Compressed vs. Untouched BluRay

[accident]

(05-15-2012 08:09 PM)Plukh Wrote:  No, you don't. You think you can, but you really can't.

I agree that the average person will no hear it, but whose to say baz and his wife aren't the ones that do hear it.

[Bazrah]

I wouldn't rule out me being gullible

[Plukh]

(05-16-2012 08:20 AM)Bazrah Wrote:  I wouldn't rule out me being gullible

That's exactly the case, unfortunately. At one time in my life, I used to do a lot of tests based on human perception (not audio perception specifically, but that doesn't matter - the general principles are the same for all types of human perception/interpretation of objective external stimuli) - and we've found that personal bias is #1 deciding factor during testing, and it's the hardest to completely rule out.

Simply said, you know you're playing ZOMG LOSSLESS track, and your mind starts playing tricks with your audio perception :-(, trying to (subconsciously) influence the way you interpret it. That's why I'm talking about blind (or, preferably, double-blind) tests here - where nor you nor the person administering the test know if the track being played is lossy or lossless.

That, or your system is setup differently for lossy and lossless audio (i.e., different decoders using different parts of audio processing pipeline, or different receiver/amplifier settings, etc); it also can be that tracks are mixed differently (I've encountered a title where lossy and lossless tracks were not just mixed slightly differently - they had substantial objective differences throughout). This entirely can happen - but, of course, this just means that something is wrong with your particular system or the particular title, not with lossless vs lossy flamewar in general :-).

[accident]

Are you pissed that you can't hear it or something.

It really doesn't matter if baz does or doesn't hear he. He likes how the full audio track sounds better and this is a conversation about keeping the bluray original or changing it.. When it comes down to it, this conversation is just personal preference of what type of content you keep original vs compressed for long term less space storage.

[Pain]

What's wrong with Plukh stating his view of the matter? This is a discussion after all.

(05-17-2012 01:00 AM)accident Wrote:  Are you pissed that you can't hear it or something.

[accident]

If your going to state a stance, you should be ready for someone to not agree.. what's the problem with me stating my view.

[lordy]

There are different levels of quality for 'lossless' so there's no point arguing against experience with the amount of information provided, but I generally agree for a "good quality" encoding of a "good quality" lossy codec, studies have repeatedly shown that most people (not even average but most) would struggle to tell the difference between that and a lossless in a ABX test. I still prefer FLACs though For lower quality encoding, its not too difficult even with my bad hearing.

And unless people do ABX/double-blind type testing, its very hard to be objective. This is why the expensive cable industry thrives to this day

[Pain]

Well I got the impression that you objected to Plukh's posting his last post. I could be wrong but I don't think so. Was I?

(05-17-2012 01:13 AM)accident Wrote:  If your going to state a stance, you should be ready for someone to not agree.. what's the problem with me stating my view.

[bugg77]

As long as I get my 7.1 surround, I'm positive that I can't tell the difference between the two. I've just ordered my A300 so I'm starting to get my Blu-Rays ripped but I'm trying to find the right balance of size/quality. Maybe I'll sacrifice a bit on the audio but keep the video at a higher quality.

Now, to figure out how to accomplish that task?

[excal]

I must say i 100% agree with Baz here. The difference is almost night and day to me. It's exactly like the difference between FLAC and MP3, FLAC sounds so much superior its not even funny.

A 320 mp3 sounds very very very good, but its still not as good as FLAC. There are parts (soft undertones, and distant background vocals) to tool songs i had never even heard before until i finally re-ripped all my stuff to FLAC. I don't listen/watch physical discs in the house, everything is ripped immediately upon purchase.

But i confess this is definitely not everyones experience. My wife doesn't hear the difference between FLAC and MP3 or DTS-HD vs DTS.... which blows me away... nor does one of my friends who is a self proclaimed audiophile. But all I can tell you is that i do... I don't care what the tests say there's a noticeable difference to me. Maybe its just how my system is set up, or the way its ripped, but there's a whole layer of audio that gets clipped out of songs on 10,000 days that is there on my FLAC files and not on the MP3's (which i ripped at the highest bitrate availabe, i think 320 but i'd have to check at home).

[Pain]

If you let your wife and friend listen through headphones, and play something with drums, then they should be able to hear the difference too. White noise seems to be particularly hard for mp3's to compress and then render on playback.

[Plukh]

This is the issue of objective vs subjective reality. Subjective reality is that some people claim to hear the difference between lossy/lossless. Objective reality is that double-blind tests had shown repeatedly that there is extremely little difference between high-end lossy and lossless audio encodings, if certain pre-requisites are met (i.e., reference encoders/decoders, same mixing, same audio pipeline, etc). Basically, the latter is, like, a scientific approach - if multiple studies made by reliable sources tend to agree that lossy is almost indistinguishable from lossless, then something must be wrong with your particular subjective interpretation of audio. Try, at the very least, a simple blind test - i.e., ask someone to play 10 unique clips in a row, 5 being lossy, and 5 being lossless (in random order). Mark which audio you consider to be lossy, and which lossless. If your success rate would be significantly above average, then, indeed, you can reliably discern such differences for your particular setup.

Also, we're not talking about MP3, as this codec is, unfortunately, so poorly designed that even at 320 Kbps there is an easily discoverable difference from original audio (i.e., double-blind tests have a relatively high success rate - repeatedly). However, both DTS and, to a lesser extent, AC3 do provide near-transparent encodings at a significantly reduced bitrate. So, to come back full circle to the original topic of this conversation - if you're going with rips, there is zero reason to keep original lossless audio, in 99% of cases it would be ok to stick with a pre-encoded lossy core.

Finally, everyone is entitled to their opinions - I obviously have nothing against that - but no one is entitled to their own facts. I basically consider lossy/lossless difference an established fact - part of the objective reality. If you disagree, then please point out reliable objective sources of your claim - like a study carried out by a respectable publication or something (I could've entirely missed that, of course, audio is nowhere near to my professional interests, it's not even a hobby). Hell, even do an objective test yourself - like I've described above - disclosing the methodology - then we'll have something objective to discuss.

[excal]

Why do I need to do a double blind test? I'm telling you I hear the difference, I admitted that other people I know; don't. You apparently don't either. That's fine, I'm not trying to convince you, my wife, or anyone else that there is a difference.

So I'm not sure why you see this as a personal crusade to prove there isn't a difference. Whether its a mind trick or not, Baz and myself perceive a difference, so we prefer using it. What's the harm in that?

You could link me to 100 articles saying there's no difference, and it wouldn't matter, because in my house, with my equipment, and my ears. There is a difference.

Plus I personally believe that if there wasn't a difference they wouldn't go through the effort of having the two seperate formats to begin with. A codec is a codec, they are all different to some degree, even within the lossy or lossless formats DTS and Dobly Digital are different. Each one brings a different sound stage.

---

Just to back up my claim, I'll give you specific examples on my perceived differences between Lossless and lossy


Lossless is louder and cleaner. Specifically I find that dialog is crisper and I don't need to raise the volume on my AVR nearly as much when using a Lossless codec as opposed to a lossy. On a dvd or lossy rip I typically set my volume to about -30 or -25 depending on the movie. On a bluray I find the volume only needs to be about -45 to -35. On occasion i'll up the center channel individually to account for a lossy. But I don't like to mess with my settings to often and normally just up the master volume it self.

Lossless has a much crisper/cleaner punch coming from the subwoofer too. It makes for what I like to describe a more accurate punch of bass. More noticeable in the softer and subtle moments then louder explosions. A specific example I've used tons of times as demo material for friends is the opening chapters of Master and Commander. When the scenes are below ship, the walking on the surface of the deck is noticeably different coming from the subwoofer in a lossless version then a lossy. (i own this movie on both bluray and dvd).

I also personally find the sound from the rear channels to be much more evident in lossless formats then lossy. Sometimes on lossy formats the surrounds are drowned out, where as on lossless they are much more vibrant.

But that's my experience, i'm not claiming it should be any one else's. If you want to argue its all mind tricks, that's fine that's you're opinion.

[mmccking]

I tend to agree with Plukh in terms of objective study and conclusion. However, it just makes me feel better to know I'm listening to lossless audio. Although sometimes I believe I hear a difference, that's enough for me to save lossless audio for at least my favorite movies.

Just the same, in today's modern systems, the entire data-to-audio path is digital up until you get to the DACs on your receiver/amp. So why would some vendors claim the digital path of their BD/CD player is better another? Some can swear they see/hear a difference. True? Perception? Gouging? Doesn't really matter, since everyone has their own opinion of what they want and believe.

[eightsix]

I'm with mmccking, I like having lossless audio on my favourite movies, or even just movies that I think have cool sound, I also like having the best possible picture. I forked out for a good TV and sound system, and considering the minimal price of storage I don't see any reason to feed it anything less.

That being said though I actually do have a bunch of 10gb or smaller MKVs - reason usually being those movies didnt look very interesting in the first place and didn't turn out to be interesting enough for me to bother upgrading them to ISO status. I dont have super hearing or anything and I have no idea whether I could pick the difference in some kind of blind test, but if I like the movie ill give it the disk space, it deserves it.