3 ms·

What did he mean by CD distortion? I'm also not super clear on how digital video would have jitter in a way that analog video wouldn't? I totally agree with h

What did he mean by CD distortion? I'm also not super clear on how digital video would have jitter in a way that analog video wouldn't? I totally agree with his overall sentiment, I'm just a bit confused on the specific examples.

jcarrano 2y ago
I read that, at least early on, many CDs were mastered with inadequate dithering, resulting in audible quantization noise.
nayuki 2y ago
Good questions. CD distortion include hard clipping from amplifying too much, whereas vacuum tubes and magnetic tape have soft saturation (still a distortion, just a different kind). Another distortion is that dynamic range compression is used, bringing up the volume of quiet parts of a song. As for digital video jitter, I can think of MPEG compression artifacts, both spatial (e.g. DCT mosquito noise) and temporal (e.g. motion compensation errors, periodic keyframe refreshes).
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  That is bad mastering, not an inherent property of CDs.
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    It's not, but it's very, very common, basically the rule in fact, starting I think in the early 2000s.
numpad0 2y ago
There is something in CD that is noticeable by listening to vinyl, CD, and optionally mp3. I'd say CD makes everything sound like a harpsichord, but just ever so slightly. Maybe it's encoding or maybe it's decoding. Or something else. It's a first generation digital format, after all. Analog videos never stutter but digital formats tend to have non-constant processing cost and do stutter occasionally. Maybe he's referring to that?
- crazygringo 2y ago
  > I'd say CD makes everything sound like a harpsichord Ha, that's a great description. Yes -- you're hearing more high frequencies. Which is by design, because they're there in real life. Vinyl cuts off the highest frequencies, as do MP3's. Nothing to do with first generation though -- if you listen to a FLAC on your computer with wired headphones the highest frequencies are still there. It's a feature not a bug. :)

jcarrano 2y ago

I read that, at least early on, many CDs were mastered with inadequate dithering, resulting in audible quantization noise.

nayuki 2y ago

Good questions. CD distortion include hard clipping from amplifying too much, whereas vacuum tubes and magnetic tape have soft saturation (still a distortion, just a different kind). Another distortion is that dynamic range compression is used, bringing up the volume of quiet parts of a song. As for digital video jitter, I can think of MPEG compression artifacts, both spatial (e.g. DCT mosquito noise) and temporal (e.g. motion compensation errors, periodic keyframe refreshes).

kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
That is bad mastering, not an inherent property of CDs.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  It's not, but it's very, very common, basically the rule in fact, starting I think in the early 2000s.

numpad0 2y ago

There is something in CD that is noticeable by listening to vinyl, CD, and optionally mp3. I'd say CD makes everything sound like a harpsichord, but just ever so slightly. Maybe it's encoding or maybe it's decoding. Or something else. It's a first generation digital format, after all. Analog videos never stutter but digital formats tend to have non-constant processing cost and do stutter occasionally. Maybe he's referring to that?

crazygringo 2y ago
> I'd say CD makes everything sound like a harpsichord Ha, that's a great description. Yes -- you're hearing more high frequencies. Which is by design, because they're there in real life. Vinyl cuts off the highest frequencies, as do MP3's. Nothing to do with first generation though -- if you listen to a FLAC on your computer with wired headphones the highest frequencies are still there. It's a feature not a bug. :)