Re: FLAC or other uncompressed formats, which is best?
- From: Don Y <this@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 26 May 2012 11:15:10 -0700
Hi Richard,
Ha! Excellent! I don't know if I ever knew his last name.
But, a quick google for images turned up lots of photos
of him that I could believe to be "what he looks like,
35 years later!"
Yep. Mike was sort of a local hero for folks who worked in
the wtc on 9/11 helping lead a bunch of them out.
Obviously long after my experiences with him. Must have been
a doubly terrifying experience for him.
That was the feeling I would get whenever setting up a
new machine at a new site. You'd get things running
properly. Some representative from the client agency
would sit down to use the machine -- invariably visually
impaired -- and you'd watch them cringe as they tried to
make sense of that god-awful voice! Literally *squinting*
as if that would somehow improve their hearing skills!
Yeah I know, when Ray went eventually with Digital
Equipment's Dectalk it improved on the original voice quite
a bit. The only way to get more natural sounding
synthesized speech than dectalk is the way At&T does it,
with capturing the phonemes of an actual speaker, easy to
do when the vocabulary required is rather limited, such as
numbers and a few words.
Exactly. But of extremely limited use!
MOst of what the public
encounters with telephone systems is this latter type. As I
ntoed, NOaa for a long time when they first went digital
with their vhf weather broadcasts was using the Dectalk
I suspect you could rework the weather broadcasts to use
a limited vocabulary and, thus, better speech quality.
On the other hand, it means that you have to be able to
anticipate EVERYTHING that you might need to say over
that medium. For example, you might not be prepared to
use it to announce an alien invasion! <grin>
I have a trimmed down synthesizer that I fall back on if
the primary synthesizer is unavailable in one of the products
I'm designing, currently. It needed to be robust -- so that
I could count on it working regardless of what might have
broken in the system. I could have opted for a better
quality limited vocabulary design -- but, didn't want to have
to set that vocabulary in stone and discover, later, that
I needed to be able to say something that I couldn't.
voices. I'm using a Doubletalk card here, not quite as
natural to the uninitiated, but still good enough, and, at
the time, half the price<g>. I also liked the serial port
doubletalk, small package, powered from a 9 volt cell.
The DECtalk express suffers from the sin of requiring a
special rechargeable battery. Another fault, in my opinion,
for an assistive technology device (where do you buy that
replacement battery -- today??)
There is also the hazzard of making a device that defines
how it must be used. Even if that is the way that 99%
of the user base is likely to use it, it forces 100% of
users to follow that prescription -- even if it isn't
a necessary condition for the device's operation!
YEah there's that. Liked your discussion of choices. To me
color is one of the last things, were i buying a new vehicle
I might want to think about. First off, I'd probably want
to talk to the dealer about the trailer towing package,
which will of course dictate the type of engine/drivetrain
available. Then we get into the amenities, bells and
whistles, etc. But first, the function of the thing is
going to be what I want to get nailed down first.
Exactly. So, for a web site to ask you to pick a color,
first, isn't helpful. Especially if, later, you realize that
your choice has ruled out something else that you really
want most!
"I'm sorry but the automatic transmission option that you
selected disqualifies the choice of 7 liter diesel. Would
you like to start over?"
Imagine if it isn't even smart enough to tell you of
that constraint! You get to the point where you expect
to select an engine and find the engine not listed!
You know I wa reading a similar subject to yoru reading on
choices recently, an economics professor from MIT on how our
choices impact the economic decisions we make, touching on
ethics, all sorts of stuff like that. Called Predictably
Irrational. Can't recall author's name right now, but it,
and his companion piece "the up side of irrationality" are
both interesting reads on the subject.
Dan Ariely. We were "required" to take eight courses in
The Humanities to graduate. I guess they didn't want a
bunch of engineers with no appreciation of other aspects
of life and education let loose on the unsuspecting masses.
<grin>
I recall selecting American History as one of my courses
thinking I had already had two years of that in High School
so it would be a recent memory, for me! The professor was
an economist. So, I relearned all that history with an
entirely different spin than the noble presentation to
which I'd previously been subjected. Fascinating!
So, I've enjoyed reading books by economists that touch
on these sorts of subjects. _The Price of Everything_
discusses all of our actions -- social and otherwise -- in
terms of economic transactions. E.g., a woman selling
uterine services in a marriage transaction.
_The Art of Choosing_ describes how we "value" choice
in different societies and how it impacts our decisions.
For example, how much we will "spend" to keep choices
available even if they aren't choices of which we would want
to avail ourselves.
_How We Decide_ and _Predictably Irrational_ looked at how
easily we are manipulated and con ourselves in our behavioral
choices, etc. How we can actually think an $10 pill is
better than an identical $0.50 pill, etc. How we *don't*
have a "Market" in which consumers and producers compromise
on price but, rather, how Producers manipulate our expectations
of price to a point that they are happy with, etc.
By far, the experiments that have been concocted and presented
in the texts are the most fascinating. And, they make you
laugh at the snobbery that you often see around you -- the folks
who couldn't differentiate an $80 bottle of wine from a $2
bottle of wine -- yet, when confronted with the $80 price tag
ON THE $2 BOTTLE, would *swear* it tastes a LOT better than
the $80 bottle that has been mislabeled as $2!
When I was operating a fixed location studio and I'd have a
songwriter coming in for demos or a group I'd always ask my
first question which was "In your mind's ear, when you hear
your song fully arranged and produced, what does it sound
like? Bring me an example of production already recorded
that fits what your mind's ear hears." This way, I could
choose the right capture techniques, such as how i"d place
instruments, how I'd mic drums, etc.
Good point! I would never buy consumer kit from specs.
Rather, how it sounded to me when reproducing the sorts of
program material I was listening to at that point in my life.
"Why do I have to specify this parameter before that
parameter? They are independant yet you are forcing
me to pick a certain one before the other. How did you
decide that this is the only way it should be done?"
Another reason I like configuring software with text files
if I can get it. I can look through the configuration file,
set options I'm sure of, and do some more poring over the
docs to understand further waht needs to be defined.
The problem with that approach comes when two option
choices are interdependant. There is nothing preventing
you from asking for a set of incompatible options -- until
some program examines your choices and complains.
Can't multiple menus be displayed concurrently?
For example, there are many desktop GUIs that will
let you "pin" (think: thumbtack) a menu or a dialog
to the desktop so that it is "persistent". When you
want to remove the object, you remove the "pin"
and the object goes away.
There's the rub. I've seen two approaches with a lot of
these.
One approach gives you banks of channel strips, say 1-16,
17-32, etc. Possibly even in 8 channel banks, so make for a
smaller footprint. SO, if I'm wanting to do a line check on
channel 24 let's say, and we've got 8 channel banks, i've
got a choice, disrupt the work of the mixer mixing the show
while I do that line check, or not.
The other approach, limited actual controls, and your menu
selects whether those controls are faders, pan controls, aux sends, etc.
There's my main stumbling block. With my old analog iron
all the aux sends are there, bus assignments, vca groups,
all are right there. yEs it means sometimes the mixer is
working at full extension of his body to reach that control,
but that control is there, and I can manipulate it, or
somebody else can while I'm doing something else.
Understood. The same sort of thing is true with theatrical
lighting panels, video switchers (the video equivalent of
an audio mixer), etc. To make everything visible and accessible
or just some selectable subset of it. I have the same sort
of problem when authoring multimedia presentations (though
those aren't done in real time)
That's why I thought the push-pin approach might be a
good compromise -- let you decide which parts of the interface
you want to have access to. But you are still constrained by the
physical size of the display.
What I'd really want to do before plunking down the dollars
for a digital console was actually work with it for a couple
of days first, and get my mind around some of the concepts,
then decide if that one fits in my working environment.
I would imagine that might give you an 80% idea of what
the change would be like. But, someday, you'd find
yourself facing a problem that had to be solved NOW and
scurrying to sort out how to get to the solution you
want in that environment.
Sort of like a surgeon doing a laproscopic procedure and
suddenly everything going to shit. Drop the tools, grab
a big knife and cut the patient open. You're not going
to fix the problem through that tiny incision -- unless
you are incredibly skilled and fluent with the technology!
You might also look into what are called "pie menus".
With these, you open the menu and find yourself in
the center of a circular "pie". From there, you pick
a direction to select a specific item from the menu.
Think of the menu as slices of a pie and you are just
deciding which slice you want -- always from the known
reference point in the center of the pie!
INteresting concept. DOn't know if they offer that sort of
thing though.
<grin> Because they haven't had to think about the full
range of users that might sit behind their kit!
As I said, I've put a lot of thought into what you really need
to interact with a given device and how to minimize the
cognitive loading on the user. You don't want to require 100%
of his attention. Especially if it is to perform some low
grade task!
Imagine if you had to type the word "ANSWER" on a keyboard to
answer your phone. Ridiculous, right? It would require too
much focused attention for a task that should be trivial.
This is why I'd really need to sit down in
front of one for a day or two, at least with multitracks of
prerecorded material up to really put the thing through its
paces, and why often I'm reluctant to buy a new device from
the in-store demo. It's taken me a long time to decide on
one of those little recorders like the zoom, etc. But,
thanks to reviews in this group I think the Tascam is in my
very near future. i asked the reviewer specifically to use
the thing thinking about how easy it was to interact with
sans looking at the device.
Of course, menus have to be designed to keep the number
of choices small. Much easier to pick from 6 or 8
"slices" than 16 or 18!
<rotfl> Then there's that. YOu can always offer me related
choices on a submenu.
Exactly. With use, you develop a sort of muscle memory
as your hands are accustomed to making certain motions to
do certain things. If, instead, you have to coordinate your
eyes and hands to *pick* a particular option from a linear
list, you have to rely on that visual feedback to ensure
you are at the right point in that list before making your
selection.
E.g., one of the devices that I am developing uses speech for
its sole output medium and a touchpad for its sole input
medium. You issue "gestures" on the touchpad to initiate
commands and selections. And, hear the results of those
commands.
So, for example, you might drag your fingertip across the
touchpad from left to right to cause the mechanism to move
"to the right" -- while you are watching it! Then, tap
the touchpad to cause it to stop. "Draw" a circular motion
counterclockwise to cause the grabber to open. Drag your
fingertip from top to bottom to cause it to be lowered.
Tap, again, to stop. Draw a clockwise circle to command the
grabber to close. etc.
All of these are trivial actions that you could easily memorize.
None of which requires any precision on your part. They can
all be performed while your eyes are busy with another task.
And, none of them DISTRACT you from that task.
Repeat the example with some task that does NOT require
vision to see the significance of this approach.
.
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- From: Don Y
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- From: Richard Webb
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