6 ms·

If you're going to master an original work in a digital format, and it's going to be a terabyte of anything, why MP3 and not FLAC? Figure at a bitrate of 128 k

If you're going to master an original work in a digital format, and it's going to be a terabyte of anything, why MP3 and not FLAC? Figure at a bitrate of 128 kbps, and a sample rate of 44.1 Khz, an MP3 1 million bytes in size usually clocks in at close to 1 minute of playback. With those statistics in mind, a ballpark figure of 2 years of noise is a reasonable estimate, and that's pretty close to the 711.5 days they cite. FLAC compression, by comparison, is closer to 10MB per minute, so maybe you'd only get 71 days in the same space, or require 10TB of storage. You could probably fit the lossless version on roughly 400 blu-rays, and opposed to some 233 DVDs? Even cooler though, is what seems to be some java source for the original noise? http://www.jliat.com/HNW/ http://www.jliat.com/HNW/ http://www.jliat.com/HNW/HNW.java http://www.jliat.com/HNW/HNW.java Who needs a compressed static copy, when you have the original source? EDIT: There's also a lossless version in 16 bit WAV audio... http://www.jliat.com/HNW510/ http://www.jliat.com/HNW510/

theandrewbailey 12y ago
And if you're making noise for noise sake, MP3 compression would make it less 'noisier'.
- CountSessine 12y ago
  Yes - that's sort of what I was wondering. What effect would the MP3 compression have on the signal's entropy? He says, "MP3 format was chosen not only for its length..." which implies that he managed to compress it at least a bit - if so, there goes his entropy! I can't see how an MP3 compressor could make any headway against a really noisy signal using psycho-acoustic masking, so I'm guessing that any compression he realized came purely from coefficient quantization, which in the case of a really high-entropy signal should actually lower the entropy. If anyone knows more about this, please feel free to correct me.
  - cozzyd 12y ago
    I think the psychoacoustic masking would certainly degrade the spectrum... time for a little experiment! Step 1) Generate 1 second of white noise in audacity, look at spectrum Step 2) export to mp3 Step 3) Import back, look at spectrum Result: http://i.imgur.com/vZtZ6xE.png http://i.imgur.com/vZtZ6xE.png (left is original, right is mp3 roundtripped) The mp3 (at least with this encoder) kills some of the high frequencies, so the noise is no longer white.
pervycreeper 12y ago
Observations like this are part of what turned me off of "conceptual art"; it's too easy to poke holes in any proposed interpretation, and a defender can just as easily weasel out of it once it's pointed out.
- bunderbunder 12y ago
  I think that good conceptual art is about the interactions among the idea, the work and its participants as much as anything else. That includes people trying to poke holes in an interpretation, and its defenders trying to weasel out of it. There's nothing wrong with that - at its most stripped down, the purpose of a conceptual work is to just be a conversation piece. Or to put it more succinctly: Oftentimes art's biggest enemy is people making it out to be a bigger deal than it really is.
  - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
    My conceptual art piece for the day is thinking you're wrong. And I'm not going to explain, because that would deprive everyone of the opportunity to co-create the work.
maaku 12y ago
Um, lossless compression (FLAC) is not going to handle random noise very well. You're probably better off with the raw WAV file.
- JTon 12y ago
  If it's lossless, then it'll handle noise the same as the raw wav file. Am I missing something?
  - eru 12y ago
    FLAC may take more bits than the wav. (It'll still be lossless.)
  - lultimouomo 12y ago
    I'm guessing he meant that FLAC could actually inflate the file size (which is very probable).
    - dredmorbius 12y ago
      Probably, but not by much -- you'd add the size of the data header. Depending on the compression block size, that could be repeated multiply to the file as a whole. But yes, compressing random values makes little sense. Doing it losslessly increases data size. Doing it lossily decreases randomness.
      - nitrogen 12y ago
        If the samples don't occupy the full range, then a Huffman table or related encoding could reduce the storage requirements. Ignoring encoding overhead, at most ~12 bits per sample are needed if everything works as the author intended, or ~14.8 bits using the range from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9272071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9272071
- cozzyd 12y ago
  Well, if they're cutting out "wimpy" numbers, there is a little to be gained from lossless compression.
Spooky23 12y ago
For the true audiophile looking to appreciate the noise in the exact manner that the artist intended, the distortions introduced into the harmonic balance by MP3 make for a completely different and less organic experience.
- batou 12y ago
  I'll sell you some magic beans to put in a bowl in your listening room for $250 that will fix that. (No shit - someone actually sells those)
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
    Someone actually bought those.
  - petecooper 12y ago
    See also: http://wathifi.com http://wathifi.com
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
If you're going to author it, why not include just a few quadrillion \x00 characters every so often in a comment field (or whatever the equivalent is for mp3)? I mean, FLAC proves that people for some reason cherish wasted storage space, especially when that storage space is used for meaningless content that they can't actually hear. My scheme does that, only bigger.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  There are audible sounds that MP3 simply cannot encode correctly. One example is in a song by Planet Funk (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3166937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3166937). However, better lossy formats shouldn't have this problem.
- kstenerud 12y ago
  It's also used for archival, so that a few years down the road when a new lossy format du jour (cough m4a) comes along, you're not left with the dilemma of converting one lossy format to another. Not to mention the fact that better quality encoders tend to come along over time.

theandrewbailey 12y ago

And if you're making noise for noise sake, MP3 compression would make it less 'noisier'.

CountSessine 12y ago
Yes - that's sort of what I was wondering. What effect would the MP3 compression have on the signal's entropy? He says, "MP3 format was chosen not only for its length..." which implies that he managed to compress it at least a bit - if so, there goes his entropy! I can't see how an MP3 compressor could make any headway against a really noisy signal using psycho-acoustic masking, so I'm guessing that any compression he realized came purely from coefficient quantization, which in the case of a really high-entropy signal should actually lower the entropy. If anyone knows more about this, please feel free to correct me.
- cozzyd 12y ago
  I think the psychoacoustic masking would certainly degrade the spectrum... time for a little experiment! Step 1) Generate 1 second of white noise in audacity, look at spectrum Step 2) export to mp3 Step 3) Import back, look at spectrum Result: http://i.imgur.com/vZtZ6xE.png http://i.imgur.com/vZtZ6xE.png (left is original, right is mp3 roundtripped) The mp3 (at least with this encoder) kills some of the high frequencies, so the noise is no longer white.

pervycreeper 12y ago

Observations like this are part of what turned me off of "conceptual art"; it's too easy to poke holes in any proposed interpretation, and a defender can just as easily weasel out of it once it's pointed out.

bunderbunder 12y ago
I think that good conceptual art is about the interactions among the idea, the work and its participants as much as anything else. That includes people trying to poke holes in an interpretation, and its defenders trying to weasel out of it. There's nothing wrong with that - at its most stripped down, the purpose of a conceptual work is to just be a conversation piece. Or to put it more succinctly: Oftentimes art's biggest enemy is people making it out to be a bigger deal than it really is.
- TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
  My conceptual art piece for the day is thinking you're wrong. And I'm not going to explain, because that would deprive everyone of the opportunity to co-create the work.

maaku 12y ago

Um, lossless compression (FLAC) is not going to handle random noise very well. You're probably better off with the raw WAV file.

JTon 12y ago
If it's lossless, then it'll handle noise the same as the raw wav file. Am I missing something?
- eru 12y ago
  FLAC may take more bits than the wav. (It'll still be lossless.)
- lultimouomo 12y ago
  I'm guessing he meant that FLAC could actually inflate the file size (which is very probable).
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    Probably, but not by much -- you'd add the size of the data header. Depending on the compression block size, that could be repeated multiply to the file as a whole. But yes, compressing random values makes little sense. Doing it losslessly increases data size. Doing it lossily decreases randomness.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      If the samples don't occupy the full range, then a Huffman table or related encoding could reduce the storage requirements. Ignoring encoding overhead, at most ~12 bits per sample are needed if everything works as the author intended, or ~14.8 bits using the range from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9272071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9272071
cozzyd 12y ago
Well, if they're cutting out "wimpy" numbers, there is a little to be gained from lossless compression.

Spooky23 12y ago

For the true audiophile looking to appreciate the noise in the exact manner that the artist intended, the distortions introduced into the harmonic balance by MP3 make for a completely different and less organic experience.

batou 12y ago
I'll sell you some magic beans to put in a bowl in your listening room for $250 that will fix that. (No shit - someone actually sells those)
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
  Someone actually bought those.
- petecooper 12y ago
  See also: http://wathifi.com http://wathifi.com

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago

If you're going to author it, why not include just a few quadrillion \x00 characters every so often in a comment field (or whatever the equivalent is for mp3)? I mean, FLAC proves that people for some reason cherish wasted storage space, especially when that storage space is used for meaningless content that they can't actually hear. My scheme does that, only bigger.

nitrogen 12y ago
There are audible sounds that MP3 simply cannot encode correctly. One example is in a song by Planet Funk (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3166937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3166937). However, better lossy formats shouldn't have this problem.
kstenerud 12y ago
It's also used for archival, so that a few years down the road when a new lossy format du jour (cough m4a) comes along, you're not left with the dilemma of converting one lossy format to another. Not to mention the fact that better quality encoders tend to come along over time.