bullshit. it was just another marketing gimmick!

it would have been totally different if they'd put up a downloadable lossless version - THEN it would have made some difference.


ps. i split this topic since it wasn't so much about the cure videos in particular anymore.
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine

Steve

#9
Dead interesting thread this one. Thanks for the info being posted.
I'm currently considering migrating from what is a fairly mediocre cable package to a digital satellite package where I am.
I'm doing it for a number of reasons really.
I can get additional English language channels.
I can get the premier league footbal broadcasts live on match day. ;)
I can change the languages of some programs/ movies from Hungarian to English & vice versa (not to mention the sub titles).
But more than all of that put together, I wanted to do my HDTV the compliment of feeding it with a high quality digital feed.
Now, having read what you have been saying, I need to take a look at the spec.s of the company I am considering to see whether this is an upgrade or sideways step.

As for the loudness war, there are some bands/ labels that don't play that "game" & it is a real shame that it has come to "bumping up" the levels just to shift a few more units  :roll:
Although, not a huge selection, I will always hunt for a DVDA or SACD version if it's around, as they are seemingly unaffected by the war.
And I have to agree with you Caley. I was listening to Soft Cell's Memorabilia the other day (not the remasteed one)& it is so gorgeously recorded & produced & that was in 1982.
Straight afterwards I put on Morningwood's CD & had to turn it off after 2 songs.
Not that the CD in itself is crap, but because it's actually fatiguing to hear something that loud.




(@steve: hope you don't mind that i edited the subject as i moved your post here, i didn't touch anything in the message body. -jb)
Cheers
Steve
I know tomorrow's going to taste like cake
http://www.balatonfured.hu/en_index.php

Carnage Visor

HEY NOW!

If it weren't for youtube, there'd be no place for me to utilize my filmmaking hobby and talent! Sure it has bad quality, but not everything on youtube sucks, at least not the stuff I do (hehe, I need to get in a little brag now and then to up the old esteem!)...

Fair enough, Youtube isnt the best place to watch music videos for bands you like, but its easy interface and popularity make it easily accessible and full of relevent videos. Search for "Robert Smith+Siouxsie" and you get videos of Robert in the Banshees. Other search engines and video sites don't have many of the rare TOTP recordings either.

Sorry, youtube is my baby!  :-D

japanesebaby

Quote from: Carnage Visor on January 25, 2008, 18:10:30
Fair enough, Youtube isnt the best place to watch music videos for bands you like, but its easy interface and popularity make it easily accessible and full of relevent videos. Search for "Robert Smith+Siouxsie" and you get videos of Robert in the Banshees. Other search engines and video sites don't have many of the rare TOTP recordings either.

fair enough then, youtube has it's uses. but you actually miss one of the points in this thread which was about media quality in general. youtube DOES have a huge deteriorating effect on our opinion on the quality of our media in general. masses get used to the crap blocky quality and start thinking it's somehow "ok" - and forget that they should ask more (and a LOT more), considering the technology we have today! i mean, it doesn't make any sense that while the technology advances, the media quality deteriorates (as it does at the moment). there's nothing good in that development.
youtube might be ok for discovering things or experimenting with making videos - but as some sort of "everyman's permanent video collection" it's nothing but a joke. and a sad joke imo.
i mean you can't honestly say that if you can have a choice you'd really prefer watching let's say your own videos in youtube quality than watching them in better quality, can you? these ridiculously low quality standards are just being stuffed down our throats by places like youtube (which offer no choice about it).... 


and about finding some rare hard-to-find videos there (let's say some old cure videos or that banshees stuff you mentioned): there's nothing wrong in finding it there BUT it's insane that one should accept that some blocky destroyed-beyond-all-hope-because-of-hopelessly-poo-video-bitrates kind of youtube version should be the only available version of this, or that one should somehow be happy with that. but actually, it sometimes sadly might end up being the only version you find: because once things get encoded to super-clow crap youtube bitrate, they are like that forever. and often it's very hard if not even near impossible to find a clean original source - so all you have is that blocky youtube thing, like a sad reminder of "something that once was".
so is that what we want? do we really want to document everything for the generations to come in this super-low qlty fashion?
it makes no sense to me, considering all the technology we should have....
that's why it's so sad, the whole youtube phenomenon.
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine