41 ms·

Format wars this past century

14 points by iamelgringo 18y ago

ovi256 18y ago
Ultra-wideband networking technology — in early 2006, an IEEE standards working group disbanded because two factions could not agree on a single standard for a successor to Wi-Fi. (WiMedia Alliance, IEEE 802.15, WirelessHD) Better is the enemy of good for sure. Classic prisoner's dilemma : they could not compromise, they all stand to lose now.
jwilliams 18y ago
Kind of cool. The SACD vs DVD-A war is an interesting one, because effectively they both lost (this article places them in the 1990's). So now we don't really have a viable high-quality audio format - somehow lossy formats have dominated so much the niche has just vanished. You can probably find more new vinyl than high-quality digital nowadays.
- iamelgringo 18y ago
  My wife and I went to a flea market a couple of weeks ago, and we purchased about 20 vinyl albums to rip using her new USB turntable. I was absolutely astounded at how much better the audio quality was than the usual web streaming/CD quality stuff. It's really hard to beat good old fashioned analog audio.
  - DarkShikari 18y ago
    It's not the analog that makes it sound better, it's the loudness war that makes the digital sound worse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war The most sickening thing about the "loudness war" is that it has become so utterly pervasive that even completely amateur-produced and indie CDs are overamplified and covered in clipping in the exact same way the latest Britney Spears album is. While for older music (~80s and earlier) there usually exists previous albums without too much clipping, newer music--even good music--is usually only available in a single overamplified release.
    - jwilliams 18y ago
      This is true, but it also represents a market shift - CD's are now really for listening in your car, or ripping to your PC. LP's were for the days when you had a "hifi" and could be produced to actually have a soundstage. The interesting thing is that's generally the target for SACD, DVD-A (i.e. someone with a high-end hifi). So they generally sound better irrespective of the technical qualities. Video DVDs that are about musical performances (e.g. a classical concert) also tend to sound better for the same reasons. Although they generally tend to have compression, DTS, multi-channel, etc, etc, which I've never been a fan of.... All the same, the production is usually much better for a hifi scenario.

14 points by iamelgringo 18y ago

Ultra-wideband networking technology — in early 2006, an IEEE standards working group disbanded because two factions could not agree on a single standard for a successor to Wi-Fi. (WiMedia Alliance, IEEE 802.15, WirelessHD) Better is the enemy of good for sure. Classic prisoner's dilemma : they could not compromise, they all stand to lose now.

jwilliams 18y ago

Kind of cool. The SACD vs DVD-A war is an interesting one, because effectively they both lost (this article places them in the 1990's). So now we don't really have a viable high-quality audio format - somehow lossy formats have dominated so much the niche has just vanished. You can probably find more new vinyl than high-quality digital nowadays.

iamelgringo 18y ago
My wife and I went to a flea market a couple of weeks ago, and we purchased about 20 vinyl albums to rip using her new USB turntable. I was absolutely astounded at how much better the audio quality was than the usual web streaming/CD quality stuff. It's really hard to beat good old fashioned analog audio.
- DarkShikari 18y ago
  It's not the analog that makes it sound better, it's the loudness war that makes the digital sound worse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war The most sickening thing about the "loudness war" is that it has become so utterly pervasive that even completely amateur-produced and indie CDs are overamplified and covered in clipping in the exact same way the latest Britney Spears album is. While for older music (~80s and earlier) there usually exists previous albums without too much clipping, newer music--even good music--is usually only available in a single overamplified release.
  - jwilliams 18y ago
    This is true, but it also represents a market shift - CD's are now really for listening in your car, or ripping to your PC. LP's were for the days when you had a "hifi" and could be produced to actually have a soundstage. The interesting thing is that's generally the target for SACD, DVD-A (i.e. someone with a high-end hifi). So they generally sound better irrespective of the technical qualities. Video DVDs that are about musical performances (e.g. a classical concert) also tend to sound better for the same reasons. Although they generally tend to have compression, DTS, multi-channel, etc, etc, which I've never been a fan of.... All the same, the production is usually much better for a hifi scenario.