Hi-Tech or Lo-Tech?

[Philly Q]

I'm starting this thread because of something interesting Blue mentioned in the "What are we all listening to..." thread, and I didn't want to take it seriously off-topic:

it's criminal that hi-res audio fell by the wayside in favour of skanky mp3  

Yeah, it's strange that some technological "advances" are moving us in the direction of lower quality.  Compressed audio formats and movies on silly little 2-inch screens.  :roll:

couldn't agree more Philly, i've got my DVD-A/SACD player and my HD-DVD player while my girlfiriend has an ipod and actually watches movies on either her computer or her phone!  :o

people want quantity, not quality.  just look at the muck people buy to eat from supermarkets!  quality music, movies and food are all niche products now.

So, I'm wondering, how do we all listen to our music and watch our movies?  It seems that the trend is to miniaturise everything and/or whack it all on a hard drive in compressed format, but at the same time we're getting bigger and bigger home cinema screens.  It's all a bit contradictory.  Is it all downloads for the under-25s?  I'm prepared to bet Ben has some serious high-end audio equipment.  :)

I still buy everything on CD and have loads of old stuff on vinyl, but listen mostly on my PC as both my turntable and CD player broke some time ago and I've been too busy blowing money on guitars to replace them...

And has anyone invested in HD-DVD or Blu-ray?  I have thousands of DVDs but haven't gone hi-def yet, although I plan to in the not-too-distant future.  Slightly dreading the costly but inevitable process of replacing SD discs with HD ones though....

[dave_mc]

i still don't have an ipod if that tells you anything. we have an LCD tv (cos our old one broke), and i think the picture quality was better with CRT... i still use a CRT monitor for my computer. if i could just figure out how to run a mobile phone on valves, i'd be set. plus i'm banking (perhaps a little too optimistically) that minidisc will make a comeback and my minidisc player will be cool again.

supermarket food quality is really starting to piss me off (it was mentioned in the post you quoted). tesco is awful, and most of the others are scrabbling to be as bad (and hence make so many profits)... it's retarded how people think that by saving about 3p, yet getting something which is MUCH MUCH WORSE, they're actually being smart and getting good value. EDIT: in guitar terms, it'd be like someone not being willing to pay £2000 for, say, a nik huber but thinking they were getting good value by paying £1950 for the lowest model squier...

people need to stop equating "value" with "cheap"... it's not always the same thing. "value" means something cheap which is also good... not something cheap which is absolute shite.

Sorry for the rant, but considering the thread, i guess that's what you wanted...   :lol:

[noodleplugerine]

There was a massive argument I took part in about this recently.

Basically, its all for the better. Technology is in its teething period, but don't worry, as miniturisation gains speed, so will quality.

Allready today we have Blue-ray dvds on 42" LCD TVs, which while not as high quality as their CRT counterparts, are beginning to be replaced with new systems which make CRT screens totally obsolete in both depth and response.

And while for practicality smaller is better, the option for lossless media, and HD videos are still there, and will increase, especially for videos where HD formats will become the norm - Really, does anyone actually need 45gb for a movie? They have the space now, lets see them use it.

[Philly Q]

i still don't have an ipod if that tells you anything. we have an LCD tv (cos our old one broke), and i think the picture quality was better with CRT... i still use a CRT monitor for my computer.

Yeah, I still have a CRT monitor and a CRT TV (albeit one that was pretty much state-of-the-art when I bought it).  My brother has a 46" Sony LCD and I'm absolutely certain CRT gives a better standard definition TV picture - the LCD looks great with HD material, of course.

However, I do really want to go HD, but I'm a great believer in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".  If something still works, it's a huge crisis of conscience for me to just dump it (I have a 25 year old watch, a 28 year old calculator, over 1,000 vinyl LPs which, as I said, I can't play...  :roll: ).  So I'm not sure what happens to my old TV etc if I get a plasma and Blu-ray.

Oh, and my mobile phone is an old Nokia which can't even display pictures, never mind video.

As for food, I totally agree with you - the cheap stuff (esp. fruit and veg) is inedible, so I only buy organic or the "premium" stuff like Sainsburys Taste the Difference and Tesco Finest.  I know I should go to farmers' markets and all that, but they're thin on the ground in Sarf London.

And while for practicality smaller is better, the option for lossless media, and HD videos are still there, and will increase, especially for videos where HD formats will become the norm - Really, does anyone actually need 45gb for a movie? They have the space now, lets see them use it.

The crazy thing is, from what I've seen of HD video they're still using noise-reduction filtering and edge enhancement, which should be totally unnecessary with all that disc space.  It wasn't really necessary even with standard definition.

[Jonny]

I would not say no to watching a movie on a widescreen wall-mounted 52" HD television and watch it on a 19" LCD monitor. Or my iPod.

That's like.. degrading how beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow is. AND YOU JUST CAN'T DO THAT!

CRT - Gaming
LCD - Quality
HD - MOVIES!
Or just normal DVD.

[Will]

As for food, I totally agree with you - the cheap stuff (esp. fruit and veg) is inedible, so I only buy organic or the "premium" stuff like Sainsburys Taste the Difference and Tesco Finest.  I know I should go to farmers' markets and all that, but they're thin on the ground in Sarf London.

From the farmers perspective, so mostly concerning meat, there will be little difference in the quality of the meat of thw cheap / finest. Animal welfare will be slightly improved, ie a free range chicken must have something like 6 square inches of grass. But the quality of this grass? could be turf etc

If you want some good lamb, try the M & S stuff, should be from either NZ or UK depending on time of year. My family has the stuff that isn't good enough for the store, and its great :)

[waves]

I've started ripping the CD's i give a sh*t about in Apple Lossless simply because I got some new Etymotic Isolator In-Ears and i was hearing artefacts at 128kbps mp3. Also, since nothing (no quality) is lost I guess I will always have the CD quality tracks knocking around somewhere on a hard drive which means I could lose a CD and not worry that i'd never have the quality again.

With food, I'm always organic. I'm a veggie so i'm really into Quorn. And I had this wheat and dairy allergy when I was really small so 'real' milk (from cows) has NEVER tasted good to me. I've always enjoyed soya milk wayy more. I have got really into that oatly stuff recently though (that milk made from oats - with the local health food shop muesli i have for breakfast combined with the oat milk i've basically got fibre coming out my ears). Also, rye bread toasted with pure spread (soya butter) is where it's at IMO.

[38thBeatle]

I have got myself an Ipod due to the absolute convenience it brings. Obviously there is a loss of sound quality but it is tolerable and as I have just about everything on it, it goes everywhere with me. I don't watch video on it. I have never got around to that and besides, who wants to watch a movie on a tiny Ipod screen. I have a half decent CD player and amp that I have had for years and I have no reson to change them. Asd for TV, we have abog standard tv given to us when my son emigrated to the USA. Does the job though Mrs 38th is talking of getting a new one. She also wants a games console but we are both ignorant of them and  are trying to work out what one to get.

[TwilightOdyssey]

iPod? Yes. But the DAC on my PSP sounds much better and I use the PSP for my mobile music listening now.

CDs? Yes. Because MP3 and AAC sound like cr@p. They are very handy if you're on a noisy/crowded train (try living in NYC) but once the noise floor drops, the cr@p factor increases exponentially. Most of today's production is pants, but CD still sounds the best if you can't get SACD.

Blu Ray? Yes. Does it look better than SD DVD? Very much so. I do not have a dedicated Blu-Ray player, however. I use a PS3, which we also use for gaming, music and movie storage, as well as interweb surfing; it's our basic convergence device.

HDTV? Yes. Plasma still yields the best image, especially if you own a Runco.

Now, here's a sub-topic: Do SD DVDs look better when they are scaled up to 1080i, 720p or 1080p? The answer: It depends on the bitrate of the original DVD. Some SD DVDs are incredible when upscaled (The entire LotR collection, for instance) and some look horrible.

As for my playback systems, I have both a hi end hi fi as well as a hi end home theater setup. (gwEm and PhilKing have both been to my office and know how insane some of the gear I am surrounded with gets)

Vinyl? Still the most rewarding playback medium, but I ditched my analog rig a few years ago (Linn LP12/Ekos/Troika/Cirkus/Valhalla with a Levinson phono stage) along with thousands of metal and classic rock/prog rockLPs (and a few others) because I had no room left in my small NYC apartment with my growing family. For the most part, I don't miss LPs, but I did enjoy going back in time to when music had much better production value than today.


I guess that puts me firmly in the "hi tech" camp. PDT_008

[noodleplugerine]

I have got myself an Ipod due to the absolute convenience it brings. Obviously there is a loss of sound quality but it is tolerable and as I have just about everything on it, it goes everywhere with me. I don't watch video on it. I have never got around to that and besides, who wants to watch a movie on a tiny Ipod screen. I have a half decent CD player and amp that I have had for years and I have no reson to change them. Asd for TV, we have abog standard tv given to us when my son emigrated to the USA. Does the job though Mrs 38th is talking of getting a new one. She also wants a games console but we are both ignorant of them and  are trying to work out what one to get.

Same.

After years of slating Ipods in favour of other MP3 players, I have finally succumbed and bought myself an 80gb Classic.

They now offer MP3 instead of just AAC, and about 80% of my music is 320kbps, can you still hear the difference? Yes. Is it tolerable? Very much so.

The practicality and the interface make it a cut above all the others, including the Irivers and Sonys with their superior sound quality.

[blue]

hmm, well since this is kinda my fault, i better say what i use  :D

i would love real high end gear, but i think i've managed to get decent gear on a relative budget.  for cd i have a NAD C542, which is great, for dvd and dvd-audio/SACD a pioneer 656a combo player, a Toshiba ep-35 HD-DVD player and the same Yamaha A5 multi channel amp and Mission 5.1 speakers i've used for years.  i also have a mini-disc deck and a sky+ satellite reciever.

i'm between record decks, hoping to get a Pro-ject Debut soon.  i will get a Blu-ray player, but not until they finally release one that actually works, with profile 2.0 firmware.  it bewilders me that HD-DVD is defunct when the work in progress ( i.e. not ready for public consumption ) that is Blu-ray won.

[Jonny]

I have too many CDs to be honest. But that's the point really.

I have my PS3 for movies, DVD and Blu-ray alike.

CDs are ripped and put on my iTouch. I have a few Gilbert videos, but that's only cause: 1. I don't like downloading music and 2. I couldn't get his CDs anywhere, apart from his solo work which I do have on there.

We are currently viewing the world through a box TV, a Hitachi. Which is as old as I am. It will need replaced as the colour is fading. Hopefully the parents will give in. There's a flat screen in the kitchen, which is probably the most hi-tech we have in the house.

[Philly Q]

for dvd and dvd-audio/SACD a pioneer 656a combo player.

:D  That's exactly the same model as I've got, strangely enough, although I suspect it's getting more than a bit antiquated as a DVD player.  

I tried to play my one and only SACD on it yesterday and nothing happened, so I guess my amp (also Pioneer) couldn't interpret the source or something (it came through the TV's speakers OK).

I guess that puts me firmly in the "hi tech" camp.

Hi tech but also high end, which is what I expected.  Thanks Ben, you didn't disappoint.  

I am planning on getting a plasma, I have real problems with the black (or should I say grey) levels, amongst other things, on LCD.  I don't know if we have Runco in the UK, I'd like a Pioneer if I could afford it but more likely will end up with Panasonic.

[WezV]

As for food, I totally agree with you - the cheap stuff (esp. fruit and veg) is inedible, so I only buy organic or the "premium" stuff like Sainsburys Taste the Difference and Tesco Finest.  I know I should go to farmers' markets and all that, but they're thin on the ground in Sarf London.

look for a veggie box scheme - fresh organic veg pulled out the ground and delivered stright to your door... cant beat it

[Philly Q]

i will get a Blu-ray player, but not until they finally release one that actually works, with profile 2.0 firmware.  it bewilders me that HD-DVD is defunct when the work in progress ( i.e. not ready for public consumption ) that is Blu-ray won.

I agree, but ultimately I'm glad Toshiba and the HD-DVD camp gave up the "war" so quickly after Warner dropped HD-DVD.  I think having opposing formats was seriously slowing down the take-up of HD - I certainly wasn't prepared to take a 50/50 chance on a format which might be dead in a few years.  And I also didn't want to invest in both just to get a full choice.

It's good to see that some of the independent distributors like Criterion and Blue Underground are now starting to issue Blu-ray discs, because those are the kinds of films I'm really into, more than major studio stuff.  

I'm still concerned about region-coding though.  I'm hoping somone's going to come up with a multi-region Blu-ray player soon.  I suppose I could get a region B player and a Blu-ray PC drive set to region A (or vice versa), but it's too much hassle.  The majority of discs at the moment seem to be region-free, but there's no guarantee that'll continue.