From Andrew Duke Cognition Sent Wed, Oct 14th 1998, 18:38
From Andrew Duke Cognition Sent Wed, Oct 14th 1998, 18:38
***It's important to realize the difference between "sound quality" and "net congestion" when it comes to RealAudio. The belowmentioned net congestion problems have nothing to do with the encoding of the RA; whenever there's too many surfers at once listening or trying to listen to the same RA file you are, you will get congestion problems regardless of whether it's encoded at a high kps or low kps. Congestion problems are due to the net and modems, not RA sound quality. re: sound quality: as a person who does a weekly RealAudio show (guest DJs, interviews, new/classic music--it's called In The Mix) and puts up tracks/albums online in RA, I'm feelin' ya on the quality issue, but it's not easily solved. The problem is the classic "time" and "money". For the person putting the RA online, you have to have the time to encode high (for those with ISDN and fast modems and can use this higher kps) and low (for everyone else). You also have to have the server space (ie money) to put low and high options on your server. A personal example: I used to record the show I do at the highest kps possible, but couldn't even listen to it myself because I had encoded it higher than my own modem could handle. And got queries from people saying "could you encode at a lower rate please" (but no queries from those that enjoyed the high-only encoded RA). If everyone had ISDN and high baud modems, then it would be great to just record everything at the high kps. But if you do that now, it's being elitist and knocks out the listenability for anyone other than those with hipowered modems/ISDN. I record the show in mono and 16kps to make the show available to everyone with a modem. Yes, I cringe at the sound quality of my own program when I hear it in RA sometimes because of this, but unfortunately it's what has to be done. Those with a slower modem hear the show fine, those with the higher powered/ISDN wish for better sound quality (and email asking for the show to be encoded high again/as well). Soon as I can (time and money, of course are the factors) I would encode the show twice: for those with high powered modems on a high kps and for those with lower in the same low kps. My .02 Andrew Irene McC wrote: > On 14 Oct 98, Christopher Fahey wrote re: (idm) RealAudio Quality: > > > But is it just me, but does anyone else here find most RealAudio > > unlistenable due to the crappy sound quality? > > Drives me totally flacking mad - I keep getting "buffering > _x_seconds due to net congestion" then another short burst of > crappy sound, then another "buffering" gap - - - grrrr. > > I > * -- Andrew Duke Cognition Audioworks 1096 Queen St #123 Halifax NS Canada B3H 2R9 TEL 902-422-7132 FAX 902-422-1262 http://www.globalserve.net/~cognition (Cognition Audioworks/In The Mix: listen : read) In The Mix show 575: Richie Hawtin/Neil Landstrumm/Merrick Brown In The Mix show 576: John Tejada/Damon Wild/D.JeRome playing now: Turner--"Lukin Orgel" (Ladomat) world premiere playing next: "John Acquaviva Presents Skills" (Stud!o K7) world premiere