Bob pointed to a YouTube video titled The Loudness War. The video uses Paul McCartney's 1989 song "Figure of Eight" as an example, comparing its original recording with what a modern engineer might do with it.
"It really no longer sounds like a snare drum with a very sharp attack," Ludwig says. "It sounds more like somebody padding on a piece of leather or something like that," Ludwig says. He's referring to the practice of using compressors to squash the music, making the quiet parts louder and the loud parts a little quieter, so it jumps out of your radio or iPod."
and Dr. Andrew Oxenham (of our fair University) explains it thus:
"Really, the challenge is to maintain the quality of a CD, but to stuff it into a much smaller space," Oxenham says. "Let's think about how digital recording works. You start out with a very smooth sound wave and we're trying to store that in digital form. So we're really trying to reproduce a smooth curve [with] these square blocks, which are the digital numbers [the 1s and 0s that are used to encode sound digitally].
"Now, the only way you can make square blocks look like a smooth curve is by using very, very small blocks so it ends up looking as if it's smooth. Now using lots and lots of blocks means lots of storage, so we end up using [fewer] bigger blocks. Which means we end up not representing that curve very smoothly at all."
"The difference between the smooth curve and the rough edges you end up with in the digital recording, you can think of as noise because that is perceived as noise," Oxenham says. "It's perceived as an error, something that wasn't there in the original recording. The trick is to take the noise -- which is the loss of fidelity -- and just make it so you can't hear it anymore."
"[The loud parts of the music are] giving the coding system a lot of leeway to code things not quite as accurately as it would have to," Oxenham says, "because the ear is being stimulated so much by the loud sound it won't pick up very small variations produced by the coding errors."
The Office of Information Technology (OIT) is pleased to announce
three technology training options being offered at no charge through
the Coffman Union Tech Stop. Tech Stop is a hub for students, faculty,
and staff to receive face-to-face technology consultations, support
and training. For more information see the Techstop website at
www.oit.umn.edu/techstop/.
TECH LEARNING BYTES
These concise 15-20 minute training sessions are limited to four
participants and focus on practical, take-away knowledge. Tech
Learning Byte topics will vary each semester. Current topics include:
* Transitioning to Google Mail
For more information and to register for a Tech Learning Byte visit
our training Web site at http://uttc.umn.edu/.
TECH TUTORING
Tech Tutoring provides an opportunity to schedule an appointment with
an instructor to learn specific skills or concepts, such as how to
create a table of contents in Word or how to build a quiz in WebVista.
Participants are encouraged to bring their project files as well as
their laptop (if available). Appointments are currently available on
these topics:
* MS Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
To register for a 30-minute appointment visit the UTTC training Web site
TECH PREVIEWS
When a new technology is introduced or a major software update takes
place that affects the entire University community, UTTC will offer
Tech Previews. Tech Preview sessions are typically 1-2 hours in length
and focus on broad topics, such as:
* Google Apps: Collaborating in the University Environment:
* Other new enterprise-wide services
For more information and to register for a Tech Preview visit the
training Web site at http://uttc.umn.edu/.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To learn more about OIT's Technology Training visit http://uttc.umn.edu/.
]]>Visit the CLA-OIT check out site
For faculty, staff, and graduate students to support classroom instruction and research. For up to two weeks or longer on a case-by-case basis.
Limited number available for special circumstances (e.g., visiting scholars).
For short-term use by faculty and staff. Graduate students with a signed letter from the chair or the administrator of the department may reserve projectors by calling the CLA-OIT Service Desk at 612-624-4357.
For current CLA students. Camcorders, microphones, and digital still camera are available.
For students currently taking field production classes through the Studio who have received proper training. Former field production students may also reserve this equipment, but current students will receive priority.
See: www.oit.umn.edu/cms-search to learn more.
*You* can provide input on the future direction of course mgmt systems here
at UMN.
One of the challenges facing the Broadband Task Force is a question inspired by the 1989 classic film, "Field of Dreams": if we build it, will they come? As John mentioned in his post, the 37% of Americans who have not adopted home broadband have a unique set of concerns, needs and barriers to overcome. Our two afternoon workshops on Wednesday, "Low adoption and utilization" and "Programmatic efforts to increase adoption and usage," addressed this topic.
Though they're unlikely to win any branding awards for the snappy name "Blogband" (sounds like bunch of high-schoolers who launched their garage band to sing about blogging), the FCC has launched that blog in order to foster public dialogue about the National Broadband Plan (PDF), an initiative with just over 180 days before the FCC's deadline to send that plan to Congress.
So if you care about broadband (and issues like net neutrality), then snagging this RSS feed and putting it in your news reader or just following the blog would be a good idea.